Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC Increases Stock Position in Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO)

Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its stake in Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) by 11.6% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 12,741 shares of the business services provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,327 shares during the quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC’s holdings in Moody’s were worth $5,008,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of MCO. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Moody’s in the 4th quarter worth $720,502,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. lifted 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 worth $4,706,096,000 after purchasing an additional 1,678,594 shares in the last quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Moody’s by 14.9% in the 4th 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. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 32,275.4% in the 4th quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 221,448 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $86,489,000 after buying an additional 220,764 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 40.3% in the 3rd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 720,091 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $227,671,000 after buying an additional 206,698 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.11% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MCO has been the topic of a number of research reports. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on shares of Moody’s from $405.00 to $414.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of Moody’s from $350.00 to $374.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 7th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Moody’s from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 16th. Barclays upgraded shares of Moody’s from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $375.00 to $450.00 in a report on Tuesday, April 2nd. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their target price on shares of Moody’s from $424.00 to $454.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $403.00.

Moody’s Trading Up 0.5 %

Moody’s stock traded up $2.22 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $423.71. The company had a trading volume of 28,774 shares, compared to its average volume of 713,829. The firm has a market cap of $77.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.01, a P/E/G ratio of 3.27 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.68, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a current ratio of 1.42. Moody’s Co. has a 1 year low of $298.86 and a 1 year high of $428.79. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $402.52 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $391.66.

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

Moody’s Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 7th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th were given 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 payout ratio is presently 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.