S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI) Earns “Outperform” Rating from Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank of Canada reiterated their outperform rating on shares of S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI) in a research note released on Friday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $500.00 price objective on the business services provider’s stock.

SPGI has been the subject of a number of other research reports. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on S&P Global from $480.00 to $483.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, April 1st. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on S&P Global from $480.00 to $482.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, April 26th. Barclays lifted their price objective on S&P Global from $500.00 to $520.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 2nd. Erste Group Bank reissued a hold rating on shares of S&P Global in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on S&P Global from $442.00 to $446.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Friday, April 26th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $467.89.

S&P Global Stock Performance

Shares of SPGI stock opened at $439.22 on Friday. S&P Global has a 1-year low of $340.49 and a 1-year high of $461.16. The company has a current ratio of 0.92, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The company has a market capitalization of $137.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.24, a P/E/G ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 1.15. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $427.84 and its 200-day simple moving average is $430.89.

S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The business services provider reported $4.01 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.68 by $0.33. S&P Global had a return on equity of 12.20% and a net margin of 22.01%. The business had revenue of $3.49 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.39 billion. On average, sell-side analysts predict that S&P Global will post 14.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

S&P Global Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 12th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 29th were paid a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, May 29th. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.83%. S&P Global’s payout ratio is presently 40.81%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On S&P Global

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in SPGI. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of S&P Global in the fourth quarter worth about $1,652,862,000. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in S&P Global by 13.2% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 7,579,943 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $2,769,787,000 after acquiring an additional 881,215 shares during the period. Swedbank AB bought a new position in S&P Global during the first quarter valued at about $351,774,000. Capital International Investors increased its stake in S&P Global by 12.6% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 5,502,039 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $2,423,762,000 after acquiring an additional 616,732 shares during the period. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased its stake in S&P Global by 8.2% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 5,658,865 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $2,067,807,000 after acquiring an additional 428,737 shares during the period. 87.17% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About S&P Global

S&P Global Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics, and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity, and automotive markets. It operates through S&P Global Market Intelligence, S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Commodity Insights, S&P Global Mobility, S&P Dow Jones Indices, and S&P Global Engineering Solutions segments.