S&P Global's ratings and indices could form an exceptionally profitable, wide-moat standalone business. Without its other units, their implied operating margin would be around 68%, among the market's top five; that makes further spinoffs sensible, though the separation is hypothetical. x.com  x.com 

Financial toll booths have grown stronger and cheaper despite their capital-light, high-margin businesses' steady growth. The financial sector has lagged while the S&P 500 is up over 13% this year. S&P Global, Mastercard, Visa and MSCI have almost always traded at a premium, but not today. That mix of business quality and growth produced massive outperformance over previous decades; the current disconnect cannot be ignored forever. x.com 

S&P Global's moat may be weaker than its ratings pricing power suggests, and its gross profit dollars are likely to come under pressure as AI does more of the work, even if margins rise. FICO and the credit bureaus once looked just as required and oligopolistic until Vantage, with regulatory help, built a better product and upended pricing. The market is skeptical of historical data resale, as with CoStar and Verisk; the index business looks durable. x.com 

S&P Global looks very bullish after TCI's Chris Hohn expressed strong confidence in growth at the ratings agencies. Per the call notes, investment-grade ratings are supported by the AI buildout, sub-investment-grade by huge maturity walls, and Hohn believes the market is wrong to reprice these businesses lower as yields rise. x.com 

S&P Global and Moody's collect a toll on AI capex either way: if data-center returns are bond-like, the buildout gets funded with bonds, each needing a rating at issue and surveillance while outstanding. Low returns plus heavy capex keep the issuance calendar full while equity holders eat thin returns. New issuance may stay quiet given a 2028-weighted refinancing wall and wider spreads, but surveillance and index revenue bill off outstanding debt. Both traded well under 25x in past droughts. … Show more

Moody's and S&P Global could de-rate from high starting multiples if generalist portfolio managers come to see them as FICO 2.0. Their industry structures differ, but parallels in standards, pricing power and regulatory exposure could build a narrative that their pricing power is tapped out after the FICO case study, compressing multiples further. So far their de-rating has come from macro and AI pressure, not such fears. x.com  x.com  x.com 

S&P Global's July 1 spin-off of Mobility Global refocuses it on its high-margin ratings and indices businesses, removing a conglomerate discount. Its ratings duopoly with Moody's and S&P 500 licensing fees collect tolls on capital markets as passive assets grow and AI and energy buildouts drive a debt issuance boom. Per JPMorgan and other banks, LLMs need proprietary data like its Market Intelligence and Platts benchmarks, reversing AI fears. Q1 operating margin rose 100 bps to 51.8%. x.com 

S&P Global's valuation compression while fundamentals still look good is a gift from the market, because it owns two of the strongest businesses in the world. x.com 

S&P Global and Morningstar are lumped in with financials and could easily fall another 15-20% by the time Bloomberg declares a recession, so owning them would mainly add cyclical beta. x.com 

S&P Global's stock price has recently disconnected from its business fundamentals, the kind of dislocation that makes a stock worth buying. x.com