Barclays Begins Coverage on Nasdaq (NASDAQ:NDAQ)

Barclays started coverage on shares of Nasdaq (NASDAQ:NDAQ - Free Report) in a report issued on Thursday morning, Marketbeat reports. The firm issued an overweight rating and a $76.00 price objective on the financial services provider's stock.

NDAQ has been the subject of a number of other reports. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on shares of Nasdaq from $70.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Nasdaq from $56.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Friday, January 12th. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a buy rating and set a $82.00 price target on shares of Nasdaq in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on shares of Nasdaq from $65.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Nasdaq from $56.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Nasdaq currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $67.09.

Nasdaq Price Performance

Shares of NDAQ traded up $0.05 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $63.06. The company had a trading volume of 3,720,833 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,133,816. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $58.86 and a 200-day simple moving average of $55.50. Nasdaq has a 12-month low of $46.88 and a 12-month high of $64.25. The company has a market capitalization of $36.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.65, a PEG ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 0.93.

Nasdaq (NASDAQ:NDAQ - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The financial services provider reported $0.72 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.70 by $0.02. Nasdaq had a net margin of 17.48% and a return on equity of 19.28%. The firm had revenue of $1.10 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.08 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.64 EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 21.4% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Nasdaq will post 2.75 earnings per share for the current year.

Nasdaq Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 14th were given a dividend of $0.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 13th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.40%. Nasdaq's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 41.71%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Nasdaq

In other news, major shareholder Dubai Ltd Borse sold 31,000,000 shares of Nasdaq stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.00, for a total transaction of $1,798,000,000.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 58,341,545 shares in the company, valued at $3,383,809,610. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, major shareholder Dubai Ltd Borse sold 31,000,000 shares of Nasdaq stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.00, for a total transaction of $1,798,000,000.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 58,341,545 shares in the company, valued at $3,383,809,610. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Bryan Everard Smith sold 7,400 shares of Nasdaq stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.91, for a total transaction of $465,534.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 61,672 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,879,785.52. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.75% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Nasdaq

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board grew its position in Nasdaq by 48.7% in the 3rd quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 428,643 shares of the financial services provider's stock valued at $20,828,000 after buying an additional 140,286 shares in the last quarter. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Nasdaq by 10.9% during the third quarter. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors LLC now owns 446,910 shares of the financial services provider's stock valued at $21,715,000 after buying an additional 43,910 shares in the last quarter. ING Groep NV lifted its stake in Nasdaq by 6.9% during the third quarter. ING Groep NV now owns 53,838 shares of the financial services provider's stock valued at $2,616,000 after buying an additional 3,455 shares in the last quarter. Braun Stacey Associates Inc. lifted its position in shares of Nasdaq by 29.5% in the fourth quarter. Braun Stacey Associates Inc. now owns 365,494 shares of the financial services provider's stock worth $21,250,000 after purchasing an additional 83,227 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in shares of Nasdaq by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,326,799 shares of the financial services provider's stock worth $135,396,000 after purchasing an additional 40,215 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 72.47% of the company's stock.

Nasdaq Company Profile

Nasdaq, Inc operates as a technology company that serves capital markets and other industries worldwide. It operates in three segments: Capital Access Platforms, Financial Technology, and Market Services. The Capital Access Platforms segment sells and distributes historical and real-time market data; and develops and licenses Nasdaq-branded indices and financial products.