Astoria Portfolio Advisors LLC. Makes New Investment in Moody’s Corporation $MCO

Astoria Portfolio Advisors LLC. bought a new position in shares of Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm bought 440 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $226,000.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of MCO. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 20.1% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,724 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $803,000 after purchasing an additional 288 shares during the last quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV bought a new stake in shares of Moody’s in the 1st quarter worth approximately $664,000. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 49.8% in the 1st quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 22,532 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $10,493,000 after purchasing an additional 7,492 shares during the last quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management lifted its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 21.4% in the 1st quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 2,452 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,142,000 after purchasing an additional 432 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MEAG MUNICH ERGO Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH lifted its holdings in shares of Moody’s by 7.0% in the 1st quarter. MEAG MUNICH ERGO Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH now owns 5,056 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $2,355,000 after purchasing an additional 331 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.11% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on MCO. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $550.00 price target on shares of Moody’s in a report on Thursday, October 9th. UBS Group raised their price target on Moody’s from $445.00 to $515.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Moody’s from $495.00 to $565.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, July 21st. Oppenheimer raised their target price on Moody’s from $552.00 to $563.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. Finally, Mizuho lifted their target price on Moody’s from $496.00 to $532.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, July 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $542.79.

Moody’s Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE MCO opened at $473.59 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.75, a current ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.70. The stock has a market capitalization of $84.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.24, a PEG ratio of 2.98 and a beta of 1.41. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $500.35 and its 200 day simple moving average is $482.75. Moody’s Corporation has a 52-week low of $378.71 and a 52-week high of $531.93.

Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 23rd. The business services provider reported $3.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.39 by $0.17. The business had revenue of $1.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.82 billion. Moody’s had a return on equity of 60.73% and a net margin of 29.18%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 4.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.28 EPS. Moody’s has set its FY 2025 guidance at 13.500-14.000 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Moody’s Corporation will post 13.95 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Moody’s Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 5th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 15th were given a $0.94 dividend. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 15th. Moody’s’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 31.95%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Noemie Clemence Heuland sold 897 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $508.24, for a total value of $455,891.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 2,148 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,091,699.52. This trade represents a 29.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Richard G. Steele sold 1,457 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $508.83, for a total value of $741,365.31. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president directly owned 1,386 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $705,238.38. This trade represents a 51.25% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 9,008 shares of company stock valued at $4,603,224 over the last quarter. 0.14% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.