Bridgewater Advisors Inc. Invests $612,000 in CME Group Inc. $CME

Bridgewater Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm purchased 2,450 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $612,000.

Other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Asset Dedication LLC lifted its position in CME Group by 64.9% in the 4th quarter. Asset Dedication LLC now owns 94 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Northwestern Mutual Investment Management Company LLC grew its holdings in shares of CME Group by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Investment Management Company LLC now owns 11,523 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $3,147,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Rehmann Capital Advisory Group increased its stake in shares of CME Group by 4.3% in the third quarter. Rehmann Capital Advisory Group now owns 898 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $243,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Endowment Wealth Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of CME Group by 4.4% in the fourth quarter. Endowment Wealth Management Inc. now owns 895 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $244,000 after acquiring an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Finally, NBT Bank N A NY raised its holdings in shares of CME Group by 2.3% during the first quarter. NBT Bank N A NY now owns 1,666 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $492,000 after acquiring an additional 38 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.75% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CME has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Raymond James Financial restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $320.00 target price on shares of CME Group in a research note on Thursday, July 2nd. Barclays cut their price target on CME Group from $316.00 to $270.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 9th. Erste Group Bank cut CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, June 5th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded CME Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $305.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on CME Group from $324.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $291.81.

CME Group Stock Up 1.0%

CME opened at $269.80 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $250.20 and a 200 day moving average price of $280.22. CME Group Inc. has a twelve month low of $218.31 and a twelve month high of $329.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.02. The firm has a market cap of $97.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 0.23.

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

CME Group Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 25th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 9th will be issued a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, September 9th. CME Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 44.11%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director William R. Shepard bought 325 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 25th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 260,442 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. The trade was a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Hilda Harris Piell sold 5,753 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $304.63, for a total transaction 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. This trade represents a 17.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. 0.30% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About CME Group

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.