The world's three biggest rating agencies are; Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch. These three rating agencies together have a marketshare of 95% of the world's total ratings, and have "nationally recognized statistical ratings organization" status in the U.S.
S&P, Moody's have listed stocks trading whilst Fitch is a private entity. Analysing the S&P's and Moody's stock performance over the years, one clearly sees that their duopolistic stance benefits them.
Since issued bonds, and other debt-instruments, by various financial institutions require credit ratings, S&P and Moody's enjoy a steady and stable stream of income due to the continuity and regularity of issued debt and the subsequent demanded credit-ratings to value. It is one of these reasons the stocks are both poised to continually move higher, as demand is stable.
Consensus EBITDA for S&P
Consensus EBITDA for Moody'shttps://www.koyfin.com/fa/fa.is/MCO
https://www.koyfin.com/fa/fa.is/SPGI
P/E= 31.8x Moody's
P/E= 31x S&P
I would therefore set a target price of 270$ for S&P and 240$ for Moody's until the end of Q4, 2019.
Profiting strategies on the future developments surrounding the stocks are numerous;
1. Purchasing a deep-in-the-money call-options with a strike at 225$ for S&P and 175$ for Moody's, (with an expiry 1-1.5 years in to the future*) would offer substantial leverage. Basically entering a synthetic-long-stock position.
2. Purchasing the stocks themselves.