Is Wall Street Bullish or Bearish on Moody's Stock?

Is Wall Street Bullish or Bearish on Moody's Stock?

Kritika Sarmah

Mon, August 24, 2026 at 3:18 PM GMT+3 2 min read

• MCO +0.34%
• ^GSPC +0.32%

Moody's Corporation (MCO), with a market capitalization of approximately $87.2 billion, is a global financial intelligence company. The New York-based company provides credit ratings, research, data, analytics, and decision solutions to help organizations assess risk and make informed decisions.

Shares of the financial intelligence giant have considerably underperformed the broader market over the past year. MCO has declined 1.2% over this period, while the broader S&P 500 Index ($SPX) has advanced 20.5%. On a year-to-date basis, MCO has also continued to underperform, declining 1.5%, compared with the index's 12.1% gain over the same period.

More News from Barchart

Narrowing the comparison, MCO has also underperformed the iShares U.S. Broker-Dealers & Securities Exchanges ETF (IAI), which has gained 13.1% over the past year and 8.5% on a YTD basis.

On July 22, Moody's Corporation reported its Q2 FY2026 earnings, with shares down marginally, despite results beating estimates on both revenue and adjusted earnings. Revenue grew 15.1% to $2.19 billion, driven by 25% growth at Moody's Investors Service. Adjusted EPS rose 31.5% to $4.68.

Moody's narrowed its full-year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to $16.5 to $17, from $16.4 to $17, while lowering its operating margin guidance to 44% to 45% from approximately 45%. The company also raised its share repurchase guidance to up to $3 billion from approximately $2.5 billion and reaffirmed high-single-digit revenue growth guidance.

For the current fiscal year ending in December 2026, analysts expect MCO's diluted EPS to rise 13.1% to $16.89. MCO has surpassed consensus EPS estimates in each of the past four quarters, which is impressive.

Among the 25 analysts covering MCO stock, the consensus rating is "Moderate Buy." The rating is based on 17 "Strong Buy" ratings, one "Moderate Buy" rating, and seven "Hold" ratings.

MCO's analyst configuration is more bullish than it was two months ago, when the stock had 16 "Strong Buy" recommendations.

On August 21, Ashish Sabadra of RBC Capital Markets maintained a "Buy" rating on Moody's with a $610 price target.

The mean price target of $562.83 implies an 11.8% upside from MCO's current share price, while the Street-high target of $610 suggests a potential upside of 21.2%.

On the date of publication, Kritika Sarmah did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com