Summit Financial LLC Acquires 22 Shares of Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO)

Summit Financial LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) by 1.4% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 1,641 shares of the business services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 22 shares during the period. Summit Financial LLC’s holdings in Moody’s were worth $777,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in MCO. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Moody’s by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 14,696,081 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $6,956,684,000 after acquiring an additional 63,820 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Moody’s by 0.9% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,047,772 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $3,344,802,000 after purchasing an additional 63,556 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Moody’s by 13.0% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,612,172 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,708,851,000 after purchasing an additional 416,535 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Moody’s in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $988,750,000. Finally, PineStone Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 3.6% during the 4th quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,537,331 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $727,726,000 after acquiring an additional 53,504 shares during the period. 92.11% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Moody’s news, CEO Robert Fauber sold 415 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $463.08, for a total transaction of $192,178.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 62,824 shares in the company, valued at approximately $29,092,537.92. This trade represents a 0.66 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Insiders sold 1,258 shares of company stock valued at $610,936 over the last quarter. Insiders own 0.14% of the company’s stock.

Moody’s Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE MCO opened at $471.66 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $84.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.87 and a beta of 1.34. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $484.78 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $479.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 1.67 and a current ratio of 1.47. Moody’s Co. has a 52-week low of $360.05 and a 52-week high of $531.93.

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

Moody’s Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th were given a dividend of $0.94 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 25th. This is a boost from Moody’s’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.85. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.80%. Moody’s’s dividend payout ratio is 33.36%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on MCO shares. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective 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. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Moody’s from $543.00 to $545.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Moody’s from $481.00 to $508.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 14th. StockNews.com cut Moody’s from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, March 7th. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Moody’s from $510.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $527.00.

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.