Nixon Peabody Trust Co. Sells 6,318 Shares of Morgan Stanley $MS

Nixon Peabody Trust Co. reduced its stake in Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) by 5.7% during the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 105,390 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 6,318 shares during the quarter. Morgan Stanley accounts for approximately 1.4% of Nixon Peabody Trust Co.’s portfolio, making the stock its 18th largest holding. Nixon Peabody Trust Co.’s holdings in Morgan Stanley were worth $17,344,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Morgan Stanley in the fourth quarter worth about $2,736,648,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in shares of Morgan Stanley by 29.1% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 14,917,776 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $2,648,354,000 after purchasing an additional 3,364,080 shares during the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC raised its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley by 142.4% in the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 3,122,060 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $511,723,000 after purchasing an additional 1,833,844 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 119,718,100 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $21,253,554,000 after purchasing an additional 1,361,940 shares during the period. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans lifted its stake in Morgan Stanley by 2,332.9% in the fourth quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 1,406,495 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $249,710,000 after purchasing an additional 1,348,683 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 84.19% of the company’s stock.

Key Morgan Stanley News

Here are the key news stories impacting Morgan Stanley this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Morgan Stanley won conditional OCC approval for a national digital asset trust bank, giving it a regulated path to offer crypto custody and related services to institutional clients.
• Positive Sentiment: Recent commentary continues to highlight Morgan Stanley as a strong growth name, with Zacks pointing to the stock’s favorable growth profile and earnings-surprise history.
• Positive Sentiment: Another market note said Morgan Stanley paired its recent dividend increase with a $20 billion buyback, reinforcing capital-return strength and shareholder-friendly policies.
• Neutral Sentiment: Several articles compared Morgan Stanley with JPMorgan and other big banks, but these were mostly valuation/style discussions rather than direct new fundamental catalysts.
• Neutral Sentiment: One analyst note mentioned Morgan Stanley lowered its price target on EQT Corp., which is unrelated to MS’s own operations and is unlikely to be a major driver for Morgan Stanley shares.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

MS has been the subject of several research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $186.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, April 16th. CICC Research boosted their target price on Morgan Stanley from $175.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 19th. Wolfe Research dropped their price target on Morgan Stanley from $221.00 to $197.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 1st. Citigroup increased their price target on Morgan Stanley from $194.00 to $220.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 23rd. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $219.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 16th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Morgan Stanley currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $210.50.

Insider Activity at Morgan Stanley

In other Morgan Stanley news, insider Eric F. Grossman sold 11,118 shares of Morgan Stanley stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $190.75, for a total transaction of $2,120,758.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 169,403 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $32,313,622.25. The trade was a 6.16% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Daniel A. Simkowitz sold 14,690 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $189.24, for a total value of $2,779,935.60. Following the sale, the insider owned 365,802 shares in the company, valued at approximately $69,224,370.48. This represents a 3.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last three months, insiders have sold 77,476 shares of company stock worth $14,644,762. 0.17% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Morgan Stanley Stock Up 0.2%

MS opened at $214.27 on Friday. Morgan Stanley has a 12 month low of $135.26 and a 12 month high of $230.47. The company has a market cap of $337.96 billion, a PE ratio of 19.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a current ratio of 0.77, a quick ratio of 0.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.52. The company has a 50 day moving average of $205.33 and a 200 day moving average of $185.67.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 15th. The financial services provider reported $3.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.02 by $0.41. The business had revenue of $20.58 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $19.23 billion. Morgan Stanley had a net margin of 14.65% and a return on equity of 17.70%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.60 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Morgan Stanley will post 11.87 EPS for the current year.

Morgan Stanley Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 30th were paid a dividend of $1.00 per share. This represents a $4.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 30th. Morgan Stanley’s payout ratio is presently 36.23%.

Morgan Stanley declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, June 24th that permits the company to buyback $20.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the financial services provider to reacquire up to 5.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Morgan Stanley Company Profile

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1935 by Henry S. Morgan and Harold Stanley, the company provides a broad range of investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services to corporations, governments, institutions and individual investors. Leadership has been guided by a senior executive team and board of directors; James P. Gorman has served as the company’s chief executive and chairman in recent years.

The firm’s primary business activities are organized around three principal businesses: Institutional Securities, Wealth Management and Investment Management.