YANKCOM Partnership Purchases Shares of 162 MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

YANKCOM Partnership purchased a new stake in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 162 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $97,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of MSCI by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,192,364 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,860,925,000 after buying an additional 11,351 shares during the last quarter. Edgewood Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of MSCI by 16.9% during the 3rd quarter. Edgewood Management LLC now owns 2,195,639 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,279,904,000 after buying an additional 318,214 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of MSCI by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,862,362 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,082,594,000 after buying an additional 13,691 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its stake in shares of MSCI by 14.3% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,587,723 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $925,531,000 after buying an additional 198,666 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of MSCI by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,493,534 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $870,627,000 after buying an additional 37,340 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on MSCI shares. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of MSCI from $700.00 to $680.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of MSCI from $662.00 to $695.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $617.00 to $723.00 in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their price objective on MSCI from $695.00 to $680.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $649.23.

MSCI Stock Up 0.8 %

MSCI stock opened at $586.75 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $45.98 billion, a PE ratio of 41.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 1.11. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $606.13 and a 200 day simple moving average of $584.51. MSCI Inc. has a 52 week low of $439.95 and a 52 week high of $642.45.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $4.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.96 by $0.22. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 156.08% and a net margin of 38.83%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.68 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that MSCI Inc. will post 16.85 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be given a $1.80 dividend. This represents a $7.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.23%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th. This is a boost from MSCI’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.60. MSCI’s payout ratio is currently 45.52%.

Insider Buying and Selling at MSCI

In other news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez purchased 2,900 shares of MSCI stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 5th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $612.80 per share, for a total transaction of $1,777,120.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now owns 330,379 shares in the company, valued at approximately $202,456,251.20. This trade represents a 0.89 % increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Company insiders own 3.20% 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.