Wells Fargo & Company Initiates Coverage on MSCI (NYSE:MSCI)

Wells Fargo & Company assumed coverage on shares of MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) in a report issued on Monday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage issued an equal weight rating and a $570.00 target price on the technology company’s stock.

Several other analysts have also issued reports on MSCI. Bank of America upgraded MSCI from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and upped their price objective for the company from $425.00 to $525.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 30th. UBS Group upped their price objective on MSCI from $575.00 to $585.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on MSCI from $615.00 to $640.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Oppenheimer restated a market perform rating on shares of MSCI in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, Argus upped their price objective on MSCI from $520.00 to $600.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, July 26th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $584.79.

MSCI Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE MSCI opened at $563.02 on Monday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $507.72 and a 200 day moving average price of $523.48. MSCI has a 52 week low of $439.95 and a 52 week high of $617.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $44.60 billion, a PE ratio of 38.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.10.

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

MSCI Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 16th will be paid a dividend of $1.60 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 16th. This represents a $6.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.14%. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 43.69%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On MSCI

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its holdings in shares of MSCI by 9.7% in the 1st quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 239,933 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $134,475,000 after purchasing an additional 21,310 shares in the last quarter. Evoke Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in shares of MSCI by 18.4% in the 4th quarter. Evoke Wealth LLC now owns 13,720 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $7,761,000 after purchasing an additional 2,135 shares in the last quarter. Grayhawk Investment Strategies Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of MSCI in the 4th quarter valued at $959,000. Nomura Holdings Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of MSCI in the 4th quarter valued at $904,000. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of MSCI by 7.5% in the 4th quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 819,422 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $463,506,000 after purchasing an additional 57,342 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

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.