Exencial Wealth Advisors LLC Cuts Position in Morgan Stanley $MS

Exencial Wealth Advisors LLC decreased its stake in Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) by 17.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,645 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 761 shares during the period. Exencial Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Morgan Stanley were worth $513,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MS. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Morgan Stanley by 6.9% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 117,769,345 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $13,740,149,000 after buying an additional 7,636,547 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Morgan Stanley in the 1st quarter worth approximately $767,506,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley by 21.2% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 17,056,916 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,990,030,000 after acquiring an additional 2,989,122 shares during the period. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC purchased a new position in Morgan Stanley in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $343,236,000. Finally, Axiom Investors LLC DE raised its holdings in Morgan Stanley by 99.9% during the first quarter. Axiom Investors LLC DE now owns 3,111,979 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $363,075,000 after purchasing an additional 1,555,015 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 84.19% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

MS has been the topic of several research reports. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their target price on Morgan Stanley from $145.00 to $171.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 1st. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Morgan Stanley from $165.00 to $177.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 16th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price target on Morgan Stanley from $176.00 to $184.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 16th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $156.00 to $183.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 16th. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on Morgan Stanley from $156.00 to $165.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 7th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $168.23.

Morgan Stanley Stock Performance

NYSE:MS opened at $159.21 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $154.30 and a two-hundred day moving average of $138.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.30, a current ratio of 0.78 and a quick ratio of 0.78. The stock has a market cap of $254.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.33, a PEG ratio of 1.67 and a beta of 1.32. Morgan Stanley has a 1-year low of $94.33 and a 1-year high of $166.77.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, October 15th. The financial services provider reported $2.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.07 by $0.73. The business had revenue of $18.22 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.42 billion. Morgan Stanley had a return on equity of 16.55% and a net margin of 13.85%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 18.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.88 earnings per share. On average, research analysts expect that Morgan Stanley will post 8.56 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Morgan Stanley Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 31st will be paid a dividend of $1.00 per share. This represents a $4.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.5%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 31st. Morgan Stanley’s dividend payout ratio is 41.03%.

Morgan Stanley announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Tuesday, July 1st that authorizes the company to repurchase $20.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the financial services provider to buy up to 8.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

About Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley, a financial holding company, provides various financial products and services to corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It operates through Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management segments.