Portside Wealth Group LLC Trims Stock Holdings in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

Portside Wealth Group LLC cut its holdings in shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) by 1.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 7,615 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 84 shares during the quarter. MSCI makes up approximately 0.8% of Portside Wealth Group LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 29th largest holding. Portside Wealth Group LLC’s holdings in MSCI were worth $4,439,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of MSCI by 15.6% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 254,415 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $122,577,000 after purchasing an additional 34,351 shares in the last quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV increased its holdings in MSCI by 12.2% in the second quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 2,669 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,246,000 after buying an additional 291 shares during the last quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. raised its stake in MSCI by 24.6% during the second quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 1,364 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $657,000 after buying an additional 269 shares in the last quarter. XTX Topco Ltd bought a new position in MSCI during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,147,000. Finally, Ieq Capital LLC grew its position in shares of MSCI by 6.8% in the 2nd quarter. Ieq Capital LLC now owns 5,170 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,491,000 after acquiring an additional 327 shares in the last quarter. 89.97% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Evercore ISI initiated coverage on MSCI in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. They set an “outperform” rating and a $690.00 price target on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $638.00 target price on shares of MSCI in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wolfe Research raised shares of MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of MSCI from $662.00 to $695.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $617.00 to $723.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, MSCI currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $645.67.

MSCI Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $612.25 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $603.93 and a 200-day simple moving average of $574.07. MSCI Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $439.95 and a fifty-two week high of $642.45. The firm has a market cap of $47.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.11.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The technology company reported $3.86 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.77 by $0.09. MSCI had a net margin of 43.06% and a negative return on equity of 162.06%. The firm had revenue of $724.70 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $716.15 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.45 earnings per share. MSCI’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that MSCI Inc. will post 14.99 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 15th were paid a dividend of $1.60 per share. This represents a $6.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.05%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 15th. MSCI’s dividend payout ratio is presently 42.02%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez purchased 2,900 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 5th. The shares were acquired at an average price 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 directly owns 330,379 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $202,456,251.20. The trade was a 0.89 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Insiders own 3.20% of the company’s stock.

MSCI Company 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.