Item 5. MARKET FOR THE REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED SHAREHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Information in response to this Item is set forth under the captions below.

MOODY’S PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

For the three months ended December 31, 2020:

(1)Includes surrender to the Company of 2,306, 429 and 9,136 shares of common stock in October, November and December, respectively, to satisfy tax withholding obligations in connection with the vesting of restricted stock issued to employees.

(2)As of the last day of each of the months. On October 22, 2018, the Board approved $1 billion in share repurchase authority, which was fully utilized during 2020. On December 16, 2019, the Board approved an additional $1 billion in share repurchase authority, which at December 31, 2020 had approximately $831 million of remaining authority. Additionally, on February 9, 2021, the Board approved an additional $1.0 billion of share repurchase authority. There is no established expiration date for either of the aforementioned remaining authorizations.

During the fourth quarter of 2020, Moody’s issued 0.2 million shares under employee stock-based compensation plans.

COMMON STOCK INFORMATION

The Company’s common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MCO”. The number of registered shareholders of record at January 31, 2021 was 1,721. A substantially greater number of the Company’s common stock is held by beneficial holders whose shares of record are held by banks, brokers and other financial institutions.

EQUITY COMPENSATION PLAN INFORMATION

The table below sets forth, as of December 31, 2020, certain information regarding the Company’s equity compensation plans.

(1)Includes 2,505,011 options and unvested restricted shares outstanding under the Company's 2001 Key Employees' Stock Incentive Plan and 5,418 unvested restricted shares outstanding under the 1998 Non-Employee Directors' Stock Incentive Plan. This number also includes a maximum of 657,510 performance shares outstanding under the Company's 2001 Key Employees' Stock Incentive Plan, which is the maximum number of shares issuable pursuant to performance share awards assuming the maximum payout of 200% of the target award for performance shares granted in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Assuming payout at target, the number of shares to be issued upon the vesting of outstanding performance share awards is 328,755.

(2)Does not reflect unvested restricted shares or performance share awards included in column (a) because these awards have no exercise price.

(3)Includes 14,102,262 shares available for issuance as under the 2001 Stock Incentive Plan, of which all may be issued as options and 8,032,220 may be issued as restricted stock, performance shares or other stock-based awards under the 2001 Stock Incentive Plan and 887,433 shares available for issuance as options, shares of restricted stock or performance shares under the 1998 Directors Plan, and 2,631,082 shares available for issuance under the Company’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan. No new grants may be made under the 1998 Stock Incentive Plan, which expired by its terms in June 2008.

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PERFORMANCE GRAPH

The following graph compares the total cumulative shareholder return of the Company to the performance of Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite Index and the Russell 3000 Financial Services Index. Both of the aforementioned indexes are easily accessible to the Company’s shareholders in newspapers, the internet and other readily available sources for purposes of the following graph.

The comparison assumes that $100.00 was invested in the Company’s common stock and in each of the foregoing indices on December 31, 2015. The comparison also assumes the reinvestment of dividends, if any. The total return for the common stock was 206% during the performance period as compared with a total return during the same period of 103% and 84% for the S&P 500 Composite Index and the Russell 3000 Financial Services Index, respectively.

COMPARISON OF 5 YEAR CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN

Among Moody’s Corporation, the S&P 500 Index

and the Russell 3000 Financial Services Index

The comparisons in the graph above are provided in response to disclosure requirements of the SEC and are not intended to forecast or be indicative of future performance of the Company’s common stock.

42 MOODY'S 2020 10-K

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