World Investment Advisors Purchases New Shares in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

World Investment Advisors acquired a new position in shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund acquired 682 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $409,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of MSCI by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,897,456 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,136,563,000 after purchasing an additional 35,094 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its position in MSCI by 8.0% in the 4th quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,613,005 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $967,820,000 after purchasing an additional 119,471 shares during the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp lifted its holdings in MSCI by 4.5% during the 4th quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 1,148,615 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $689,180,000 after buying an additional 49,679 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in MSCI in the 4th quarter valued at $609,937,000. Finally, PineStone Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of MSCI by 17.4% in the 4th quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 569,374 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $341,630,000 after buying an additional 84,354 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on MSCI. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on MSCI from $700.00 to $680.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 30th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $675.00 price objective on shares of MSCI in a report on Thursday, January 30th. Wolfe Research raised shares of MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised MSCI from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $617.00 to $723.00 in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Barclays reduced their price target on MSCI from $675.00 to $650.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday. Three 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, MSCI has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $647.31.

MSCI Price Performance

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $505.79 on Tuesday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $570.10 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $588.31. MSCI Inc. has a 1 year low of $439.95 and a 1 year high of $642.45. The company has a market capitalization of $39.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.97, a P/E/G ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.30.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $4.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.96 by $0.22. MSCI had a net margin of 38.83% and a negative return on equity of 156.08%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.68 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that MSCI Inc. will post 16.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th were issued a dividend of $1.80 per share. This represents a $7.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.42%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 14th. This is a boost from MSCI’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.60. MSCI’s payout ratio is currently 51.21%.

Insider Activity

In other MSCI news, COO Cd Baer Pettit sold 5,000 shares of MSCI stock in a transaction on Friday, April 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $524.25, for a total value of $2,621,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 294,787 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $154,542,084.75. The trade was a 1.67 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Henry A. Fernandez purchased 5,300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The stock was bought at an average price of $574.51 per share, for a total transaction of $3,044,903.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,269,951 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $729,599,549.01. This trade represents a 0.42 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 3.31% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.