Good day, and welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Moody’s Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded and that all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the request of the company, we will open the conference up for question and answers following the presentation. I will now turn the conference over to Salli Schwartz, Global Head of Investor Relation and Strategic Capital Management. Please go ahead ma'am.

Thank you. Good morning everyone. And thanks for joining us on this teleconference to discuss Moody’s fourth quarter and full years 2018 results, as well as our current outlook for full year 2019. I am Salli Schwartz, Global Head of Investor Relations and Strategic Capital Management. This morning, Moody’s released its results for the fourth quarter and full year 2018, as well as our current outlook for full year 2019. The earnings press release and a presentation to accompany this teleconference are both available on our Web site at ir.moodys.com. Ray McDaniel, Moody's President and Chief Executive Officer will lead this morning conference call. Also making prepared remarks on the call this morning is Mark Kaye, Moody’s Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During this call, we will also be presenting non-GAAP or adjusted figures. Please refer to the tables at the end of our earnings release filed this morning for a reconciliation between all adjusted measures mentioned during this call and GAAP. Before we begin, I call your attention to the Safe Harbor language, which can be found toward the end of our earnings release. Today's remarks may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of the private securities litigation Reform Act of 1995. In accordance with the Act, I also direct your attention to the management's discussion and analysis section and the risk factors discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 and another SEC filings made by the company, which are available on our Web site and on the SEC's Web site. These together with the Safe Harbor statements set forth important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any such forward looking statements. I would also like to point out that members of the media maybe on the call this morning in a listen only mode. I'll now turn the call over to Ray McDaniel.

Thank you, Sally. Good morning. And thank you to everyone for joining today's call. As we begin, I would like to note that we have revised our approach to our earnings call to focus more of our commentary on the factors underlying our financial results. We hope you will find this helpful and as always welcome your feedback. Additionally, we have changed our disclosure of certain guidance metrics in an effort to provide greater transparency in areas that are most relevant and predictable. Mark Kaye will go into greater detail and the guidance changes shortly. I will begin by summarizing Moody's full year and fourth quarter 2018 financial results. Mark will then follow with comments on our outlook for 2019. After our prepared remarks, we’ll be happy to respond to your questions. During full year 2018, Moody's achieved strong results, driven by robust performance of Moody's analytics, prudent expense management and the benefit of a lower effective tax rate offsetting weaker than expected global debt issuance in the fourth quarter. Full year 2018 adjusted operating margins increased across the corporation, including at both Moody’s Investor Service and Moody's Analytics. Adjusted diluted EPS grew 22% year-over-year. In the fourth quarter, Moody's total revenue declined 9%. As you're aware, we experienced a difficult issuance environment with high yield bond activity, the weakest since the global financial crisis. MA revenue, which does not correlate with debt capital markets activity, grew 5% led by strong RD&A performance. Despite top line softness in MIS, Moody's Corporation adjusted operating margin increased by 40 basis points for the quarter. Our improved operating leverage combined with a lower effective tax rate grew adjusted diluted EPS by 8% year-over-year. As you can see in the charts on Slide 7, adjusted operating margin increased in both MIS and MA by…

Thank you. As I alluded to you at an industry conference call in late 2018, we are enhancing the transparency around certain of our guidance metrics, while at the same time curtailing other metrics where we feel there is less value to providing them, or they are inherently difficult to accurately predict. For 2019, we have added MIS and MA adjusted operating margin segment guidance, as well as net interest expense guidance. We removed Reis revenue guidance at the sub-segments or line of business level. I want to emphasize that our reporting of actual results will remain unchanged. And in particular, we will keep reporting sub-segment revenue results every quarter in our earnings press releases and in our SEC filings. Moody's outlook for 2019 is based on assumptions about many geopolitical conditions and macroeconomic and capital market factors, including but not limited to, interest in foreign currency exchange rates, corporate profitability and business investment spending, mergers and acquisition, and the level of debt capital markets activity. These assumptions are subject to uncertainty and results for the year could defer materially from our current outlook. Our guidance assumes foreign currency translation at the end of the fourth quarter 2018 exchange rates. Specifically, our full cost reflects exchange rates for the British pound of $1.27 and for the euro of $1.14. Slide 18 outlines variety of drivers we considered when setting up 2019 guidance. I will mention a few key items now. For MIS, we believe that stable economic fundamentals of GDP growth of 2% to 3% in the U.S. and 1% to 2% in Europe will underpin global debt issuance activity. However, market volatility may moderate the pace of new mandates includes their ability in annual global debt issuance. For MA, product innovations will unable sustained core RD&A growth. ERS revenue…

Thank you, Mark. This concludes our prepared remarks. And joining with Mark and me for the question-and-answer session are Mark Almeida, President of Moody's Analytics and Rob Fauber, President of Moody's Investors Service. We'd be pleased take any questions you may have questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Manav Patnaik with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Our next question comes from Alex Kramm with UBS. Please go ahead.

And our next question is with Peter Appert with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from George Tong with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Tim McHugh with William Blair. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Joseph Foresi with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Bill Warmington with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Dan Dolev with Nomura. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners. Please go ahead.

And our next question comes from Alex Kramm with UBS. Please go ahead.

And Mr. Ray McDaniel there are no further questions at this time.

Okay. Just want to thank everyone for joining us on the call today and we look forward to speaking to you again in the spring. Thank you.

This concludes Moody's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 earnings call. As a reminder, immediately following this call, the Company will post the MIS revenue breakdown under the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 earning section of the Moody's IR homepage. Additionally, a replay of this call will be available after 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Moody's IR website. Thank you.