First National Advisers LLC Acquires 267 Shares of Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO)

First National Advisers LLC grew its holdings in Moody’s Co. (NYSE:MCO) by 4.0% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 7,021 shares of the business services provider’s stock after buying an additional 267 shares during the quarter. First National Advisers LLC’s holdings in Moody’s were worth $3,324,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of MCO. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 12.3% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,581,036 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $3,123,294,000 after purchasing an additional 723,226 shares in the last quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Moody’s by 92,060.2% in the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 612,865 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $290,112,000 after buying an additional 612,200 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its position in shares of Moody’s by 32.0% in the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 2,075,719 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $985,115,000 after buying an additional 502,891 shares during the last quarter. Amundi grew its position in shares of Moody’s by 73.6% in the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 1,131,656 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $534,255,000 after buying an additional 479,599 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC grew its position in shares of Moody’s by 22.6% in the 3rd quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 2,333,263 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,107,344,000 after buying an additional 430,878 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.11% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Mizuho assumed coverage on shares of Moody’s in a research report on Wednesday. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $504.00 price objective on the stock. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Moody’s from $510.00 to $540.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Citigroup initiated coverage on shares of Moody’s in a research report on Friday, December 20th. They set a “buy” rating and a $565.00 target price on the stock. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Moody’s from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, March 7th. Finally, 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 report on Friday, February 14th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $527.00.

Moody’s Stock Performance

NYSE:MCO opened at $446.67 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 1.67 and a current ratio of 1.47. The company has a fifty day moving average of $486.63 and a two-hundred day moving average of $481.42. The stock has a market capitalization of $80.35 billion, a PE ratio of 39.63, a P/E/G ratio of 2.87 and a beta of 1.34. Moody’s Co. has a fifty-two week low of $360.05 and a fifty-two week high of $531.93.

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

Moody’s Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th were given a $0.94 dividend. This represents a $3.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.84%. This is a boost from Moody’s’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.85. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 25th. Moody’s’s dividend payout ratio is 33.36%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Robert Fauber sold 281 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $474.86, for a total value of $133,435.66. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 61,894 shares in the company, valued at $29,390,984.84. This represents a 0.45 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Insiders sold 1,124 shares of company stock worth $552,193 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.14% of the company’s stock.

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.