CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) Declares Dividend Increase – $5.80 Per Share

CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) announced a dividend on Thursday, December 5th,NASDAQ Dividends reports. Investors of record on Friday, December 27th will be paid a dividend of 5.80 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, January 16th. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 27th. This is a boost from CME Group’s previous dividend of $2.50.

CME Group has increased its dividend by an average of 9.0% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. CME Group has a dividend payout ratio of 55.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect CME Group to earn $10.36 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 56.0%.

CME Group Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of CME opened at $239.47 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. CME Group has a 12-month low of $190.70 and a 12-month high of $249.02. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $231.28 and a 200 day moving average price of $215.62. The firm has a market capitalization of $86.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.18, a P/E/G ratio of 5.41 and a beta of 0.56.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 23rd. The financial services provider reported $2.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.65 by $0.03. CME Group had a net margin of 57.34% and a return on equity of 13.39%. The firm had revenue of $1.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.25 earnings per share. CME Group’s quarterly revenue was up 18.4% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that CME Group will post 10.22 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at CME Group

In other CME Group news, Director Martin J. Gepsman sold 400 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $222.92, for a total value of $89,168.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 25,067 shares in the company, valued at $5,587,935.64. This represents a 1.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Timothy Francis Mccourt sold 1,374 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $227.12, for a total transaction of $312,062.88. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 7,275 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,652,298. This trade represents a 15.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 7,274 shares of company stock worth $1,648,071 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

CME Group declared that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Thursday, December 5th that authorizes the company to repurchase $3.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the financial services provider to reacquire up to 3.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CME has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their target price on shares of CME Group from $237.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Oppenheimer upped their target price on shares of CME Group from $245.00 to $258.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of CME Group from $250.00 to $255.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 24th. Barclays upped their target price on shares of CME Group from $231.00 to $257.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of CME Group from $210.00 to $233.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, CME Group presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $229.33.

CME Group Company Profile

CME Group Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates contract markets for the trading of futures and options on futures contracts worldwide. It offers futures and options products based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and metals, as well as fixed income and foreign currency trading services.