No. 1 ranked credit rating agency Moody's continues to put up double-digit quarterly profit gains as it tries to break out of a double-bottom base. On Tuesday, the Relative Strength (RS) Rating for Moody's stock climbed to 74, up from 65 the day before, putting it near a key stock benchmark.
The 74 RS Rating shows that Moody's tops 74% of all stocks, regardless of industry group, for price performance over the past year. The upgrade puts Moody's in position to top the 80 rating, a major milestone. Top-performing growth stocks tend to have an RS Rating above 80 in the early stages of their moves.
Moody's is the No. 1 ranked among its peers in the 17-stock Commercial Services-Market Research industry group, according to IBD Stock Checkup. Verisk Analytics S&P Global are also among the top five in the group.
Moody's stock began forming a double-bottom pattern in February. It dropped to a 378.71 low on April 7, completing the second leg down just as the market correction ended. From their it climbed rapidly, rising resoundingly above a 480.86 buy point with a breakaway gap up.
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From there, Moody's stock moved mostly sideways until June 30 when it climbed 2.8% to top 500. Tuesday afternoon shares of the New York-based credit, research and analysis firm eased fractionally to just above 500.
Among its other ratings Moody's has a strong 84 Composite Rating out of 99, and a best-possible A SMR Rating (sales + profit margins + return on equity). It carries a milder though still decent 79 EPS Rating.
One bright green flag is its B Accumulation/Distribution Rating. The B rating, on an A+ to E scale, shows that the stock is fairly highly sought by ETFs, mutual funds and the like. That's a bullish indicator because roughly 70% of all trades are by institutional investors.
On April 22 the company reported 14% first quarter earnings growth to $3.83 per share. Revenue grew 8% t0 $1.92 billion. Keep an eye out for the company's next round of numbers on or around July 29.
The exclusive Relative Strength Rating from Investor's Business Daily measures market leadership with a 1 (worst) to 99 (best) score. The rating shows how a stock's price performance over the trailing 52 weeks stacks up against all the other stocks in our database.
This article was created automatically with Stats Perform's Wordsmith software using data and article templates supplied by Investor's Business Daily. An IBD journalist may have edited the article.
Please follow James DeTar on Twitter @JimDeTar
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