Why S&P Global Stock Is Up Today

S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI) easily surpassed expectations for the fourth quarter and provided a better-than-expected outlook for 2025. Investors are cheering the results, sending shares of the financial data company up more than 3% as of 2 p.m. ET.

Strong results across the board

S&P Global provides credit ratings, financial data, and indexes, including the benchmark S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC). The company earned $3.77 per share in the fourth quarter on revenue of $3.59 billion, surpassing Wall Street's expectations for $3.47 per share in earnings on sales of $3.5 billion.

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All the company's segments reported growth in 2024, and S&P's operating margin in the quarter improved by 830 basis points to 36.5%.

For the full year, net income increased by 22% to $4.9 billion. And much of that cash was returned to shareholders in the form of $1.1 billion in dividends and $3.3 billion in share repurchases.

Is S&P Global a buy?

S&P Global sees its momentum continuing into 2025. The company forecast full-year revenue growth of between 5% and 7%, and said it expects to earn between $17 and $17.25 per share for the year. That's more ambitious than Wall Street's $16.92-per-share consensus estimate.

Investors are understandably excited, because S&P reiterated its target to return 85% or more of the cash it generates to shareholders.

S&P Global shares are up 445% over the past decade, easily outpacing the 193% performance of the S&P 500 index it maintains. The latest results suggest S&P Global can continue to be a solid performer from here.

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Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends S&P Global. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.