West Family Investments Inc. Takes $461,000 Position in CME Group Inc. $CME

West Family Investments Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund acquired 2,089 shares of the financial services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $461,000.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of CME. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in CME Group during the 2nd quarter valued at about $6,749,965,000. Norges Bank bought a new position in CME Group during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,523,241,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new position in CME Group during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $867,313,000. Alphabet Inc. purchased a new stake in CME Group in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $769,376,000. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. purchased a new stake in CME Group in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $629,771,000. 87.75% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on CME shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised 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. Bank of America upped their target price on CME Group from $226.00 to $230.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. TD Cowen dropped their price target on CME Group from $323.00 to $273.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 22nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut shares of CME Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and cut their price target for the company from $286.00 to $270.00 in a report on Wednesday. Finally, UBS Group reduced their price objective 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. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have given a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, CME Group presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $288.56.

CME Group Stock Performance

CME Group stock opened at $270.87 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $251.06 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $279.68. 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 stock has a market cap of $97.40 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.97, a PEG ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 0.23. CME Group Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $218.31 and a fifty-two week high of $329.16.

CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The financial services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.91 by $0.08. CME Group had a return on equity of 15.60% and a net margin of 63.30%.The firm had revenue of $1.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.68 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.96 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that CME Group Inc. will post 12.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

CME Group Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director William R. Shepard purchased 325 shares of CME Group stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 25th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $230.57 per share, with a total value of $74,935.25. Following the completion of the purchase, the director directly owned 260,442 shares in the company, valued at approximately $60,050,111.94. This trade represents a 0.12% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.30% of the stock is currently 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.