QualityDipStocks / Finance · Consumer finance
Moody's MCO
Not in a dip by our rules: 8% below its 52-week high.
A quality company trading near our fair value estimate.
- Fair value est.
- $454.17−8%
- Market Value
- $484.93price +2%
- Off 52-wk high
- −8%
- Risk vs market
- Lowbeta 0.46
5 bullish · 4 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $493.91
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$412.23−16.5%
- Fair value est.base case$454.17−8.0%
- Market Valueavg paid since Oct 21$484.93−1.8%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$493.91you are here
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$539.61+9.3%
Fair value estimate
How the range is computed
Ten-year free-cash-flow DCF. Same 10-year free-cash-flow model as the base: discount rate 9.5% ±1 point and growth 12.2% ±2 points. Bear = 10.5% and 10.2%; bull = 8.5% and 14.2% (both fade to 3%). A model estimate from public filings, not a forecast of where the price will go.
Price sits inside the range.
What the price implies To be worth today’s price, MCO’s free cash flow would need to grow about 14% a year for five years; our estimate uses 12%.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much MCO moved for each 1% move in the S&P 500 (SPY); 1.0 moves with the market. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Past behavior, not a forecast.
Moves much less than the market, but its own price swings are 2.2× the S&P 500’s (it moves on its own news).
- Beta vs S&P 500
- 0.46
- Volatility
- 28% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- 0.21
- Correlation QQQ
- 0.06
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 5 of 5
ProfitabilityReturn on equity of 80% over the last 12 months, up 12 points in two years.
ValuationP/E of 29.7× is 28% below its own average of 41.4× at the last 3 fiscal year-ends.
ProfitabilityOperating margin widened to 43.4% in FY2025 from 36.1% in FY2023 (SEC filings).
ProfitabilityReturn on invested capital of 33%, above the 9.5% discount rate our DCF uses.
QualityPasses all four of our quality checks: cash generation, returns on capital, growth and balance sheet.
Top bearish points 4 of 5
ValuationP/E of 29.7× vs a 13.5× median for the 151 Finance companies we cover.
Balance sheetDebt is 2.1× shareholders’ equity.
ValuationPrice / book of 26.2×, above the 1.8× median for the 143 Finance companies we cover.
ValuationEV/EBITDA of 22.0×, above the 16.6× median for the 15 Finance companies we cover.
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on Moody's in the last 48 hours. Headlines as published, each linked. Their words, not ours.
No notable mentions in the last 48 hours. Checked Nov 1, 9:09 PM ET.
Compare with peers
Closest in size in Consumer finance
All fundamentals
P/E 29.7 · FCF yield 3.5% · ROE 80%
Valuation
- P/E
- 29.7×3-yr-end avg 41.4× · Finance median 13.5×
- Price / FCF
- 28.8×
- FCF yield
- 3.5%
- EV / EBITDA
- 22.0×
- Price / sales
- 10.47×
- Price / book
- 26.19×
- Market cap
- $85.6Bprice × diluted shares
- Enterprise value
- $90.9B
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $8.2B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +9.0%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- +12.2%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $16.39
- EPS growth, last FY
- +21.4%
- Net income, 12 months
- $2.9B
- Net income growth
- +28%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- 74.6%
- Operating margin
- 44.6%
- Net margin
- 35.3%
- FCF margin
- 36.4%
- Return on equity
- 80%
- Return on invested capital
- 33%
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $1.6B
- Total debt
- $6.9B
- Net cash
- −$5.3B
- Debt / equity
- 2.11×
- Interest coverage
- n/ainterest expense not tagged in SEC data
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- $3.0B
- FCF growth, 12 months
- +24%
- Dividend yield
- 0.83%$710M paid
- Payout ratio
- 25%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $3.0B3.5% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- −3.5%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- $233M
Trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026; balance sheet at Sep 30, 2026. From Moody's’s SEC filings. Sparklines show up to six fiscal years. n/a means we don’t hold that number, with the reason. How each is computed.
Valuation details
DCF $454.17 · MV $484.93
Assumes 12.2% growth for 5 years (revenue grew 12.2% a year FY22–FY25), fading to 3%; 9.5% discount rate, 3% terminal growth. FCF base $17.18 a share (trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026), from the 10-Q filed Oct 21, 2026. Net debt $5.3B, not deducted.
Setup & signals
No setup armed
No setup armed, so there’s no trigger or stop to track yet. Reversal signal rules only arm once a company is in a dip.
Momentum & 52-week range
RSI 61 · 5 days +2.2%
The business
FCF $3.0B · Sales +1%
- Free cash flow, 12 months$3.0B
- Free-cash-flow yield3.5%
- Return on equity83%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+1%
Information only, not investment advice. Fair value estimates and talking points are rule-based model output from public data and can be wrong; stop levels are reference points, not orders. How every number is computed.
Get a text when MCO fires a reversal signal
One text when a published rule fires on MCO or any of the 333 quality companies we track: the ticker, the price, the stop and a link to the numbers. Nothing else.