Moody's Corporation vs Yum! Brands, Inc. — how do they compare? Moody's Corporation trades at $478.67 (market cap $82.52B), while Yum! Brands, Inc. trades at $148.79 (market cap $39.50B). The key difference: Moody's Corporation is far larger — about 2.1× Yum! Brands, Inc.'s market cap, and Yum! Brands, Inc. pays the higher dividend (2.07%). Which is the better fit depends on your goals.
| MCO | YUM | |
|---|---|---|
Market Cap | $82.52B | $39.50B |
Sector | Financials | Consumer Cyclical |
52-Week High | $539.61 | $168.16 |
52-Week Low | $412.23 | $138.21 |
Enterprise Value | $88.54B | $51.10B |
Dividend Yield | 0.86% | 2.07% |
Signals from Pluang's Aura AI — not financial advice
Moody's Corporation (MCO) trades at $477.00, down 0.24% on the day, with strong fundamentals including 80.15% ROE and 34.25% net margin. The stock shows bearish technical signals but maintains robust earnings momentum with three consecutive quarterly beats. Revenue growth accelerated to $7.72 billion in 2025, while analyst consensus remains bullish with a $561.88 price target representing 18% upside potential.
MCO presents a compelling growth story with premium valuation metrics (P/E 30.23) justified by consistent earnings outperformance and dominant market position. Key risks include sensitivity to debt issuance cycles and elevated valuation multiples. The combination of strong profitability, analyst support, and dividend payments supports a positive long-term outlook despite near-term technical weakness.
YUM Brands trades at $148.91, up 2.46% with recent earnings beats offset by food safety concerns. Technical indicators show bearish momentum with support at $141, while fundamentals reveal strong revenue growth to $8.21B in 2025 and net income of $1.56B. The company recently completed the $1.2B sale of Pizza Hut China, streamlining operations amid cyclospora outbreak impacts on Taco Bell sales.
YUM presents a mixed outlook with 37% analyst buy ratings and $174.60 price target suggesting 17% upside, but faces near-term headwinds from food safety investigations and consumer sentiment. Long-term growth depends on KFC/Taco Bell execution and digital strategy success amid elevated debt levels.
Trailing returns across standard periods
Latest headlines on both assets
Moody's, along with S&P Ratings, is a leading provider of credit ratings on fixed income securities. Moody's ratings segment, known as Moody's Investors Service or MIS, includes corporates, structured finance, financial institutions, and public finance ratings. MIS represents a majority of the firm's revenue and profits. Moody's other segment is Moody's Analytics and consists of Research, Data, and Analytics or RD&A and Enterprise Risk Solutions or ERS. RD&A's products include credit research, quantitative credit scores, economic research, business intelligence, know your customer (KYC) tools, commercial real estate data and analytical tools, and training services. ERS includes risk management software solutions to financial institutions.
Read more on MCO →Yum Brands is a U.S.-based restaurant operator featuring a portfolio of four brands: KFC (26,930 global units), Pizza Hut (18,380 units), Taco Bell (7,790 units), and The Habit Burger (310 units) at year-end 2021. With $58 billion in 2021 systemwide sales, the firm is the second-largest restaurant company in the world, behind McDonald's ($112.5 billion) but ahead of Restaurant Brands International ($36 billion) and Starbucks ($25 billion). Yum is 98% franchised, with the largest franchisee, Yum China, created via a 2016 spinoff transaction (after which Yum China agreed to pay 3% royalties to Yum Brands in perpetuity). Yum is the newest evolution of Tricon Brands, formerly a division of PepsiCo, and generates the bulk of its revenue from franchise royalties and marketing contributions.
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