# Moody's Q3 and the Borrower That Actually Pays the Fee — InvestMoat Research

_Moody's ratings revenue fell in Q3 while investment-grade issuance set a third-quarter record on AI and hyperscaler debt. Across 2026 the ratings line has moved with high-yield and leveraged-loan borrowers, not with AI, and those are the borrowers private credit and cheaper private ratings compete for._

_Published: October 24, 2026 · Last reviewed: October 27, 2026 · Canonical page: https://www.investmoat.com/research/moodys-q3-and-the-borrower-that-pays-the-fee_
_Tags: Financial Infrastructure, AI Capex, Business Models, Catalyst_
_Covers: MCO, SPGI, KKR, BX_

## Summary

Moody's Q3 2026 revenue rose 1% and missed consensus, and its ratings business shrank 1%, in a quarter when investment-grade rated issuance grew 16% to a third-quarter record supported by AI and hyperscaler financing. Across Q1 to Q3 2026, Moody's ratings revenue has tracked high-yield and leveraged-loan issuance rather than investment-grade issuance, and management said AI-related deals were a little over half of year-to-date issuance growth but closer to 40% of revenue growth because the hyperscalers buy on frequent-issuer terms. The rating mandate is intact, but the growth it pays out depends on speculative-grade borrowers. Those borrowers can also borrow from private credit lenders, who can get insurer-eligible ratings from smaller agencies, so the NAIC's year-end decision on private ratings matters more to the duopoly than the next hyperscaler bond.

## What would prove this wrong

Through Q2 2027, Moody's reports MIS revenue up 5% or more year over year in a quarter when its own high-yield and leveraged-loan rated issuance are both down year over year, or S&P Global reports Ratings revenue up 5% or more in a quarter its release describes high-yield or leveraged-loan issuance as down. That would mean investment-grade and AI volume can carry the ratings line without the leveraged borrower, and my argument that the duopoly's growth rides on that borrower is wrong.

_Status as of October 27, 2026: **holding**._

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Investment-grade rated issuance, Q3 2026: +16% · Moody's Investors Service revenue, Q3 2026: −1% · MCO price: (live) · MCO composite: 81

**Moody's ratings revenue has followed the leveraged borrowers this year, not the investment-grade ones. Q1 had the strongest investment-grade growth and the weakest ratings quarter of the first half; Q3 had record investment-grade issuance and a decline. Year-over-year growth as stated in each 2026 release. This is the relationship the falsifiable claim tests.**

| Period | MIS revenue | Investment-grade issuance | High-yield issuance | Leveraged-loan issuance |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Q1 2026 | 8% | 32% | 21% | -13% |
| Q2 2026 | 25% | 17% | 23% | 53% |
| Q3 2026 | -1% | 16% | -21% | -35% |

Q2 2026: Leveraged loans +53%; Q3 2026: Record investment grade, revenue down.

_Figures as of Q3 2026 — Moody's earnings releases, April 22, July 22 and October 21, 2026. Source: [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: first quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026026383/a1q26earningsrelease.htm); [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: second quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026049104/a2q26earningsrelease.htm); [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: third quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026066594/a3q26earningsrelease.htm)._

Moody's reported on October 21 and missed. Revenue rose 1% to $2.02B against a consensus near $2.08B, and the ratings business, Moody's Investors Service, shrank 1%. In the same quarter investment-grade issuance set a third-quarter record, supported, in the company's words, by AI infrastructure and hyperscaler financing. The usual story puts the rating agencies on the winning side of the AI build, next to the chip and power suppliers: whoever lends to the hyperscalers, Moody's and S&P Global rate it.

The chart above is the problem with that story. **This year Moody's ratings revenue has moved with high-yield bonds and leveraged loans, and hardly at all with investment grade.** Q1 had the fastest investment-grade growth of the year and the slowest ratings growth of the first half, because leveraged loans fell. Q2 was the big quarter because leveraged loans rose by half. Q3 had record investment-grade borrowing and a decline, because high yield and leveraged loans both fell by a fifth or more. The AI borrower supplies volume. The leveraged borrower supplies the growth.

## Where the Q3 decline came from

**Moody's Q3 2026 against the consensus going in. The decline was in the ratings line; Moody's Analytics grew.**

| Measure | Q3 2026 | Q3 2025 | Consensus |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Revenue | $2,023M (+1%; +3% organic constant currency) | $2,007M | About $2,080M |
| Adjusted diluted EPS | $4.14 (+6%) | $3.92 | $4.25 |
| Moody's Investors Service revenue | $1,087M (−1%) | $1,098M | — |
| Moody's Analytics revenue | $936M (+3%; +8% organic constant currency) | $909M | — |
| Full-year 2026 guidance | Reaffirmed: high-single-digit revenue growth, adjusted EPS $16.50 to $17.00 | — | — |

_Figures as of Q3 2026 — Moody's earnings release, October 21, 2026. Source: [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: third quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026066594/a3q26earningsrelease.htm); [Moody's Q3 2026 revenue $2.02 billion, earnings miss](https://grafa.com/en/news/united-states/moodys-q3-2026-revenue-2-02-billion-earnings-miss)._

**Moody's Investors Service rated issuance and transaction revenue by line, Q3 2026 against Q3 2025. Investment grade, high yield and leveraged loans are parts of Corporate Finance.**

| Line | Rated issuance | Transaction revenue | What it tests |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Investment grade | +16% | +18% | Record AI and jumbo borrowing showed up in fees, roughly in step with volume |
| High yield | −21% | −40% | Revenue fell twice as fast as volume when speculative-grade issuers waited |
| Leveraged loans | −35% | −27% | The borrower private credit competes for |
| Corporate Finance, all | −16% | −14% to $374M | The leveraged pullback outweighed the investment-grade record |
| Structured Finance | +16% | +2% to $88M | Volume up, fees flat |
| Financial Institutions | +8% | −1% to $122M | Volume up, fees flat |
| Public, Project and Infrastructure | +16% | +14% to $126M | Includes power and digital-infrastructure project debt |
| All MIS transaction revenue | −2% | −5% | The total gap comes mostly from Structured Finance and Financial Institutions, not from Corporate Finance |

_Figures as of Q3 2026 — Moody's earnings release, October 21, 2026. Source: [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: third quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026066594/a3q26earningsrelease.htm)._

Read line by line, Q3 is not a story about investment-grade fees getting cheaper. Investment-grade revenue grew a little faster than investment-grade volume. Corporate Finance as a whole lost a seventh of its transaction revenue because the leveraged borrowers stepped back from a record Q3 2025, and that one line, worth $59M less than a year earlier, more than accounts for the ratings decline. The AI paper did its part; it just could not replace the borrowers who were missing.

Management added the second piece on the call. **Year to date, chief executive Rob Fauber said, AI-related issuance has been a little over half of Moody's issuance growth but closer to 40% of its revenue growth**, and the big hyperscaler deals now sit on a frequent-issuer commercial arrangement. That is a modest discount, not a collapse. But it confirms the shape of the chart: the largest new source of rated debt in years is also the one that earns Moody's the least for each dollar it adds.

**What Moody's management said about AI financing and the rest of the issuance mix on the Q3 2026 call.**

| Statement | Figure | Why it matters here |
| --- | --- | --- |
| AI-related share of year-to-date issuance growth | A little over half | The AI build is the main source of new rated volume |
| AI-related share of year-to-date revenue growth | Closer to 40% | That volume earns less per dollar than the rest |
| Issuance in sectors tied to AI and power investment, Q3 | About fourfold year over year | The supply of AI-related paper is still rising |
| Moody's analysts' estimate of AI capex | About $800B in 2026, north of $1T in 2027 | How much more of this paper could come |
| Rated private credit deals | Up more than 40% year over year | Moody's is following the leveraged borrower into private markets |
| Direct-lending deals refinanced into syndicated loans, Q3 (PitchBook figure cited by Fauber) | About $12B, the highest quarterly volume since tracking began in 2022 | Some private borrowers come back to rated markets |
| Q4 2026 assumption | Issuance down mid-teens; MIS revenue up low single digits; high-yield and leveraged-loan expectations tempered | Hyperscalers are assumed to be mostly done for the year |

_Figures as of Q3 2026 earnings call, October 21, 2026. Source: [Moody's (MCO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript](https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/10/21/moodys-mco-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript/); [Moody's (MCO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/moodys-mco-q3-2026-earnings-181345264.html)._

## Why the leveraged borrower matters more than its volume

Moody's does not publish fees by category, so what follows is my reading of the numbers above rather than a disclosed fee schedule.

- **Repeat issuers negotiate.** A hyperscaler that comes back to the bond market in the tens of billions several times a year can agree a programme price. Moody's said that is how the hyperscaler deals are now structured, and it is consistent with AI being more of the volume growth than the revenue growth.
- **Big deals spread the fee thin.** The analytical work on a $25B investment-grade deal is not twenty-five times the work on a $1B high-yield bond, and fees appear to follow the work more than the size. That would explain high-yield revenue falling twice as fast as high-yield volume.
- **The speculative borrower needs the public rating most.** For a high-yield issuer selling to public investors, the rating sets much of the coupon and opens the buyer base. It has the least room to negotiate the fee in public markets, and its main alternative is to leave them for a private loan.
- **Monitoring follows every rating.** MIS recurring revenue grew 8% to $373M in Q3 2026 while transaction revenue fell. Each new AI bond adds a fee for monitoring over its life, so the AI build does pay over time, just slowly.

## The fee collectors and the lenders competing for their best customer

If the agencies' growth depends on the leveraged borrower, the names that matter next to them are not the hyperscalers, whose borrowing is covered in [CoreWeave, AI Debt and the Rate the Moat Sets](/research/coreweave-ai-debt-and-the-rate-the-moat-sets). They are the private-credit managers who lend to that borrower directly. KKR owns the insurer Global Atlantic and Blackstone manages insurance money for others, so both sit on both sides of the private-rating question: they make the loan, and an insurer they own or advise holds it and needs a rating it can use for capital.

**Live scores for the two rating agencies and two private-credit managers.**

| Ticker | Name | Moat | Growth | Valuation | Composite | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Collects the rating fee** |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| [MCO](https://www.investmoat.com/stocks/mco) | Moody's Corporation | 91 | 71 | 75 | 81 | Q3 2026: MIS −1%, high-yield transaction revenue −40%, investment grade +18%; guidance reaffirmed |
| [SPGI](https://www.investmoat.com/stocks/spgi) | S&P Global | 90 | 71 | 65 | 75 | Reports Q3 2026 on October 27; the first test of whether this is Moody's alone |
| **Lends to the leveraged borrower directly** |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| [KKR](https://www.investmoat.com/stocks/kkr) | KKR & Co | 66 | 79 | 80 | 77 | Owns Global Atlantic, an insurer that holds private credit |
| [BX](https://www.investmoat.com/stocks/bx) | Blackstone | 68 | 70 | 78 | 73 | Manages insurance balance sheets alongside its private credit funds |

_Valuation and composite above use each asset's static valuation score; the live site recomputes them against the current market price._

**The pillars a rating franchise rests on, next to the two private-credit managers. Statuses are read live from each stock's analysis.**

| Ticker | Regulatory Lock-In | Network Effects | System of Record | Proprietary Data |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Collects the rating fee** |  |  |  |  |
| [MCO](https://www.investmoat.com/stocks/mco) | strong | strong | strong | strong |
| [SPGI](https://www.investmoat.com/stocks/spgi) | strong | strong | strong | strong |
| **Lends to the leveraged borrower directly** |  |  |  |  |
| [KKR](https://www.investmoat.com/stocks/kkr) | intact | intact | intact | intact |
| [BX](https://www.investmoat.com/stocks/bx) | intact | intact | intact | intact |

The grid shows where the agencies' advantage lives: in capital rules that reference ratings, in a century of default data, and in investors who will not buy an unrated public bond. Nothing in Q3 touched any of that. What the grid cannot show is that the rules part of the moat is only as strong as the regulator's willingness to treat a Moody's or S&P rating differently from a cheaper one. For an insurer's private loan, that question is being decided this quarter.

## The AI paper pays fine, and the leveraged borrower is coming back anyway

**Investment-grade revenue growth against investment-grade rated issuance growth in each 2026 quarter. Q1 and Q2 releases print these rows as revenue; Q3 prints them as transaction revenue.**

| Quarter | Investment-grade issuance | Investment-grade revenue | Revenue minus issuance |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Q1 2026 | +32% | +33% | +1 point |
| Q2 2026 | +17% | +31% | +14 points |
| Q3 2026 | +16% | +18% | +2 points |

_Figures as of Q3 2026 — Moody's earnings releases, April 22, July 22 and October 21, 2026. Source: [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: first quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026026383/a1q26earningsrelease.htm); [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: second quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026049104/a2q26earningsrelease.htm); [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: third quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026066594/a3q26earningsrelease.htm)._

The strongest objection is in that table. In every quarter of 2026, Moody's investment-grade revenue grew at least as fast as investment-grade volume, and in Q2, a heavy hyperscaler quarter, much faster. If AI debt were seriously discounted, the line it dominates should show it, and it does not. The only direct evidence for a discount is one spoken ratio on the call, and 40% of revenue growth from one theme is a lot of money. Moody's own analysts expect AI capex to rise from about $800B in 2026 to more than $1T in 2027. If hyperscaler issuance keeps compounding, it could carry the ratings line through a weak leveraged-finance year by sheer size.

The second objection is timing. Moody's said the Q3 decline came against a record prior-year quarter, and leveraged loans lost less revenue than volume, which fits the repricing wave that ran through Q3 2025 rather than a lasting loss. Spreads were stable for most of the quarter and widened only in late September. Leveraged borrowers wait; they do not disappear. And private credit may be a holding pen rather than an exit: PitchBook counted about $12B of direct-lending deals refinanced into syndicated loans in Q3, and the number of private credit deals Moody's rated rose more than 40%.

The third objection is that AI paper gets more lucrative as it gets riskier. Not all of the build is funded by Alphabet and Meta: neoclouds and data-centre project vehicles borrow too, and their paper is high yield, project or structured debt. Moody's said issuance in sectors tied to AI and power investment rose about fourfold in Q3, and Public, Project and Infrastructure Finance transaction revenue rose 14%. If that continues, the AI build becomes a leveraged-finance customer itself.

That leaves private ratings, which is where the bears are partly right and the evidence is contested. A Columbia study posted in June put US life insurers' privately rated assets at about $481B, roughly 12% of their rated credit, up from under 2% in 2018, with most of those ratings from Egan-Jones, KBRA and Morningstar DBRS, and found private grades running two to three notches above public grades for the same loss risk. KBRA disputed the paper a week later: it measured accounting impairments rather than defaults, inferred inflation rather than measuring it, and by its own model implied about $4B of extra capital rather than the headline $4.5B. Moody's has its own numbers on the size of the pool: life insurers' private and illiquid bonds reached about $807B at the end of 2025, about a fifth of their fixed income. **If insurers can keep using cheaper private ratings for capital, the leveraged borrower that pays the duopoly's richest fee has a route around it.** If the NAIC tightens, that route narrows.

**The evidence on private ratings, the rebuttal, and where the regulator stands.**

| Finding | Figure | Source and date |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Life insurers' privately rated assets | About $481B, roughly 12% of rated credit at end-2025, up from under 2% in 2018 | Columbia study, posted June 2026, not peer-reviewed |
| Private grades against public grades for the same loss risk | Two to three notches higher | Columbia study, June 2026 |
| Extra capital insurers would need | About $4.5B (study headline); about $4B (KBRA's reading of the study's own model) | Columbia study and KBRA response, June 2026 |
| Earlier NAIC staff review of 109 privately rated securities | Private ratings averaged three notches above staff ratings; report withdrawn after industry pushback | As reported June 2026 |
| Life insurers' private and illiquid bonds | About $807B, about 20% of a $4T fixed-income portfolio, up from $685B | Moody's Ratings report, June 8, 2026 |
| NAIC Credit Rating Provider due-diligence framework | Revised draft exposed October 1; comments close October 26; adoption targeted before end-2026; remedies can include requiring more than one rating for private-letter securities | Mayer Brown, October 15, 2026 |

_Figures as of October 15, 2026. Source: [Inflated 'Private' Ratings Are Masking Credit Risk, Columbia Study Says](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2026/06/10/inflated-private-ratings-masking-credit-risk-columbia-study); [KBRA disputes findings of Columbia private-credit risk paper](https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/reinsurance/news/breaking-news/kbra-disputes-findings-of-columbia-privatecredit-risk-paper-579246.aspx); [US life insurers' private credit push is creating liquidity and concentration risks, Moody's warns](https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/life-insurance/us-life-insurers-private-credit-push-is-creating-liquidity-and-concentration-risks-moodys-warns-578168.aspx); [NAIC Credit Rating Provider (E) Working Group Moves Toward Adoption of Due Diligence Framework](https://www.mayerbrown.com/fr/insights/publications/2026/10/naic-credit-rating-provider-e-working-group-moves-toward-adoption-of-due-diligence-framework)._

## Three dated checks

**The dated checks on this argument.**

| When | What | What would count against the argument |
| --- | --- | --- |
| October 27, 2026 | S&P Global reports Q3 2026 | Ratings revenue up 5% or more while S&P describes leveraged finance as down |
| By December 31, 2026 | NAIC adopts or defers its rating-provider due-diligence framework | This one cuts the other way: a framework requiring a second rating for private-letter securities would favour the incumbents |
| Q4 2026 results, early 2027 | Moody's assumes issuance down mid-teens and MIS revenue up low single digits | MIS revenue up 5% or more with high-yield and leveraged-loan issuance both still down |

_Figures as of October 24, 2026. Source: [S&P Global Schedules Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Announcement and Conference Call for Tuesday, October 27, 2026](https://press.spglobal.com/2026-09-29-S-P-Global-Schedules-Third-Quarter-2026-Earnings-Announcement-and-Conference-Call-for-Tuesday,-October-27,-2026); [Moody's (MCO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript](https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/10/21/moodys-mco-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript/); [NAIC Credit Rating Provider (E) Working Group Moves Toward Adoption of Due Diligence Framework](https://www.mayerbrown.com/fr/insights/publications/2026/10/naic-credit-rating-provider-e-working-group-moves-toward-adoption-of-due-diligence-framework)._

> **RISK** — What would break this, in order of how soon it could show up: (1) S&P Global's Ratings segment growing strongly on October 27 despite weak leveraged finance, which would make Q3 a Moody's-specific soft patch; (2) the AI build's next funding round arriving as high-yield and project debt, which turns AI into the leveraged customer this piece says pays the fee; (3) a quarter in which investment-grade volume alone lifts MIS revenue by 5% or more.

## Hold the mandate, watch the leveraged borrower

Nothing in Q3 touches the reasons the framework rates the agencies' moats as it does, and the matrix reads the same as before the print. The refresh of the Moody's analysis that ships with this article moves only the ratings driver, from accelerating to decelerating, and leaves the moat and the price ladder alone. MCO is an IM25 holding in the book effective October 26, as is SPGI.

The adjustment is in what to read. A record month of hyperscaler bonds is not evidence that the agencies are winning the AI build, and a quiet quarter for the hyperscalers is not a threat to them. The numbers that move Moody's and S&P Global are high-yield and leveraged-loan issuance, the share of leveraged lending that stays private, and whether insurers can keep using private ratings on current terms after the NAIC decides. Moody's Analytics, which grew faster than the ratings business this quarter, depends on none of it; [S&P Global and the Half With the Moat](/research/sp-global-and-the-half-with-the-moat) argued the opposite split would hold, and one quarter of inversion is not the full year its own test asks for.

The lesson reaches past rating agencies. A mandate tells you a toll will be collected; it does not tell you which customer pays the most of it. When a protected franchise's biggest new customer is also its strongest negotiator, the volume headline will flatter the earnings, and the customer who matters is the one with the fewest alternatives.

## Sources

1. [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: third quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026066594/a3q26earningsrelease.htm) — Moody's (SEC filing), October 21, 2026 (filing)
2. [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: second quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026049104/a2q26earningsrelease.htm) — Moody's (SEC filing), July 22, 2026 (filing)
3. [Moody's Corporation Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1: first quarter 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001059556/000162828026026383/a1q26earningsrelease.htm) — Moody's (SEC filing), April 22, 2026 (filing)
4. [Moody's (MCO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript](https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/10/21/moodys-mco-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript/) — The Motley Fool, October 21, 2026 (transcript)
5. [Moody's (MCO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/moodys-mco-q3-2026-earnings-181345264.html) — Yahoo Finance, October 21, 2026 (transcript)
6. [Moody's Q3 2026 revenue $2.02 billion, earnings miss](https://grafa.com/en/news/united-states/moodys-q3-2026-revenue-2-02-billion-earnings-miss) — Grafa, October 21, 2026 (third-party)
7. [S&P Global Schedules Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Announcement and Conference Call for Tuesday, October 27, 2026](https://press.spglobal.com/2026-09-29-S-P-Global-Schedules-Third-Quarter-2026-Earnings-Announcement-and-Conference-Call-for-Tuesday,-October-27,-2026) — S&P Global, September 29, 2026 (press-release)
8. [Inflated 'Private' Ratings Are Masking Credit Risk, Columbia Study Says](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2026/06/10/inflated-private-ratings-masking-credit-risk-columbia-study) — Advisor Perspectives (Bloomberg), June 10, 2026 (third-party)
9. [KBRA disputes findings of Columbia private-credit risk paper](https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/reinsurance/news/breaking-news/kbra-disputes-findings-of-columbia-privatecredit-risk-paper-579246.aspx) — Insurance Business, June 17, 2026 (third-party)
10. [US life insurers' private credit push is creating liquidity and concentration risks, Moody's warns](https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/life-insurance/us-life-insurers-private-credit-push-is-creating-liquidity-and-concentration-risks-moodys-warns-578168.aspx) — Insurance Business, June 8, 2026 (third-party)
11. [NAIC Credit Rating Provider (E) Working Group Moves Toward Adoption of Due Diligence Framework](https://www.mayerbrown.com/fr/insights/publications/2026/10/naic-credit-rating-provider-e-working-group-moves-toward-adoption-of-due-diligence-framework) — Mayer Brown, October 15, 2026 (third-party)

## Revisions

- **October 27, 2026** — S&P Global reported Q3 on October 27, the first dated check in this piece. Its Ratings revenue grew 2% (transaction +1%), short of the 5% that would count against the argument, so the claim holds. See the [S&P Global Q3 note](/research/sp-global-q3-and-the-capital-iq-review).
- **October 24, 2026** — Published.

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