Creekmur Asset Management LLC Invests $826,000 in MSCI Inc (NYSE:MSCI)

Creekmur Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in MSCI Inc (NYSE:MSCI - Free Report) in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 1,460 shares of the technology company's stock, valued at approximately $826,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Sunbelt Securities Inc. increased its position in MSCI by 15.4% during the 1st quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 142 shares of the technology company's stock worth $80,000 after purchasing an additional 19 shares in the last quarter. Optivise Advisory Services LLC grew its holdings in shares of MSCI by 3.8% during the 1st quarter. Optivise Advisory Services LLC now owns 540 shares of the technology company's stock worth $306,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares during the period. Quotient Wealth Partners LLC grew its holdings in shares of MSCI by 5.9% during the 1st quarter. Quotient Wealth Partners LLC now owns 361 shares of the technology company's stock worth $204,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares during the period. Whipplewood Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of MSCI by 16.8% during the 1st quarter. Whipplewood Advisors LLC now owns 146 shares of the technology company's stock worth $83,000 after purchasing an additional 21 shares during the period. Finally, Salvus Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of MSCI by 2.6% during the 1st quarter. Salvus Wealth Management LLC now owns 824 shares of the technology company's stock worth $466,000 after purchasing an additional 21 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.97% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on MSCI. Evercore ISI decreased their target price on MSCI from $673.00 to $631.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Barclays decreased their price target on MSCI from $675.00 to $650.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 4th. UBS Group boosted their price target on MSCI from $655.00 to $700.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on MSCI from $530.00 to $578.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on MSCI from $650.00 to $680.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Monday. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, MSCI presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $654.27.

MSCI Stock Performance

MSCI traded up $1.96 during trading on Monday, reaching $579.90. The company had a trading volume of 155,803 shares, compared to its average volume of 508,853. The firm's 50-day simple moving average is $566.71 and its 200 day simple moving average is $567.75. The company has a market cap of $44.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 39.83, a PEG ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 1.32. MSCI Inc has a 12-month low of $486.74 and a 12-month high of $642.45.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 22nd. The technology company reported $4.00 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $3.88 by $0.12. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 145.52% and a net margin of 39.08%. The company had revenue of $745.83 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $746.45 million. On average, sell-side analysts expect that MSCI Inc will post 16.86 EPS for the current year.

MSCI Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 16th were given a dividend of $1.80 per share. This represents a $7.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.24%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, May 16th. MSCI's payout ratio is 49.48%.

Insider Transactions at MSCI

In other MSCI news, COO Cd Baer Pettit sold 5,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $552.59, for a total transaction of $2,762,950.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer owned 289,787 shares of the company's stock, valued at $160,133,398.33. This represents a 1.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 3.31% of the stock is owned by 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.