MSCI Inc. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $1.60 (NYSE:MSCI)

MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, April 23rd, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of 1.60 per share by the technology company on Friday, May 31st. This represents a $6.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.43%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th.

MSCI has increased its dividend payment by an average of 23.7% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 10 years. MSCI has a dividend payout ratio of 37.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect MSCI to earn $16.95 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $6.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 37.8%.

MSCI Trading Down 13.4 %

Shares of MSCI stock opened at $446.09 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $547.91 and a 200 day moving average of $539.08. The stock has a market cap of $35.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.98, a P/E/G ratio of 2.58 and a beta of 1.06. MSCI has a twelve month low of $439.95 and a twelve month high of $617.39.

MSCI (NYSE:MSCI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The technology company reported $3.52 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.46 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $680.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $685.47 million. MSCI had a negative return on equity of 111.17% and a net margin of 45.42%. MSCI’s quarterly revenue was up 14.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $3.14 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that MSCI will post 14.84 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on MSCI from $671.00 to $615.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Wolfe Research started coverage on MSCI in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. They issued a “peer perform” rating for the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded MSCI from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $613.00 to $569.00 in a research report on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on MSCI from $544.00 to $617.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, StockNews.com cut MSCI from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $575.27.

MSCI Company 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.