Lord Abbett & CO. LLC Buys 43,864 Shares of S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI)

Lord Abbett & CO. LLC raised its stake in S&P Global Inc. (NYSE:SPGI) by 13.9% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 359,572 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 43,864 shares during the quarter. Lord Abbett & CO. LLC’s holdings in S&P Global were worth $185,762,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. HWG Holdings LP acquired a new position in S&P Global during the second quarter worth $27,000. Northwest Investment Counselors LLC bought a new position in shares of S&P Global in the 3rd quarter valued at about $27,000. Sachetta LLC increased its stake in shares of S&P Global by 103.4% during the 2nd quarter. Sachetta LLC now owns 59 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. First Personal Financial Services bought a new stake in shares of S&P Global in the 3rd quarter valued at about $29,000. Finally, Hobbs Group Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in S&P Global in the 2nd quarter valued at about $31,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.17% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have weighed in on SPGI. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on S&P Global from $540.00 to $590.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 3rd. Evercore ISI began coverage on S&P Global in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $599.00 price target on the stock. Raymond James cut shares of S&P Global from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of S&P Global from $550.00 to $610.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, September 13th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised their target price on shares of S&P Global from $536.00 to $575.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $573.23.

S&P Global Price Performance

Shares of S&P Global stock opened at $505.57 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $509.28 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $490.35. S&P Global Inc. has a twelve month low of $407.69 and a twelve month high of $533.29. The stock has a market capitalization of $156.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.64 and a beta of 1.19. The company has a quick ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33.

S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The business services provider reported $3.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.64 by $0.25. S&P Global had a return on equity of 13.72% and a net margin of 25.80%. The business had revenue of $3.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.43 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.21 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that S&P Global Inc. will post 15.24 EPS for the current year.

S&P Global Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 11th. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 26th were given a $0.91 dividend. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 26th. S&P Global’s payout ratio is currently 32.13%.

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.