Top 5 Stocks to Buy According to Charles Pollnow’s Triple Frond Partners

3. Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO)

Triple Frond Partner’s Stake Value: $108.2 million
Percent of Triple Frond Partner’s Portfolio: 11.73%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 44

Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) is based in New York, the US, and provides financial services through its risk assessment segments.

As of Q2 2021, Triple Frond Partners has 298,608 shares in the Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO), worth $108.2 million. Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) accounts for 11.73% of the total 13F portfolio of Triple Frond Partners.

In September 2021, Oppenheimer raised its price target on Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) to $418 from $406, keeping an ‘Outperform’ rating on the shares.

As of Q2, 2021, 44 hedge funds have more than $16 billion worth of stakes in Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO), as tracked by Insider Monkey. This number has increased from 55 hedge funds with a value of $13.7 billion in Q1 of 2021.

In the Q2 2021 investor letter of Qualivian Investment Partners, the fund mentioned Moody’s Corporation (NYSE: MCO). Here is what the fund said:

“Moody’s: Revenue, operating profit margins, and EPS all exceeded expectations, and annual guidance for these items (and for free cash flow) was raised. In MIS (Moody’s Investors Service) which houses the traditional ratings business, the outlook for debt issuance was raised for the remainder of the year, while MA (Moody’s Analytics) also came in ahead of expectations. The company leveraged strong revenue growth with strong operating profit margin improvement of 200 bps, with EPS coming in $0.22 ahead of consensus estimates. Management alluded to having interesting opportunities in their M&A pipeline, which we will have to assess when the time comes, but Moody’s management team has been very effective at allocating capital in the past toward value-creating bolt-on acquisitions, especially in their Moody’s Analytics business, a key growth driver for the company.”