The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Moody’s Corp. (NYSE:MCO). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Financial company by 0.62% to 13.31 million shares with purchase of 81445.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 7.27% valued currently at $4.86 billion. In addition, TCI Fund Management Ltd. raised its holdings by 1.59 million to 11.96 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors has lifted its position by 6.14% or 0.46 million shares – to 7.9 million shares.
With over 0.47 million Moody’s Corp. (MCO) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $387.58 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $183.99 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 15.78% and its price on 12/22/23 gained nearly 0.38%. Currently, there are 183.20M common shares owned by the public and among those 182.63M shares have been available to trade.
An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 24 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for MCO have a consensus price objective of $371.89. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $455.00 and a low of $295.00. The average price target is -4.22% below its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -31.38% over that period. But an upside of 14.82% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $366.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 160 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 85 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 156,166 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 75 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 179,800 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Moody’s Corp. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Akre Focus Fund, and Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 4.89 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.78 billion. The company bought an additional 5772.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.67% of the shares outstanding. Akre Focus Fund sold -0.4 million shares to see its total holdings shrink to 4.83 million shares valued at over $1.76 billion and representing 2.64% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 18406.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 3.81 million shares at a value of $1.39 billion. Vanguard 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.08% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) opened at $388.66, up $2.53 from a prior closing price of $386.13. However, the script later moved the day high at 389.45, up 0.38%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -0.38% and 20.06% over the past three months. MCO shares are trading 39.11% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 37.24% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $272.70 and touched a high of $396.91 over the same period. MCO has an average intraday trading volume of 838.56K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 2.90%, 11.30%, and 17.39% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) shares accounts for 94.43% of the company’s 183.20M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 38.63%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 56.05% and 14.58% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $70.93B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.31. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 47.15, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $8.22. The company has a PEG of 3.43 and a Quick Ratio of 1.78 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 2.28. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.51% over the week and 1.56% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Moody’s Corp. (MCO) will achieve an EPS of $2.32 for the current quarter, $2.83 for the next quarter and $11.15 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $2.16 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $2.47. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.6 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 17.34%, and 11.51% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 13.73% over the next five years, compared to 7.63% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 24 brokerage firm advisors rate Moody’s Corp. (MCO) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.12. Specifically, 10 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 11 of the 24 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the MCO, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Wells Fargo stated their Overweight rating for the stock in a research note on December 15, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $365-$455.
