MSCI Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $1.60 (NYSE:MSCI)

MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, July 22nd, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Friday, August 16th will be paid a dividend of 1.60 per share by the technology company on Friday, August 30th. This represents a $6.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.15%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 16th.

MSCI has increased its dividend payment by an average of 23.7% per year over the last three years. MSCI has a dividend payout ratio of 38.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect MSCI to earn $16.71 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $6.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 38.3%.

MSCI Price Performance

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $554.41 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $43.92 billion, a PE ratio of 37.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.10. MSCI has a fifty-two week low of $439.95 and a fifty-two week high of $617.39. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $506.33 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $523.20.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The technology company reported $3.64 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.55 by $0.09. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 143.09% and a net margin of 43.86%. The company had revenue of $707.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $696.41 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.26 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 14.0% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that MSCI will post 14.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on MSCI shares. Barclays boosted their price objective on MSCI from $600.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Argus boosted their target price on shares of MSCI from $520.00 to $600.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, July 26th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of MSCI from $526.00 to $590.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $638.00 price target on shares of MSCI in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upgraded MSCI to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, MSCI currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $584.79.

About MSCI

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.