The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Financial company by 0.12% to 8.29 million shares with purchase of 9786.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 10.37% valued currently at $3.86 billion. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 60919.0 to 4.01 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has lifted its position by 0.76% or 25088.0 shares – to 3.33 million shares.
With over 0.32 million MSCI Inc. (MSCI) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $505.24 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $161.97 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 20.62% and its price on 01/13/23 gained nearly 0.24%. Currently, there are 80.50M common shares owned by the public and among those 77.50M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 16 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for MSCI have a consensus price objective of $522.50. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $600.00 and a low of $450.00. The average price target is 2.92% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -12.28% over that period. But an upside of 15.79% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $519.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 79 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 38 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 149,686 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 41 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 97,216 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in MSCI Inc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index owns 2.31 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.07 billion. The company bought an additional 12601.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.89% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 2808.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 1.84 million shares valued at over $858.08 million and representing 2.31% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund bought 3794.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.79 million shares at a value of $832.78 million. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.24% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI) opened at $496.54, down -$7.51 from a prior closing price of $504.05. However, the script later moved the day high at 506.58, up 0.24%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 7.72% and 24.42% over the past three months. MSCI shares are trading 8.61% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -9.63% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $376.41 and touched a high of $564.27 over the same period. MSCI has an average intraday trading volume of 428.82K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 6.85%, 4.18%, and 11.07% respectively.
Institutional ownership of MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI) shares accounts for 92.80% of the company’s 80.50M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 57.94%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 9.56% and 34.73% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $40.30B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.10. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 48.75, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $10.36. The company has a PEG of 3.89 and a Quick Ratio of 1.40. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.77% over the week and 2.96% over the month.
Analysts forecast that MSCI Inc. (MSCI) will achieve an EPS of $2.73 for the current quarter, $2.93 for the next quarter and $12.64 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $2.59 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $2.88. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $2.51 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 23.40%, and 11.12% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 12.54% over the next five years, compared to 26.30% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 16 brokerage firm advisors rate MSCI Inc. (MSCI) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.40. Specifically, 6 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 8 of the 16 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the MSCI, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. JP Morgan stated their Overweight rating for the stock in a research note on December 13, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $580. Raymond James was of a view on April 28, 2022 that the stock is Outperform, while Goldman gave the stock Neutral rating on April 01, 2022, issuing a price target of $553. Deutsche Bank on their part issued Hold rating on March 30, 2022.
