Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC Makes New Investment in CME Group Inc. $CME

Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC bought a new stake in CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 9,263 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,810,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of CME Group by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,895,583 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $9,802,366,000 after acquiring an additional 588,509 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of CME Group by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,144,525 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $4,408,747,000 after purchasing an additional 56,725 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of CME Group in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,523,241,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its position in CME Group by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,924,475 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,344,776,000 after purchasing an additional 134,242 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. increased its position in CME Group by 5.4% during the fourth quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 4,319,763 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,179,858,000 after purchasing an additional 222,890 shares during the last quarter. 87.75% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

CME Group Stock Down 1.3%

Shares of CME opened at $262.63 on Wednesday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $249.99 and its 200 day moving average price is $281.06. CME Group Inc. has a 12-month low of $218.31 and a 12-month high of $329.16. The company has a current ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. The firm has a market cap of $94.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 0.23.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.91 by $0.08. CME Group had a net margin of 63.30% and a return on equity of 15.60%. The company had revenue of $1.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.96 earnings per share. CME Group’s revenue was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current year.

CME Group Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, June 9th were issued a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.0%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, June 9th. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio is currently 44.11%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on CME. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Thursday, June 18th. TD Cowen dropped their price target on shares of CME Group from $323.00 to $273.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 22nd. UBS Group reduced their price target on shares of CME Group from $310.00 to $260.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, July 6th. Rothschild & Co Redburn upgraded CME Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $316.00 to $323.00 in a report on Thursday, June 11th. Finally, Wall Street Zen lowered CME Group from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Saturday. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $291.81.

Insider Transactions at CME Group

In other CME Group news, insider Hilda Harris Piell sold 5,753 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $304.63, for a total value of $1,752,536.39. Following the sale, the insider owned 27,702 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,438,860.26. The trade was a 17.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, Director William R. Shepard purchased 325 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $230.57 per share, for a total transaction of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 260,442 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,050,111.94. This represents a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Company insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

CME Group Company Profile

CME Group Inc is a global markets company that operates some of the world’s largest and most liquid derivatives exchanges, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and COMEX. The firm offers futures and options contracts across a broad range of asset classes — including interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities and metals — and serves a diverse client base of institutional investors, commercial hedgers, brokers and retail participants.

The company’s core services include electronic trading on the CME Globex platform, central clearing through CME Clearing, and distribution of market data, indexes and analytics.