| Account | Shares | Price | Value | % of acct | Cost/sh | Gain $ | Gain % | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 401K | 2 | $504.30 | $1,009 | 0.04% | $432.50 | $144 | +16.6% | — |
In short: Named alongside S&P Global in the "very resilient" credit-ratings bucket — the same authoritative-output argument, not argued separately.
38:11Now, let's move on to the next batch of companies. We have to ask how companies like S&P Global, Netflix, Costco, and Texas Roadhouse. These are four companies. How do agents really affect them? Well, not to any big degree. SM Global and Moody's is one of the questions people have. But the value of these companies is not from less friction.
In short: BUY. ER 11.46%; fwd PE 27.6 vs 32.7 (15.6% under); RDCF 12.9% vs 11.5% (−1.4pp).
In short: $52k (+$11.5k). Launch partner for Gemini Enterprise for Financial Services via MCP; 10–11% growth × 28× ≈ 10% — below S&P Global on valuation.
In short: Best Buy #3 — "A credit rating duopoly and financial toll booth with recurring software revenue." The moat is regulatory: "You need to have a rating from at least 2 of the 3 big players in this industry: Moody's, S&P Global and Fitch. This lets these companies function as a toll bridge in the corporate debt markets." The cyclicality fix is Moody's Analytics, which "creates a steady, recurring software revenue stream" against a bond market where issuance comes and goes. The setup: "in the past year, the stock was relatively flat… in the meantime revenue and EPS kept growing. As a result, Moody's now trades at its most attractive valuation level since 2020." That claim is not accompanied by a multiple here; the 23 August sheet shows 27.6 forward against a 32.7 average.
When a company wants to borrow money in the bond market, it effectively must be rated by at least two of the three agencies that exist — Moody's, S&P Global and Fitch. That requirement, backed by regulation and investor mandates, turns Moody's into a tollbooth: it collects a fee on borrowing it does nothing to cause.
The weakness of that model is that bond issuance is lumpy — in some years companies borrow heavily, in others barely at all. Moody's answer is its analytics arm, which sells risk and compliance software on subscription, producing revenue that arrives whether or not anyone issues a bond.
The reason it appears now: the shares have gone roughly nowhere for a year while revenue and earnings kept growing, which mechanically makes it cheaper. The letter says this is the most attractive valuation since 2020, though it does not print the multiple; the previous week's spreadsheet showed about 28 times forward earnings against a five-year average of 33.
In short: Trimmed alongside S&P Global to fund Meta and bought back lower.
In short: Buy target $375 (11th largest, only 3.5% / $53k, +$12.6k). The one holding he damns with faint praise: "Moody's has been an okay position, but not amazing. I guess it's held up. It's made a little bit of gains, but it hasn't had some radical outperformance." Its modelled return is also the weakest on the board — just above 10% EPS growth on a 24 PE gives 12.1% at $375 — which he defends rather than upgrades: "It'd be on the lower end, but it would still be good. Nobody should really complain about earning 12% per year for 5 years. It seems low compared to these other stocks, but it's still great."
Moody's rates the creditworthiness of bonds and the companies that issue them — one half of a duopoly with S&P Global, which Carlson also owns and rates more highly. It's his eleventh-largest position at only 3.5% of the book, and he describes it with a candour he doesn't extend to anything else he holds: "Moody's has been an okay position, but not amazing. I guess it's held up. It's made a little bit of gains, but it hasn't had some radical outperformance."
The forward math matches the lukewarm verdict. Even at his $375 buy target — with earnings growing just above 10% and a 24 multiple — the projected return is 12.1%, the lowest of all fourteen holdings. He doesn't dress that up. He defends it as still worth having: "Nobody should really complain about earning 12% per year for 5 years. It seems low compared to these other stocks, but it's still great."
Read against the rest of the board, where targets are chosen to deliver 15–21%, Moody's is the position where the price he'd pay buys the least — held, not championed.
19:35Next up, we have Moody's, which is my 11th largest position. So, it's towards the bottom. It's only a 3.5% weighted position. The holding's $53,000 with 12,600 in the green. Moody's has been an okay position, but not amazing. I guess it's held up. It's made a little bit of gains, but it hasn't had some radical outperformance.
In short: BUY. ER 11.36%; fwd PE 27.6 against a 32.7 average (15.6% under); the reverse DCF dissents at 13.1% required vs 11.5% expected (−1.6pp). Named Best Buy #3 a week later, at "its most attractive valuation level since 2020."
In short: The name he'd sell first in a forced trim, on relative strength and multiple rather than quality: "Moody's stock is holding up better than S&P Global. It's at a higher valuation… I probably would have kept a little bit more S&P Global and reduced Moody's." He grants Kantesaria's likely reasoning — Moody's is "a higher quality company… because it has more of a concentration into the credit rating business" — and notes Hohn "maintains his large Moody's position." Relayed and debated, not a call.
Moody's is the other half of the credit-ratings duopoly with S&P Global. Carlson doesn't own it and doesn't argue against the business — his point is about which one you sell when you must sell something.
Moody's has held up better this year and trades at a higher multiple, so in his view it's the one to trim: you keep the asset the market has already marked down and realise value where the market is still paying up. Kantesaria did the reverse, and Carlson steel-mans why — Moody's is more purely a ratings business, and therefore arguably the higher-quality franchise.
Hohn, separately, maintains a large Moody's position. Nothing here is a call on the stock; it's a worked example of trim-selection logic.
5:33It's at a higher valuation, but I believe he likely thinks that Moody's is a higher quality company than S&P Global because it has more of a concentration into the credit rating business. So, in any case, I probably would have kept a little bit more S&P Global and reduced Moody's, but that's not a big deal.
In short: Asked whether AI displaces the raters — whose valuations "have fallen a lot" — he wrote a whole chapter on them and concludes "people will be shocked at the resiliency of their business model." Nobody buys Moody's for the credit work (investors do that themselves, and have been automating it for a decade); they buy the rating, for mandates, for law (the NRSRO designation is "still in the books"), and because credit needs a shared shorthand. The letters are also more accurate than people think — even most crisis-era AAA tranches were "money good."
Moody's shares have de-rated on the fear that AI can do what a rating agency does — read a bond prospectus and estimate the odds of default. Wigglesworth, who wrote a whole chapter on the agencies' history, thinks that misunderstands what customers are actually buying.
Nobody, he says, outsources their credit thinking to Moody's — "it's not like if you're the CIO of PIMCO and you sit there, well, I'm going to look at what Moody's says about this bond." Serious investors have been automating the analysis for at least a decade, long before large language models. What they buy is the rating itself: a letter that determines what a pension fund's mandate allows it to own, what an insurer can hold against its reserves, and — in the United States — what the law recognises, because the "nationally recognised statistical rating organisation" designation is still on the books after the financial crisis.
He also defends the product's accuracy, which is a less common view. The letter grades predict default probability well; the famous failures are famous because they are rare; and even most of the AAA tranches of crisis-era securitisations, which traded down to 20 cents, ultimately paid out. His conclusion is that "people will be shocked at the resiliency of their business model."
55:47because people don't actually pay S&P and Moody's and Fitch for their credit work. It's not like if you're the CIO of PIMCO and you sit there, well, I'm going to look at what Moody's says about this bond. You care about the rating for investment mandate reasons.
In short: Swept into the same February panic as S&P Global — investors reacted to the Claude Co-work launch with "S&P Global and Moody's, those companies are no more," and "the stocks dropped that day, and they continued to drop." Cited as the second casualty of a reflex Carlson thinks was wrong, not as a fresh call.
13:58" And investors went crazy with it. Lots of likes, lots of retweets, spread everywhere. Every investor is looking at it going, "Oh, no. Claude has jumped from coding and now they're into finances. S&P Global and Moody's, those companies are no more." And the stocks dropped that day, and they continued to drop.
In short: #17. Founded 1909, spun off in its current form in 2000. The oligopoly/trust argument this archive has made before — "The financial system depends on credit ratings. Only a few companies dominate this market. It would be very hard for a competitor to gain the trust Moody's has." Up more than 6,000% since the 2000 spin-off, the best post-listing record on this half of the list. Previously named only as the third member of the ratings oligopoly behind the S&P Global case; here it is argued in its own right.
Moody's grades debt. When a company or a government wants to borrow, investors want an independent verdict on how likely they are to be repaid, and Moody's supplies that grade for a fee. It has been doing so since 1909, and only two or three firms in the world are trusted to do it at all.
That trust is the whole moat, and it is the one thing a well-funded newcomer cannot buy: an unknown rating agency's opinion is worthless by definition, because the point of the rating is that everybody already accepts it. The shares are up more than 6,000% since the business was separated out in 2000 — the strongest post-listing record in this half of the list. Elsewhere in this archive Moody's appears only as the third name in the ratings oligopoly behind S&P Global; here it is argued in its own right.
In short: Referenced inside the S&P Global read-through — "the ratings business is doing incredible along with Moody's. It's growing quickly." A read on the shared ratings duopoly rather than a call on the stock.
13:31The revenue grew 11% year-over-year when you factor out the spin-offs. Though even without Mobility Global, their organic revenue growth is 11%. The ratings business is doing incredible along with Moody's. It's growing quickly. They own the S&P Dow Jones indices, which is an incredible business. Market intelligence, which is the part that investors are focused on the most, grew by 6%, subscription revenue increased by 6%, 9% growth in volume.
In short: Akre's #4 at 8.9%, and one of the two 2012 purchases that "went up more than 10x (!)." "Moody's is active in a oligopoly together with S&P Global and Fitch. They generate very predictable revenues, have a lot of pricing power and the company is very profitable." First bought in 2012, "the stock is up +1.200% since then." The same ratings oligopoly Slegers bought the other side of two days earlier.
Moody's decides how likely a borrower is to repay, and publishes the verdict as a rating. Companies pay for that rating because regulation and investor mandates effectively require one, and only three firms can supply it — Moody's, S&P Global and Fitch. It costs almost nothing to produce another rating, so the margins are enormous.
Akre bought it in 2012, the same year as O'Reilly Automotive, and both have risen more than tenfold. It is 8.9% of his portfolio. The description here is spare: "very predictable revenues… a lot of pricing power and the company is very profitable."
The interesting cross-reference is that Slegers bought the other side of the same oligopoly two days earlier, taking S&P Global at 22 times earnings. Two of the three permitted rating agencies now appear in this archive as endorsed positions within the same week.
In short: Q2 revenue +15% Y/Y to $2.2B ($110M beat) and adj EPS +31% to $4.68 ($0.43 beat), with adj operating margin expanding 440 bps to 55% — yet management trimmed full-year operating margin guidance to 44%–45% (from ~45%) and framed the quarter as timing, not acceleration: CFO Noémie Heuland said a record June pulled issuance forward, leaving Moody's "right where we thought we were going to be." MIS did the heavy lifting: transaction revenue +34%, more than $2 trillion of debt rated for the second straight quarter, segment adj operating margin 68%. Moody's Analytics grew 8% organic cc (4% reported), ARR +9% to ~$3.7B with 95% retention and recurring revenue now 99% of MA; CEO Rob Fauber cautioned against extrapolating any acceleration and reiterated high-single-digit ARR growth. The caveats all point one way — mix is getting thinner (big investment-grade deals from frequent issuers carry lower yields, so rated volume growth doesn't convert one-for-one into revenue), and management raised its issuance outlook to mid-single-digit growth while leaving MIS revenue guidance unchanged: about as clear a statement as you'll get that volume and revenue have decoupled. Second-half comps tighten after the June pull-forward and Heuland warned the trajectory "may not be linear." Guidance narrowed to adj EPS $16.50–$17.00 (midpoint $16.75 vs $16.78 consensus), revenue growth still high single digits, FCF guide up ~$100M to $2.7–2.9B, restructuring extended through 2027 for $300–350M of annualized savings. (Recap, not a stance call.)
Moody's has two halves. The famous one rates bonds — companies pay a fee each time they borrow — so its revenue rises and falls with how much debt is being issued. The other half sells subscription data and risk analytics, which is steadier. Both did well: revenue up 15%, profit up 31%, margins sharply higher, with more than $2 trillion of debt rated for the second quarter running.
Management, unusually, talked the quarter down. A record June simply pulled borrowing forward from later in the year, so this isn't a new faster run rate. And there's a subtler point worth remembering: the mix is thinning. Large, frequent, high-quality borrowers pay lower fees per dollar of debt rated, so more volume doesn't mean proportionally more revenue. The clearest evidence is that management raised its forecast for how much debt will be issued but left its forecast for ratings revenue unchanged — volume and revenue have come apart. Full-year margin guidance was actually trimmed. A recap, not a call.
In short: "I've owned this stock for years because it is a duopoly with pricing power." A very good quarter (EPS 468, +31%); down a bit this year on fears "AI could eat into the Moody's and S&P duopoly" — "I do not believe that is possible, so I continue to be an owner." Flat since fall 2024, so the 2026 PE is now sub-30× — "the cheapest the stock has been in quite some time."
Moody's rates the creditworthiness of bonds. Almost every large borrower needs a rating to sell debt, and effectively only two firms provide them — Moody's and S&P — so it's a duopoly that can raise prices year after year. Eisman has owned it for years for exactly that reason.
Earnings rose 31%, yet the stock is down slightly this year because some investors think AI could take over credit analysis and break the duopoly. He simply doesn't believe that's possible. Meanwhile the share price has been flat since late 2024 while profits kept growing, so you now pay under 30× next year's earnings — "the cheapest the stock has been in quite some time." A good business getting cheaper is his set-up.
9:13Moody's reported. I've owned this stock for years because it is a duopoly with pricing power. Moody's reported a very good quarter. Earnings per share was 468, up 31% versus last year. Now, Moody's is down a bit this year as some investors have assumed that AI could eat into the Moody's and S&P duopoly.
In short: Flagged as a held position reporting Jul 22 — part of the wide-moat ratings/data ballast (vs CME, "where we don't have a position," whose stock has been decimated).
Another held position reporting July 22 — one of the wide-moat ratings/data businesses that form the steady "ballast" of his book. He contrasts it with CME (which he doesn't own and whose stock has been hammered). No new view this week.
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In short: Named as the third member of the credit-ratings oligopoly ("Credit Ratings: S&P Global, Fitch, Moody's") that makes the S&P Global case work. Cited as structure, not as a recommendation in this issue.
In short: BUY. FV $574.1 vs $488.0 = 15.0% under; fwd PE 27.6 against 32.7 (15.6% under); RDCF 10.2% vs 11.5% — now positive, where June's was −1.8pp. YTD −2.2%.
In short: Hohn's #4 at 12.0%, held over a decade. The recurring example of a tollkeeper throughout the post: "This company has grown revenue by over 8% per year for over 100 years" (roughly 10% annually in the position write-up) "because the business model is nearly impossible to disrupt. The regulatory system requires credit ratings." Buffett "called Moody's one of his best investments. Chris Hohn agrees." Named in the closing endorsement alongside Visa and GE Aerospace, and used as the counter-example to a commodity business — "Can you imagine a company like Coca-Cola or Moody's losing money because their customers demanded lower prices?"
Moody's grades the creditworthiness of borrowers. The reason that is such a good business is regulatory rather than commercial: a company issuing bonds is generally required to obtain ratings from at least two of the three recognised agencies, so demand does not depend on Moody's persuading anyone of anything. The customer has to come.
The business needs almost no capital — a rating is produced by analysts, not factories — so nearly all revenue becomes cash, and existing relationships renew year after year. The evidence Slegers cites is the length of the record rather than any recent number: revenue compounding at roughly 8-10% a year for more than a century, through every technological and financial upheaval of that period. Buffett has called it one of his best investments; Hohn has held it for over a decade and treats it as the thing you buy and then leave alone.
Elsewhere in the same fortnight Slegers uses Moody's as the opposite pole to a commodity producer — "Can you imagine a company like Coca-Cola or Moody's losing money because their customers demanded lower prices?" — which is the cleanest statement of what pricing power actually means.
In short: "We like S&P and Moody's more" than FactSet — the quality ratings/data duopoly he'd own over the underperforming FDS ahead of FDS's Wednesday print.
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In short: Bought more because he thinks the moat is getting stronger; ratings oligopoly intact. On its earnings call Moody's is "very adamant" AI won't disrupt it — customers who use AI tools heavily actually use more Moody's, not less. Slightly higher valuation than S&P Global, so he favors SPGI for fresh buys.
Moody's is half of the ratings duopoly, and Carlson bought more because he thinks its moat is widening. The fear is that AI tools make its data and ratings unnecessary; Moody's says it sees no such thing — in fact customers who lean hardest on AI use more Moody's, not less. He slightly prefers S&P Global for new money only because Moody's trades a bit richer, but he rates both very durable.
In short: BUY. FV $537.9 vs $451.8 = 16.1% under; ER 11.5%; fwd PE 27.6 against 32.7 (15.6% under); RDCF 13.3% required vs 11.5% expected — one of six Buys where the reverse DCF is negative.
In short: Named a buy among high-moat, non-tech compounders insulated from AI disruption (with S&P Global) — the kind of oversold quality he'd rotate into.
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In short: S&P Global's counterpart, 17% off highs and undervalued on P/E and P/FCF; its data and ratings are "very difficult for Anthropic to disrupt." Buy.
Moody's is the other big credit-rating-and-data company — essentially S&P Global's twin. It's 17% below its high and cheap on both an earnings and a cash-flow basis.
His reason to buy is durability: the data and ratings Moody's sells are, in his words, "very difficult for Anthropic to disrupt" — i.e. AI isn't going to easily replace a trusted, regulated ratings franchise. A high-quality, hard-to-attack business on sale.
9:32This one is in the middle of its 52- week range. It's only 17% off of its high. It is undervalued based on the historical price to earnings and the price to free cash flow. This one I also consider a buy because the data and the services that Moody's providing I believe are going to be very difficult for Anthropic to disrupt.
In short: Named as one of the two other members of the ratings oligopoly that makes S&P Global a toll bridge: "You literally cannot issue corporate debt without a rating from S&P Global, Fitch or Moody's." The point is the structure, not Moody's itself — the barrier protects all three.
In short: S&P Global's twin and his other chosen data/ratings holding (~$47k); same uncommoditizable-data thesis, still expects it to be a "big winner."
Moody's is the other big credit-ratings-and-data company — effectively S&P Global's twin — and Carlson owns about $47,000 of it. It belongs in the same "won't be commoditized" group: proprietary data, deep customer relationships and a trusted, regulated franchise that AI can't readily replace.
Like S&P Global it has been pressured and doubted, but he still expects it to be a "big winner" over the long run.
22:00Meta is now my third largest position. Then in the story fund, we have Amazon as a $188,000 position. We have more Google, another $90,000. Most of its gains in this portfolio, but I continue to hold every single share. We have Microsoft, an additional 21,000. The other companies I think are not quite as predictable, but I still think very good are S&P Global, Moody's, FactSet, and MSCI.
In short: BUY. EPS growth 11.50%, dividend 0.90%, FWD PE 27.6 against a fair exit 25, expected return 11.46%, fair value 541.1 against 454.0 = 16.10% undervalued.
In short: UPGRADED Hold → Buy, on the same one-line rationale as S&P Global. 25.9x forward against a 32.7x five-year average (20.8% under) and an expected return of 12.4% — but the reverse DCF dissents by −1.5pp (13.3% required against 11.8% expected), the second-largest deficit on the Buy list.
In short: Named as a SaaSpocalypse casualty: −21% in a month. Cited as evidence that "credit agencies" were repriced alongside software and data providers — the same legal-duopoly business the archive elsewhere calls "nearly impossible to disrupt." No stance offered in this issue.
In short: The cautionary "good company, wrong price" backdrop — a 20-year compounder doing ~$12 of EPS, but at $477 it trades at ~40× earnings, the highest multiple in its history. Used to argue investors must hunt smaller/cheaper names instead.
Moody's is the credit-rating company — a wonderful, steady business that has compounded earnings for 20 years. The catch is the price: at $477 on about $12 of earnings, it trades at 40 times earnings, the most expensive it has ever been.
It's used as the cautionary backdrop — even great companies can be bad investments at the wrong price — to argue that investors today must hunt for smaller, cheaper, overlooked names instead of paying up for the obvious winners.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.