Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) Short Interest Up 43.5% in February

Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) saw a large growth in short interest during the month of February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 2,740,000 shares, a growth of 43.5% from the February 13th total of 1,910,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 740,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.7 days. Currently, 1.5% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MCO has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets upped 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. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Moody’s from $481.00 to $508.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 14th. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of Moody’s from $543.00 to $545.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on shares of Moody’s from $459.00 to $533.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 14th. Finally, Mizuho began coverage on Moody’s in a report on Wednesday. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $504.00 target price on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Moody’s has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $527.00.

Moody’s Trading Up 2.0 %

NYSE:MCO opened at $446.67 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $486.63 and its 200 day moving average price is $481.42. Moody’s has a 52 week low of $360.05 and a 52 week high of $531.93. The company has a market capitalization of $80.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.63, a P/E/G ratio of 2.87 and a beta of 1.34. 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 (NYSE:MCO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 13th. The business services provider reported $2.62 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.27 by $0.35. Moody’s had a return on equity of 58.94% and a net margin of 29.03%. The firm had revenue of $1.67 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.70 billion. On average, research analysts forecast that Moody’s will post 13.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Moody’s Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th were issued a dividend of $0.94 per share. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.84%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 25th. This is an increase from Moody’s’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.85. Moody’s’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 33.36%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Moody’s

In other Moody’s news, CEO Robert Fauber sold 281 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $473.62, for a total transaction of $133,087.22. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 61,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $29,314,236.28. This represents a 0.45 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In the last three months, insiders sold 1,124 shares of company stock valued at $552,193. 0.14% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Moody’s

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MCO. Larson Financial Group LLC boosted its position in shares of Moody’s by 272.2% in the third quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 67 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 49 shares during the period. Asset Planning Inc bought a new stake in shares of Moody’s in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $42,000. OFI Invest Asset Management bought a new stake in shares of Moody’s in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $41,000. Albion Financial Group UT bought a new stake in shares of Moody’s in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $45,000. Finally, Activest Wealth Management bought a new stake in shares of Moody’s in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $47,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.