MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) Shares Sold by Fmr LLC

Fmr LLC lowered its holdings in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) by 25.9% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 828,127 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 290,027 shares during the quarter. Fmr LLC’s holdings in MSCI were worth $482,740,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in MSCI. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in MSCI by 85.4% in the 1st quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 799 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $410,000 after purchasing an additional 368 shares in the last quarter. Atria Investments Inc raised its holdings in shares of MSCI by 3.0% during the 1st quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 7,890 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $4,422,000 after buying an additional 228 shares during the period. Burney Co. lifted its position in MSCI by 12.8% during the 1st quarter. Burney Co. now owns 936 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $525,000 after acquiring an additional 106 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its holdings in MSCI by 172.8% in the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 9,083 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $5,091,000 after acquiring an additional 5,754 shares during the period. Finally, Cetera Advisors LLC grew its position in MSCI by 207.9% in the first quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 2,956 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,657,000 after acquiring an additional 1,996 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of MSCI from $640.00 to $662.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on shares of MSCI from $695.00 to $680.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Evercore ISI started coverage on MSCI in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. They set an “outperform” rating and a $690.00 target price on the stock. Barclays increased their price target on MSCI from $650.00 to $700.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, September 13th. Finally, Redburn Atlantic upgraded MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $680.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, MSCI presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $631.83.

MSCI Trading Up 0.6 %

MSCI stock opened at $608.75 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $591.03 and its 200 day simple moving average is $545.78. MSCI Inc. has a 12-month low of $439.95 and a 12-month high of $631.70. The firm has a market cap of $47.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.97, a P/E/G ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.11.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The technology company reported $3.86 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.77 by $0.09. MSCI had a net margin of 43.06% and a negative return on equity of 162.06%. The company had revenue of $724.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $716.15 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.45 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 15.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that MSCI Inc. will post 14.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 15th were issued a $1.60 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 15th. This represents a $6.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.05%. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio is currently 42.02%.

MSCI Profile

MSCI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct.