Win Advisors Inc. Invests $1.06 Million in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

Win Advisors Inc. bought a new position in MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 1,761 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,057,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of MSCI. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of MSCI by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 3,192,364 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,860,925,000 after buying an additional 11,351 shares during the last quarter. Edgewood Management LLC grew its position in shares of MSCI by 16.9% during the 3rd quarter. Edgewood Management LLC now owns 2,195,639 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,279,904,000 after buying an additional 318,214 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of MSCI by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,862,362 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,082,594,000 after buying an additional 13,691 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its position in shares of MSCI by 14.3% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,587,723 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $925,531,000 after buying an additional 198,666 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in shares of MSCI by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,493,534 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $870,627,000 after buying an additional 37,340 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.97% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on MSCI shares. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of MSCI from $662.00 to $695.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. Barclays decreased their target price on shares of MSCI from $700.00 to $675.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of MSCI from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of MSCI from $570.00 to $600.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 11th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $675.00 target price on shares of MSCI in a research report on Thursday, January 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, MSCI currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $649.23.

MSCI Price Performance

MSCI stock opened at $584.69 on Wednesday. MSCI Inc. has a 12 month low of $439.95 and a 12 month high of $642.45. The firm has a market cap of $45.82 billion, a PE ratio of 41.59, a P/E/G ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 1.11. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $606.94 and a 200 day simple moving average of $583.91.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 29th. The technology company reported $4.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.96 by $0.22. MSCI had a net margin of 38.83% and a negative return on equity of 156.08%. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.68 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that MSCI Inc. will post 16.85 earnings per share for the current year.

MSCI Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be issued a dividend of $1.80 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 14th. This represents a $7.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.23%. This is a positive change from MSCI’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.60. MSCI’s payout ratio is currently 45.52%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Henry A. Fernandez acquired 2,900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 5th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $612.80 per share, for a total transaction of $1,777,120.00. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer now owns 330,379 shares in the company, valued at $202,456,251.20. This represents a 0.89 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 3.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

MSCI Profile

MSCI Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides critical decision support tools and solutions for the investment community to manage investment processes worldwide. The Index segment provides indexes for use in various areas of the investment process, including indexed financial product, such as ETFs, mutual funds, annuities, futures, options, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives; performance benchmarking; portfolio construction and rebalancing; and asset allocation, as well as licenses GICS and GICS Direct.