Park Avenue Securities LLC Purchases 127 Shares of Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO)

Park Avenue Securities LLC boosted its stake in Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) by 4.4% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 2,988 shares of the business services provider’s stock after buying an additional 127 shares during the quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC’s holdings in Moody’s were worth $1,174,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Moody’s by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,974,432 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $4,418,296,000 after buying an additional 88,667 shares in the last quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. boosted its stake in Moody’s by 16.2% in the 4th quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 12,049,611 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $4,706,096,000 after buying an additional 1,678,594 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Moody’s in the fourth quarter worth $720,502,000. PineStone Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in Moody’s by 14.9% in the fourth quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,773,991 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $692,850,000 after purchasing an additional 229,831 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC boosted its stake in Moody’s by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 1,515,430 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $591,867,000 after purchasing an additional 4,444 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.11% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have commented on MCO. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on Moody’s from $350.00 to $374.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 7th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Moody’s from $405.00 to $414.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Moody’s from $411.00 to $424.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 2nd. StockNews.com raised Moody’s from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 16th. Finally, Barclays raised Moody’s from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the company from $375.00 to $450.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 2nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Moody’s currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $400.50.

Moody’s Trading Up 0.9 %

NYSE MCO opened at $425.63 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $398.67 and a 200 day simple moving average of $390.51. The company has a market capitalization of $77.72 billion, a PE ratio of 46.47, a P/E/G ratio of 3.29 and a beta of 1.27. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.68. Moody’s Co. has a 12 month low of $298.86 and a 12 month high of $428.79.

Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 2nd. The business services provider reported $3.37 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.06 by $0.31. The business had revenue of $1.79 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.70 billion. Moody’s had a return on equity of 54.50% and a net margin of 27.01%. The firm’s revenue was up 21.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.99 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Moody’s Co. will post 10.69 EPS for the current year.

Moody’s Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 7th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th were issued a $0.85 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $3.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.80%. Moody’s’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 37.12%.

Moody’s Profile

Moody's Corporation operates as an integrated risk assessment firm worldwide. It operates in two segments, Moody's Analytics and Moody's Investors Services. The Moody's Analytics segment develops a range of products and services that support the risk management activities of institutional participants in financial markets.