Moody's (MCO) Competitors

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) and Moody's (NYSE:MCO) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, media sentiment, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, dividends and community ranking.

Do institutionals & insiders hold more shares of ICE or MCO?

89.3% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.1% of Moody's shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.1% of Intercontinental Exchange shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.1% of Moody's shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Do analysts recommend ICE or MCO?

Intercontinental Exchange presently has a consensus price target of $178.80, suggesting a potential upside of 1.27%. Moody's has a consensus price target of $527.00, suggesting a potential upside of 12.26%. Given Moody's' higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Moody's is more favorable than Intercontinental Exchange.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Intercontinental Exchange	0 Sell rating(s)	2 Hold rating(s)	13 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.87
Moody's	1 Sell rating(s)	6 Hold rating(s)	9 Buy rating(s)	0 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.50

Which has higher earnings and valuation, ICE or MCO?

Intercontinental Exchange has higher revenue and earnings than Moody's. Intercontinental Exchange is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Moody's, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Intercontinental Exchange	$11.76B	8.63	$2.75B	$4.78	36.94
Moody's	$7.09B	11.91	$2.06B	$11.27	41.65

Which has more risk and volatility, ICE or MCO?

Intercontinental Exchange has a beta of 1.08, meaning that its stock price is 8% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Moody's has a beta of 1.34, meaning that its stock price is 34% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer ICE or MCO?

Intercontinental Exchange received 299 more outperform votes than Moody's when rated by MarketBeat users. Likewise, 72.06% of users gave Intercontinental Exchange an outperform vote while only 58.88% of users gave Moody's an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Intercontinental Exchange	Outperform Votes 846 72.06%	Underperform Votes 328 27.94%
Moody's	Outperform Votes 547 58.88%	Underperform Votes 382 41.12%

Is ICE or MCO more profitable?

Moody's has a net margin of 29.03% compared to Intercontinental Exchange's net margin of 23.42%. Moody's' return on equity of 58.94% beat Intercontinental Exchange's return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Intercontinental Exchange	23.42%	12.95%	2.57%
Moody's	29.03%	58.94%	14.87%

Is ICE or MCO a better dividend stock?

Intercontinental Exchange pays an annual dividend of $1.92 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.1%. Moody's pays an annual dividend of $3.76 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.8%. Intercontinental Exchange pays out 40.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Moody's pays out 33.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Moody's has raised its dividend for 16 consecutive years.

Does the media prefer ICE or MCO?

In the previous week, Intercontinental Exchange had 11 more articles in the media than Moody's. MarketBeat recorded 48 mentions for Intercontinental Exchange and 37 mentions for Moody's. Moody's' average media sentiment score of 1.39 beat Intercontinental Exchange's score of 1.19 indicating that Moody's is being referred to more favorably in the news media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Intercontinental Exchange	30 Very Positive mention(s)	6 Positive mention(s)	11 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
Moody's	31 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	4 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Summary

Moody's beats Intercontinental Exchange on 12 of the 21 factors compared between the two stocks.