Raymond James lowered shares of Moody's (NYSE:MCO – Get Rating) from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note released on Wednesday morning, Marketbeat Ratings reports.

Several other analysts have also recently weighed in on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on shares of Moody's from $260.00 to $267.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 26th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Moody's from $250.00 to $275.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Friday, December 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on shares of Moody's from $259.00 to $235.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of Moody's from $261.00 to $295.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 23rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on shares of Moody's from $315.00 to $290.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 13th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $307.67.

Moody's Stock Down 1.6 %

Shares of NYSE:MCO opened at $324.36 on Wednesday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $297.36 and a 200-day moving average of $286.61. The company has a market capitalization of $59.42 billion, a PE ratio of 43.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 1.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.75, a quick ratio of 1.80 and a current ratio of 1.72. Moody's has a 52-week low of $230.16 and a 52-week high of $354.81.

Moody's Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 17th. Investors of record on Friday, February 24th will be issued a $0.77 dividend. This represents a $3.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.95%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 23rd. This is a positive change from Moody's's previous quarterly dividend of $0.70. Moody's's dividend payout ratio is currently 41.40%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Moody's

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in MCO. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Moody's by 67.9% in the 2nd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 2,582,885 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $702,467,000 after acquiring an additional 1,044,597 shares during the last quarter. Veritas Asset Management LLP raised its holdings in shares of Moody's by 137.1% in the 3rd quarter. Veritas Asset Management LLP now owns 1,308,435 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $318,094,000 after acquiring an additional 756,663 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its holdings in shares of Moody's by 23.7% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 2,898,990 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $788,439,000 after acquiring an additional 556,040 shares during the last quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Moody's by 30.5% in the 2nd quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 1,079,102 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $293,483,000 after acquiring an additional 252,425 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Castleview Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Moody's by 26,718.8% in the 2nd quarter. Castleview Partners LLC now owns 250,756 shares of the business services provider's stock worth $922,000 after acquiring an additional 249,821 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.84% of the company's stock.

Moody's Company Profile

(Get Rating)

Moody's Corp. engages in the provision of credit ratings, research, tools and analysis to the global capital markets. It operates through the following segments: Moody's Investors Service (MIS) and Moody's Analytics (MA). The MIS segment is a credit rating agency, which publishes credit ratings on debt obligations and the entities, including various corporate and governmental obligations, structured finance securities and commercial paper programs.

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