Virtu Financial's (VIRT) Q1 Earnings Top Estimates, Fall Y/Y
Virtu Financial Inc's VIRT first-quarter 2021 earnings per share of $2.04 beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.30 by 56.9% owing to reduced expenses. However, the bottom line dipped 0.5% year over year.
Operating revenues of $728 million decreased 7.2% year over year due to poor performance by its Marketing Making segment. However, the top line beat the consensus mark by 32.1%, driven by higher trading volumes in U.S. equities despite lower volatility.
Virtu Financial, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Virtu Financial, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Virtu Financial, Inc. Quote
Quarterly Operational Update
In the quarter under review, adjusted EBITDA slipped 0.9% to $564.7 million.
Total operating expenses slid 2.2% year over year to $522.8 million. This is driven by lower communication and data processing, employee compensation and payroll taxes, interest and dividends expense, etc.
However, the same was partly offset by brokerage, exchange, clearance fees and payments for order flow, net.
Segmental Update
Adjusted net trading income from the Marketing Making segment was down 11.8% year over year to $575.1 million in the quarter under review.
Adjusted net trading income from Execution Services came in at $152.9 million, up 15.7% year over year.
Dividend and Share Repurchase Update
The company's board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 24 cents per share to be paid out on Jun 15, 2021 to its shareholders of record as of Jun 1.
The board members sanctioned the enhancement of share buyback plan to $470 million. It even extended the duration of the same through May 4, 2022.
Virtu Financial has around $319 million remaining capacity for future purchases of shares of Class A Common Stock and Virtu Financial Units under the program.
Financial Update (as of Mar 31, 2021)
The company had total assets worth $10.8 billion, up 9.3% from the level at 2020 end.
It exited the first quarter with total equity of $2 billion, up 10.2% from the level on Dec 31, 2020.
The company exited the first quarter with $899 million of cash and cash equivalents, up 1.1% from the 2020-end level.
In the quarter under review, long-term borrowings dipped 0.2% to $1.6 billion from the level at 2020 end.
Zacks Rank
Virtu Financial currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Other Finance Sector Releases
Of the finance sector players that already reported first-quarter earnings, the bottom-line results of American Express Company AXP, Synchrony Financial SYF and Discover Financial Services DFS beat the respective Zacks Consensus Estimate.
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