Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) Price Target Raised to $470.00 at UBS Group

Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) had its target price lifted by equities researchers at UBS Group from $455.00 to $470.00 in a research report issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a “neutral” rating on the business services provider’s stock. UBS Group’s target price points to a potential upside of 6.82% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on MCO. BMO Capital Markets downgraded shares of Moody’s from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $482.00 to $455.00 in a research report on Wednesday. Barclays upgraded Moody’s from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $375.00 to $450.00 in a report on Tuesday, April 2nd. StockNews.com raised shares of Moody’s from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 16th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of Moody’s from $350.00 to $374.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 7th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted 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 note on Friday, July 5th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $442.25.

Moody’s Trading Down 2.6 %

Shares of Moody’s stock traded down $11.88 on Wednesday, hitting $440.01. The stock had a trading volume of 359,843 shares, compared to its average volume of 719,615. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $421.07 and a 200 day moving average of $398.11. 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 has a twelve month low of $298.86 and a twelve month high of $458.24. The firm has a market capitalization of $80.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 48.07, a PEG ratio of 3.14 and a beta of 1.28.

Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The business services provider reported $3.28 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.06 by $0.22. The company had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.72 billion. Moody’s had a net margin of 27.01% and a return on equity of 54.50%. Moody’s’s revenue was up 21.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.30 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Moody’s will post 11.06 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Moody’s

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MCO. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Moody’s in the fourth quarter valued at about $720,502,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Moody’s by 16.2% in the fourth 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 during the period. PineStone Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Moody’s by 133.9% during the 2nd quarter. PineStone Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,277,056 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $958,481,000 after buying an additional 1,303,434 shares during the last quarter. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Moody’s in the 2nd quarter worth about $141,336,000. Finally, Allen Investment Management LLC raised its stake in Moody’s by 39.7% in the 1st quarter. Allen Investment Management LLC now owns 895,050 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $351,781,000 after acquiring an additional 254,178 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.11% of the company’s stock.

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.