Analysts’ Recent Ratings Changes for Moody’s (MCO)

Several analysts have recently updated their ratings and price targets for Moody’s (NYSE: MCO):

• 5/18/2023 – Moody’s is now covered by analysts at StockNews.com. They set a “hold” rating on the stock.
• 5/17/2023 – Moody’s had its price target raised by analysts at BMO Capital Markets from $355.00 to $360.00.
• 5/9/2023 – Moody’s had its “initiates” rating reaffirmed by analysts at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc..
• 5/9/2023 – Moody’s is now covered by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $312.00 price target on the stock.
• 4/26/2023 – Moody’s had its price target raised by analysts at UBS Group AG from $308.00 to $325.00.
• 4/6/2023 – Moody’s had its price target raised by analysts at Morgan Stanley from $293.00 to $296.00. They now have an “equal weight” rating on the stock.
• 4/4/2023 – Moody’s had its price target raised by analysts at Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. from $342.00 to $349.00. They now have an “outperform” rating on the stock.

Moody’s Price Performance

Shares of NYSE MCO opened at $309.03 on Thursday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $303.56 and a 200 day moving average price of $299.25. Moody’s Co. has a 1-year low of $230.16 and a 1-year high of $335.91. The company has a current ratio of 1.48, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.28. The firm has a market cap of $56.71 billion, a PE ratio of 41.31, a PEG ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.30.

Moody’s (NYSE:MCO – Get Rating) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, April 25th. The business services provider reported $2.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.31 by $0.68. The company had revenue of $1.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.43 billion. Moody’s had a net margin of 25.42% and a return on equity of 59.87%. Moody’s’s quarterly revenue was down 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.89 EPS. Research analysts predict that Moody’s Co. will post 9.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Moody’s Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 9th. Investors of record on Friday, May 19th will be given a dividend of $0.77 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 18th. This represents a $3.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.00%. Moody’s’s dividend payout ratio is 41.18%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Moody’s news, insider Stephen T. Tulenko sold 2,818 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $297.10, for a total value of $837,227.80. Following the sale, the insider now owns 6,834 shares in the company, valued at $2,030,381.40. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other news, insider Stephen T. Tulenko sold 2,818 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $297.10, for a total transaction of $837,227.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 6,834 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,030,381.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Caroline Sullivan sold 483 shares of Moody’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.48, for a total transaction of $146,580.84. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 1,491 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $452,488.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 23,701 shares of company stock worth $7,046,117. Corporate insiders own 0.42% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 0.3% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,701,509 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $3,330,974,000 after buying an additional 35,737 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in Moody’s by 1.6% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 13,160,187 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $4,027,280,000 after purchasing an additional 210,068 shares during the last quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. boosted its holdings in Moody’s by 12.6% during the first quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 10,369,479 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $3,173,268,000 after purchasing an additional 1,157,192 shares during the last quarter. Akre Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Moody’s by 0.7% during the first quarter. Akre Capital Management LLC now owns 5,659,712 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,909,643,000 after purchasing an additional 38,615 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted its holdings in Moody’s by 29.7% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 3,994,497 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,112,947,000 after purchasing an additional 914,530 shares during the last quarter. 90.84% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Moody’s Corp. engages in the provision of credit ratings, research, tools and analysis to the global capital markets. It operates through the Moody’s Investors Service (MIS) and Moody’s Analytics (MA) segments. The MIS segment is a credit rating agency, which publishes credit ratings on debt obligations and the entities, including various corporate and governmental obligations, structured finance securities, and commercial paper programs.