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Investors in Moody's Corporation (NYSE:MCO) had a good week, as its shares rose 3.9% to close at US$523 following the release of its yearly results. Moody's reported in line with analyst predictions, delivering revenues of US$7.1b and statutory earnings per share of US$11.26, suggesting the business is executing well and in line with its plan. This is an important time for investors, as they can track a company's performance in its report, look at what experts are forecasting for next year, and see if there has been any change to expectations for the business. We thought readers would find it interesting to see the analysts latest (statutory) post-earnings forecasts for next year.
Check out our latest analysis for Moody's
Taking into account the latest results, the most recent consensus for Moody's from 19 analysts is for revenues of US$7.60b in 2025. If met, it would imply a satisfactory 7.2% increase on its revenue over the past 12 months. Per-share earnings are expected to step up 12% to US$12.84. In the lead-up to this report, the analysts had been modelling revenues of US$7.54b and earnings per share (EPS) of US$12.45 in 2025. The analysts seems to have become more bullish on the business, judging by their new earnings per share estimates.
The consensus price target rose 5.9% to US$535, suggesting that higher earnings estimates flow through to the stock's valuation as well. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. The most optimistic Moody's analyst has a price target of US$610 per share, while the most pessimistic values it at US$416. These price targets show that analysts do have some differing views on the business, but the estimates do not vary enough to suggest to us that some are betting on wild success or utter failure.
Another way we can view these estimates is in the context of the bigger picture, such as how the forecasts stack up against past performance, and whether forecasts are more or less bullish relative to other companies in the industry. The analysts are definitely expecting Moody's' growth to accelerate, with the forecast 7.2% annualised growth to the end of 2025 ranking favourably alongside historical growth of 5.0% per annum over the past five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in a similar industry are forecast to grow their revenue at 5.7% per year. It seems obvious that, while the growth outlook is brighter than the recent past, the analysts also expect Moody's to grow faster than the wider industry.