Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) Given Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” by Analysts

Shares of Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the sixteen analysts that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have assigned a hold recommendation and nine have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $527.00.

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on MCO. UBS Group lifted their price target on Moody’s from $510.00 to $540.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Moody’s in a report on Friday, February 14th. StockNews.com cut shares of Moody’s from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, March 7th. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Moody’s from $481.00 to $531.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Moody’s from $481.00 to $508.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 14th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Robert Fauber sold 281 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $473.62, for a total value of $133,087.22. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 61,894 shares in the company, valued at $29,314,236.28. This represents a 0.45 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 1,124 shares of company stock worth $552,193. 0.14% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Larson Financial Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Moody’s by 272.2% during the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 67 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 49 shares during the period. OFI Invest Asset Management purchased a new stake in shares of Moody’s during the fourth quarter worth $41,000. Asset Planning Inc acquired a new stake in Moody’s during the fourth quarter valued at $42,000. Albion Financial Group UT purchased a new position in Moody’s in the fourth quarter valued at about $45,000. Finally, Activest Wealth Management acquired a new position in Moody’s in the 4th quarter worth about $47,000. 92.11% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Moody’s Price Performance

Shares of NYSE MCO opened at $461.09 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $82.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.91, a P/E/G ratio of 2.87 and a beta of 1.34. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $485.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $480.03. Moody’s has a fifty-two week low of $360.05 and a fifty-two week high of $531.93. The company has a quick ratio of 1.67, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81.

Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The business services provider reported $2.62 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.27 by $0.35. The company had revenue of $1.67 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.70 billion. Moody’s had a net margin of 29.03% and a return on equity of 58.94%. Equities analysts expect that Moody’s will post 13.95 EPS for the current year.

Moody’s Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 25th were given a dividend of $0.94 per share. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.82%. This is a positive change from Moody’s’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.85. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 25th. Moody’s’s payout ratio is presently 33.36%.

Moody’s Company 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.