Moody's reported a strong Q2 with 15% revenue growth and 31% EPS growth, driven by broad-based issuance and analytics demand. Management raised EPS and buyback guidance but kept revenue unchanged due to a mix shift toward lower-yield data center and FIG transactions. Cross-company signals include large data center financing for Hut 8, partnerships with Amazon and Microsoft, and rating BlackRock's tokenized fund. MIS transaction revenue up 34%, rated over $2 trillion debt for second straight quarter.
Moody's reported a strong Q2 with 15% revenue growth and 31% EPS growth, driven by broad-based issuance and analytics demand. Management raised EPS and buyback guidance but kept revenue unchanged due to a mix shift toward lower-yield data center and FIG transactions. Cross-company signals include large data center financing for Hut 8, partnerships with Amazon and Microsoft, and rating BlackRock's tokenized fund. MIS transaction revenue up 34%, rated over $2 trillion debt for second straight quarter.
Management highlighted AI as a major driver of capital formation, with hyperscaler financing and data center transactions boosting issuance. They discussed embedding AI into customer workflows via MCPs, smart APIs, and agentic capabilities, noting over 100 MCP connections in…
Guidance tone
MA ARR grew ~9% to $3.7B, with Decision Solutions (KYC, Banking, Insurance) each growing 9-13%.
Management expressed strong confidence driven by broad-based revenue growth, margin expansion, and raising EPS and share repurchase guidance, while acknowledging a complex environment but no shift from prior positive tone.
Management highlighted AI as a major driver of capital formation, with hyperscaler financing and data center transactions boosting issuance. They discussed embedding AI into customer workflows via MCPs, smart APIs, and agentic capabilities, noting over 100 MCP connections in trial and a 50% reduction in false positive alerts from AI-powered screening.
First-time mandates up 45% year-over-year. Management expressed strong confidence driven by broad-based revenue growth, margin expansion, and raising EPS and share repurchase guidance, while acknowledging a complex environment but no shift from prior positive tone.
Management expressed strong confidence driven by broad-based revenue growth, margin expansion, and raising EPS and share repurchase guidance, while acknowledging a complex environment but no shift from prior positive tone.
“Hyperscalers have already exceeded our 2026 forecast for issuance and issued more debt this year than in the last three years combined.”
| Metric | Period | Range | Midpoint | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | FY2026 | $16.50–$17.00 | $16.75 | RAISED |
| Free cash flow | FY2026 | $2.7B–$2.9B | $2.8B | LOWERED |
| Op marginMA | FY2026 | 34%–35% | 34.5% | MAINTAINED |
| Issued | Metric | Target | Guide | Actual | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 Q1 | EPS | FY2026 Q2 | $4.15–$4.30 | $4.68 | Met / beat |
| FY2025 Q3 | EPS | FY2025 | $14.50–$14.75 | $14.94 | Met / beat |
| FY2025 Q3 | Op margin | FY2025 | 51% | 51.1% | Met / beat |
| FY2025 Q3 | Op margin | FY2025 | 33% | 33.1% | Met / beat |
| FY2025 Q3 | Op margin | FY2025 | 63%–64% | 63.6% | Met / beat |
Large data center financing deal adds to Moody's ratings revenue and signals continued AI-related debt issuance demand.
“That was a roughly $4 billion financing for a 350 megawatt hyperscale campus developed by Hut 8.”
… expertise really allowed us to capitalize on these drivers. So I want to give you a few examples from the quarter to really bring this to life for you. So starting with AI and data center financing, and obviously that's a topic that's dominating the headlines, but it is only one of several powerful drivers that's supporting issuance growth. So Beacon Point, D.C. is a very good example of the large data center transactions that we're rating across the U.S. That was a roughly $4 billion financing for a 350 megawatt hyperscale campus developed by Hut 8. And I think more importantly, it illustrates how AI is becoming one of the largest capital formation stories in the global economy. It's creating financing needs that extend well beyond data centers into power and infrastructure and other sectors and supporting what we believe is a sustained pipeline of issuance activity. In fact, hyperscalers have already exceeded our 2026 forecast for issuance and issued more debt this year than in the last three years combined. And the opportunity extends well beyond hyperscalers to construction, power, hardware, chips and the broader infrastructure required to support AI at scale. Hyperscaler …
Moody's rates the largest tokenized money market fund, strengthening its role in digital finance and tokenization.
“We also recently rated BlackRock's tokenized money market fund. That's the world's largest at $2.6 billion market cap.”
… ratings directly into tokenized fixed income assets on a leading public blockchain. We've been building on our Canton deployment. This reinforces our network agnostic design. bringing our independent credit insights to where the markets transact. And we've rated double digit digital issuances globally this year. And while it is early, we're encouraged by the green shoots as we have more transactions in the pipeline than we have rated year to date. We also recently rated BlackRock's tokenized money market fund. That's the world's largest at $2.6 billion market cap. And it's a cornerstone of the tokenized liquidity stack as a stable coin reserve and on-chain cash entry point. We're also a critical rating partner to innovative transactions in the emerging markets. And this quarter, we rated a second emerging market CLO from the International Finance Corporation. That's similar to the one that we called out on our third quarter 2025 call. And we were, again, the sole agency on this unique transaction, which securitized corporate loans to borrowers in emerging markets. And it's helping the IFC and other multilateral development banks broaden access to institutional capital and …
Hyperscalers have already exceeded Moody's 2026 full-year issuance forecast, issuing more debt in the first half of 2026 than in the last three years combined. — Indicates a massive acceleration in capital formation for AI infrastructure, driving sustained bond issuance demand that benefits Moody's ratings revenue but also signals aggressive capex plans for the hyperscalers.
“With Amazon, we brought Moody's connected intelligence directly into Amazon Quick, giving AWS customers access to our ratings and research and curated data on hundreds of millions of public and private entities”
… intelligence directly into high stakes customer workflows. That's lending, underwriting, compliance, and more. And that's really our sweet spot at the intersection of Speed and Trust and Explainability and Auditability. And during the second quarter, we made further progress in broadening how customers access Moody's intelligence and how deeply it's woven into their mission-critical day-to-day workflows. So with Amazon, we brought Moody's connected intelligence directly into Amazon Quick, giving AWS customers access to our ratings and research and curated data on hundreds of millions of public and private entities without requiring users to leave Amazon's AI experience. This quarter, we announced our sunset timeline for our on-prem modeling solutions and insurance, which means we plan for our remaining customers to migrate to our cloud-based intelligent risk platform over the next several years. And to further support this migration, we partnered with AWS to add the IRP to our AWS Marketplace catalog, and that enables our migrating customers to count their IRP spend towards their AWS cloud commit. With Microsoft, we launched our first AI skill on Microsoft 365 co-pilot …
Hyperscalers have already exceeded Moody's 2026 full-year issuance forecast, issuing more debt in the first half of 2026 than in the last three years combined. — Indicates a massive acceleration in capital formation for AI infrastructure, driving sustained bond issuance demand that benefits Moody's ratings revenue but also signals aggressive capex plans for the hyperscalers.
“With Microsoft, we launched our first AI skill on Microsoft 365 co-pilot co-work, and that enables agents to apply Moody's analytical frameworks and subject matter expertise”
… we announced our sunset timeline for our on-prem modeling solutions and insurance, which means we plan for our remaining customers to migrate to our cloud-based intelligent risk platform over the next several years. And to further support this migration, we partnered with AWS to add the IRP to our AWS Marketplace catalog, and that enables our migrating customers to count their IRP spend towards their AWS cloud commit. With Microsoft, we launched our first AI skill on Microsoft 365 co-pilot co-work, and that enables agents to apply Moody's analytical frameworks and subject matter expertise, not just retrieve content. And joint go-to-market activity is building momentum with more than 20 engagements globally and initial customer trials underway. We now also have more than 100 MCP and smart API connections being used and trialed by our customers, which is an encouraging signal of demand for our trusted intelligence delivered through AI platforms. And together, these integrations let customers spend less time questioning output and more time acting on it while giving the industry the intelligence infrastructure to accelerate enterprise adoption. Now our massive company data …
Hyperscalers have already exceeded Moody's 2026 full-year issuance forecast, issuing more debt in the first half of 2026 than in the last three years combined. — Indicates a massive acceleration in capital formation for AI infrastructure, driving sustained bond issuance demand that benefits Moody's ratings revenue but also signals aggressive capex plans for the hyperscalers.
… across the U.S. That was a roughly $4 billion financing for a 350 megawatt hyperscale campus developed by Hut 8. And I think more importantly, it illustrates how AI is becoming one of the largest capital formation stories in the global economy. It's creating financing needs that extend well beyond data centers into power and infrastructure and other sectors and supporting what we believe is a sustained pipeline of issuance activity. In fact, hyperscalers have already exceeded our 2026 forecast for issuance and issued more debt this year than in the last three years combined. And the opportunity extends well beyond hyperscalers to construction, power, hardware, chips and the broader infrastructure required to support AI at scale. Hyperscaler CapEx alone is expected to approach $800 billion in 2026 and grow meaningfully again in 2027. And even excluding AI data center and hyperscaler activity, issuance still grew double digits year to date. In the second quarter of the issuances over $5 billion, approximately 20% were tied to AI related investment in supporting infrastructure. That means that the other 80% was very well diversified across a range of sectors. Now, private credit is …