Heron Bay Capital Management Buys Shares of 12,361 MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI)

Heron Bay Capital Management purchased a new position in shares of MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI - Free Report) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 12,361 shares of the technology company's stock, valued at approximately $5,955,000. MSCI comprises about 1.3% of Heron Bay Capital Management's holdings, making the stock its 29th largest holding.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of MSCI by 0.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,719,381 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $4,886,777,000 after buying an additional 36,043 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors lifted its position in shares of MSCI by 0.5% during the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 1,734,519 shares of the technology company's stock worth $972,111,000 after purchasing an additional 9,304 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of MSCI by 74.9% during the second quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,456,194 shares of the technology company's stock worth $701,522,000 after purchasing an additional 623,712 shares in the last quarter. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP boosted its stake in shares of MSCI by 1.8% in the first quarter. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP now owns 1,323,058 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $741,508,000 after purchasing an additional 23,217 shares during the period. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. grew its holdings in shares of MSCI by 1.3% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,047,960 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $504,855,000 after purchasing an additional 13,620 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.97% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MSCI has been the subject of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of MSCI from $615.00 to $640.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on MSCI from $575.00 to $585.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of MSCI from $650.00 to $700.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday, September 13th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an "outperform" rating and issued a $638.00 price objective on shares of MSCI in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Argus lifted their price objective on shares of MSCI from $520.00 to $600.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, July 26th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $591.00.

MSCI Trading Down 0.7 %

MSCI stock traded down $3.90 on Friday, hitting $551.41. The company's stock had a trading volume of 811,565 shares, compared to its average volume of 560,575. The stock has a market cap of $43.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.06 and a beta of 1.11. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $548.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $521.49. MSCI Inc. has a 1 year low of $439.95 and a 1 year high of $617.39.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The technology company reported $3.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.55 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $707.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $696.41 million. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 143.09% and a net margin of 43.86%. The business's revenue was up 14.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $3.26 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that MSCI Inc. will post 14.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MSCI Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 30th. Investors of record on Friday, August 16th were issued a dividend of $1.60 per share. This represents a $6.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.16%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 16th. MSCI's dividend payout ratio is presently 43.69%.

About MSCI

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.