Vanguard Group Inc. Purchases 119,450 Shares of Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO)

Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) by 0.8% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 14,283,558 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 119,450 shares during the quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. owned approximately 7.82% of Moody’s worth $5,613,867,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. TCI Fund Management Ltd. grew its stake in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 1,678,594 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its position in Moody’s by 4.9% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 2,692,411 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,058,198,000 after buying an additional 126,088 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in Moody’s during the fourth quarter valued at about $720,502,000. PineStone Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Moody’s by 14.9% during the fourth quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,773,991 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $692,850,000 after buying an additional 229,831 shares during the period. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC grew its position in Moody’s by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 1,515,430 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $591,867,000 after buying an additional 4,444 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.11% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MCO has been the subject of several research reports. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of Moody’s from $374.00 to $392.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 5th. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Moody’s from $430.00 to $510.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on shares of Moody’s from $424.00 to $454.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 1st. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of Moody’s from $405.00 to $414.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Moody’s from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 16th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Moody’s currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $427.75.

Moody’s Price Performance

Shares of Moody’s stock traded down $6.69 on Friday, reaching $442.14. The stock had a trading volume of 1,314,828 shares, compared to its average volume of 617,844. Moody’s Co. has a 1 year low of $298.86 and a 1 year high of $458.24. The company has a market cap of $80.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 48.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.08 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.68. The business’s 50 day moving average is $419.02 and its two-hundred day moving average is $396.86.

Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The business services provider reported $3.37 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.06 by $0.31. Moody’s had a net margin of 27.01% and a return on equity of 54.50%. The firm had revenue of $1.79 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.70 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.99 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 21.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Moody’s Co. will post 11.06 EPS for the current year.

Moody’s Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 7th. Investors of record on Friday, May 17th were paid a $0.85 dividend. This represents a $3.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, May 16th. Moody’s’s dividend payout ratio 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.