Consumer & Retail

Last Updated: 10 August 2026

Haleon is what was left when GSK and Pfizer decided their consumer health joint venture was worth more on its own. Demerged in July 2022, it owns Sensodyne, Panadol, Advil, Centrum, Voltaren and Otrivin, and sells them in around 100 markets. The investment question four years on is unusually crisp. Underlying volumes and prices are growing, margins are expanding, and the company generates roughly £2bn of cash a year. Yet reported revenue has now fallen in three consecutive years, because currency translation and the sale of non-core brands have swamped the underlying growth. This report lays out what the accounts say, what management has committed to, and what would have to change for either side of that argument to win. It contains no analyst ratings and no price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Haleon plc
Listings	London Stock Exchange (HLN) and New York Stock Exchange ADR (HLN, 1 ADR equals 2 ordinary shares)
Share class	Ordinary shares of £0.01 each, ISIN GB00BMX86B70
Sector	Consumer healthcare — over-the-counter medicines, oral health and supplements
Revenue (FY2025)	£11,030m, organic growth of 3.0%, reported growth of -1.8%
Operating profit (FY2025, IFRS)	£2,412m, up 9.3%; adjusted operating profit £2,526m
Profit attributable to shareholders (FY2025)	£1,667m, up 15.6%
Diluted EPS (FY2025)	18.5p; adjusted diluted EPS 18.8p
Dividend per share (FY2025)	7.1p, up 7.6%
Net debt (30 June 2026)	£7,513m, 2.5x adjusted EBITDA
CEO / Leadership	Brian McNamara, Chief Executive Officer; Dawn Allen, Chief Financial Officer; Vindi Banga, Chair from 1 January 2026
Employees	24,535 at 31 December 2025
Registered office	Building 5, First Floor, The Heights, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 0NY
Shares in issue (31 July 2026)	8,820,906,422 ordinary shares; 8,809,026,622 voting rights
Next scheduled update	Q3 2026 trading statement, 29 October 2026

All financial statement figures are taken from Haleon's own results announcements, its Annual Report and its Form 20-F filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 13 March 2026.

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

Category leadership in defensive niches: Oral Health, the largest category at 31 per cent of revenue, grew 7.9 per cent organically in 2025 and 7.3 per cent in the first half of 2026, led by Sensodyne and parodontax. Around 73 per cent of the business gained or maintained market share in the year to May 2026.
Margin expansion is being delivered, not just promised: adjusted gross margin rose 220 basis points at constant currency in 2025 and a further 140 basis points in the first half of 2026, underwritten by a supply chain programme targeting £800m of gross savings by 2030 and by stock-keeping unit reductions of approximately 27 per cent since the start of 2024.
Emerging markets provide a long runway: emerging markets grew 6.4 per cent organically in 2025 and 6.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, and the company is building capacity behind it with a £175m oral health site in Madhya Pradesh and a £65m plant in Shanghai. Rural Indian distribution has more than doubled to 600,000 outlets.
Cash generation supports both deleveraging and returns: operating cash flow reached £2,634m in 2025, net debt fell £644m to £7,263m and leverage improved to 2.6 times, while £500m was allocated to buybacks in each of 2025 and 2026 and the dividend rose 7.6 per cent.

Bear Case

Reported revenue has fallen for three straight years: £11,302m in 2023, £11,233m in 2024 and £11,030m in 2025. Organic growth has been real but currency translation cost 2.8 per cent in 2025 and divestments a further 2.0 per cent, so shareholders have not yet seen top-line growth in sterling.
North America is not working: the largest single region shrank 0.4 per cent organically in 2025 and grew only 2.0 per cent in the first half of 2026, with management citing a weakening consumer environment, labour market concerns and trade-down away from discretionary categories.
Ingredient and litigation risk is live, not theoretical: on 30 July 2026 the US Second Circuit revived the "Maximum Strength" and branded new drug application claims in the oral phenylephrine class actions, in which Haleon US Holdings LLC is a named defendant, and remanded them for further proceedings. The FDA's proposed order removing oral phenylephrine has still not been finalised.
The competitive set is consolidating around it: Kimberly-Clark's agreed acquisition of Kenvue, valued at approximately US$48.7bn enterprise value, remains pending, and Procter & Gamble agreed on 4 August 2026 to buy the supplements maker Thorne for US$3.8bn in a process Haleon was reported to have contested and lost.
The rating already reflects the quality: the shares trade at roughly 20 times trailing reported earnings and around 14 times enterprise value to EBITDA against organic revenue growth guided at 3 to 5 per cent for 2026, leaving limited room for disappointment on the margin programme.

3. Business Segments

Haleon manages the business by product category and reports segment profit by region. Following a change announced on 1 May 2025 there are six categories, with Therapeutic Skin Health separated out and prior years restated. Percentages below are calculated from FY2025 revenue of £11,030m.

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Oral Health	31.4% (£3,461m)	Sensodyne for sensitivity including the Clinical range, parodontax for gum health, Polident and Poligrip denture care, and Aquafresh. Organic growth of 7.9% in FY2025, the strongest category.
Pain Relief	23.2% (£2,564m)	Panadol paracetamol, Advil ibuprofen, Voltaren topical diclofenac and Excedrin. Organic growth of 2.3% in FY2025, with Panadol mid single digit and Advil flat.
Respiratory Health	17.0% (£1,873m)	Otrivin nasal care, Theraflu, Robitussin, Flonase allergy and the Smokers' Health business. Down 11.7% reported in FY2025, of which 8.1 points was the divestment of the non-US nicotine replacement business.
Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements	15.3% (£1,685m)	Centrum multivitamins, Caltrate calcium and Emergen-C immunity. Organic growth of 1.9% in FY2025, with Centrum and Emergen-C mid single digit and Caltrate flat.
Digestive Health	8.9% (£987m)	Tums, Benefiber, ENO and Nexium. Organic growth of 0.5% in FY2025; Tums and Benefiber grew while ENO fell on a double-digit decline in Brazil.
Therapeutic Skin Health and Other	4.2% (£460m)	Zovirax, Fenistil, Abreva and Bactroban. Down 9.8% reported in FY2025, of which 8.7 points was the ChapStick divestment.

Geographically, FY2025 revenue split into EMEA and LatAm £4,592m (42 per cent, organic growth 4.7 per cent), North America £3,866m (35 per cent, organic growth -0.4 per cent) and Asia Pacific £2,572m (23 per cent, organic growth 5.2 per cent). From January 2026 the reporting regions changed to North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and a new International segment covering Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Haleon buys active ingredients and packaging, manufactures at scale, and sells branded over-the-counter products through pharmacies, grocers and increasingly through e-commerce. Gross margin was 64.2 per cent on an IFRS basis in 2025 and 65.9 per cent in the first half of 2026. Around 20.5 per cent of revenue goes back out as advertising and promotion, which is the single largest discretionary cost and the mechanism that keeps the brands front of mind. What is left after selling, general and administrative costs of £4,364m and research spend of £316m produced £2,412m of IFRS operating profit in 2025.

Where the moat sits. Two things protect the economics. The first is regulatory: an over-the-counter medicine sold on a monograph or a marketing authorisation cannot be copied instantly, and decades of clinical dossiers behind brands like Sensodyne and Voltaren create a barrier that a private-label entrant cannot cheaply cross. The second is habit. These are low-ticket, repeat-purchase products bought in moments of discomfort, where consumers reach for a name they recognise rather than compare labels. That combination is why the company can take 2.3 percentage points of price in a year, as it did in 2025, with volume and mix still positive.

The strategic bet on the incidence gap. Management's stated growth thesis is that far more people have a condition than treat it. In China, on the company's own figures, 75 per cent of adults experience gum problems but only 40 per cent seek treatment. Closing that gap is the logic behind rolling the Sensodyne Clinical range into 30 markets, piloting parodontax across 19 Chinese cities, and putting a 20-rupee Sensodyne pack into more than 500,000 Indian stores, where affordable formats now account for over 40 per cent of tubes sold.

The cost of ownership. The business carries £25,613m of goodwill and intangibles against £16,425m of equity, a legacy of the brands transferred from GSK and Pfizer, and it carried £8,252m of borrowings at 30 June 2026. That leverage is manageable at 2.5 times adjusted EBITDA and close to the stated optimal level of around 2.5 times, but it does mean the equity is geared to any impairment of those brand values.

5. Financial Health

Haleon reports in pounds sterling and its financial year is the calendar year. It publishes full profit and loss statements half-yearly and revenue-only trading statements for the first and third quarters.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	9,545	-3.5%	15.1p	17.9p	Nil†	£87m
FY2022	10,858	+13.8%	11.5p	18.4p	2.4p	£10,003m
FY2023	11,302	+4.1%	11.3p	17.3p	6.0p	£8,800m
FY2024	11,233	-0.6%	15.7p	17.9p	6.6p	£8,640m
FY2025	11,030	-1.8%	18.5p	18.8p	7.1p	£7,773m

GAAP EPS is diluted earnings per share under IFRS and Adjusted EPS is the company's own adjusted diluted earnings per share. The long-term debt column is long-term borrowings at each year end, as tagged in Haleon's own filings. Total borrowings including the current portion were £8,609m at 31 December 2025 and £8,252m at 30 June 2026, and net debt was £7,263m and £7,513m respectively.

† FY2021 pre-dates the demerger, which completed on 18 July 2022. Those figures are the audited combined carve-out financial statements of the GSK Consumer Healthcare group as published in the June 2022 prospectus, not statutory Haleon plc consolidated accounts, and earnings per share was restated retrospectively under IAS 33 for the shares issued at demerger. No ordinary dividend was paid in respect of 2021 or as an interim in 2022; the maiden dividend was the 2.4p final declared for the period since listing. FY2021 was also a net cash position of £246m rather than net debt, since the £9.9bn of borrowings was raised at the demerger.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H1 2026	£5,602m	10.3p	8.5p
H2 2025	£5,550m‡	9.6p‡	9.6p‡
H1 2025	£5,480m	9.2p	8.9p
FY2025 total	£11,030m	18.8p	18.5p

‡ Second half 2025 figures are derived as the full year less the first half, since Haleon publishes a profit and loss statement only half-yearly. For reference, first quarter 2026 revenue was £2,857m with organic growth of 2.2 per cent.

First half 2026 in detail: revenue rose 2.2 per cent reported and 2.6 per cent organically, with price contributing 2.1 points and volume and mix 0.5 points. Adjusted operating profit reached £1,364m, up 8.2 per cent at constant currency, and the adjusted operating margin improved 120 basis points to 24.3 per cent. IFRS operating profit fell 2.6 per cent to £1,172m because of £169m of restructuring costs, almost all relating to the new operating model. Free cash flow was £769m and the interim dividend rose 9 per cent to 2.4p. Full-year 2026 guidance was left unchanged at 3 to 5 per cent organic revenue growth and high single-digit adjusted operating profit growth at constant currency, with the currency assumption improved from a headwind at the February results to slightly positive.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, August 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	0.77% of issued share capital on the London ordinary line, being the Financial Conduct Authority aggregate net short position with a position date of 29 July 2026. Under the UK Short Selling Regulations 2025, effective 13 July 2026, individual position holders are no longer named. The New York ADR line separately shows 0.29% of float.

7. What Are They Building

The strategic framework, set out at the Capital Markets Day on 1 May 2025 and repeated unchanged at both the FY2025 and half-year 2026 results, is called Win as One and rests on growth, productivity and culture. The stated ambition is to reach one billion more consumers by 2030. The medium-term financial guidance attached to it is 4 to 6 per cent annual organic revenue growth, high single-digit adjusted operating profit growth at constant currency, and 50 to 80 basis points a year of average adjusted gross margin expansion at constant currency, with leverage held at around 2.5 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA and the dividend growing at least in line with adjusted earnings.

The productivity leg is the more concrete of the two. A supply chain programme is targeting £800m of gross savings by 2030, and the progress markers are specific: stock-keeping units down approximately 27 per cent since the start of 2024 against a 30 per cent target for 2028, formulations down approximately 26 per cent against a 25 to 30 per cent target, packaging specifications down 22 per cent, overall equipment effectiveness improved by seven points during 2025, and more than 180 robots installed across the network in eighteen months. Artwork production was consolidated into a single centre in Poland at half the previous cost. A separate, earlier £300m productivity programme concluded during 2025.

On 8 January 2026 the company announced an operating model change that created a Chief Growth Officer role, filled by Filippo Lanzi, and six operating units: North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Latin America, the Indian subcontinent and Asia Pacific. Expected annualised gross cost savings are approximately £175m to £200m over two years, one third landing in 2026 and the remainder in 2027, with one-time costs broadly in line with the annualised savings and weighted to 2026. The £169m restructuring charge in the first half of 2026 is the first tranche of that.

Capital is also going into physical capacity in the two markets management considers structurally underpenetrated. A £175m oral health plant in Madhya Pradesh, India, announced on 8 June 2026, is expected to open in early 2028 and support an ambition of more than three million rural outlets by 2030. A £65m oral health plant in the Shanghai Lingang New Area was announced in March 2026. Capital expenditure guidance has been raised to approximately 4 per cent of revenue over the next three to five years, from 3.7 per cent in 2025.

8. Competitive Landscape

Haleon competes with the consumer health arms of far larger household goods groups and with a directly comparable pure play in Kenvue. Market capitalisations below were checked on 10 August 2026.

Peer	Key 2025 metric
Procter & Gamble (PG)	FY2026 to 30 June 2026 net sales of US$87.0bn, up 3%, organic growth 1%; agreed on 4 August 2026 to acquire Thorne for US$3.8bn
Unilever (ULVR)	FY2025 turnover of €50.5bn, down 3.8% reported; underlying sales growth 3.5% with volume up 1.5%
Colgate-Palmolive (CL)	FY2025 record net sales of US$20.38bn; organic sales growth 1.4%; GAAP EPS US$2.63, down 25% on goodwill and intangible charges
Kenvue (KVUE)	FY2025 net sales of US$15,124m, down 2.1% reported and 2.2% organic; agreed acquisition by Kimberly-Clark at approximately US$48.7bn enterprise value remains pending
Reckitt Benckiser (RKT)	FY2025 net revenue of £14,205m, up 0.3% reported and 5.0% like-for-like; adjusted operating margin 24.9%, up 40 basis points

The closest comparison is Kenvue, the Johnson & Johnson consumer spin-off, which is larger by revenue but shrank organically in 2025 while Haleon grew 3.0 per cent. Kenvue shareholders approved a sale to Kimberly-Clark on 29 January 2026, and the transaction was still awaiting European antitrust clearance in August 2026 with closing expected in the second half of the year. If it completes, Haleon becomes the only large listed pure-play consumer health company in the sector. Reckitt is the nearer comparison on margin, running at 24.9 per cent adjusted operating margin against Haleon's 22.9 per cent in 2025. Watch upcoming results dates on our Economic Calendar.

9. Insider Activity

Chief Executive Officer Brian McNamara has been in post since May 2022 and remains the largest individual insider holder, with 1,758,809 ordinary shares plus 327,826 American depositary shares following his May 2026 dividend reinvestment. The characterisation of the 2026 dealings matters: every sale recorded below is an automatic disposal to settle income tax arising on the vesting of a share award, not a discretionary decision to reduce a holding. The only voluntary open-market transactions by directors and senior managers in 2026 have been purchases, through dividend reinvestment and the employee Share Reward Plan.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Brian McNamara	23 Mar 2026	Sale	704,974	Automatic sale to cover tax on Performance Share Plan vesting
Brian McNamara	23 Mar 2026	Sale	63,012	Automatic sale to cover tax on Deferred Annual Bonus Plan vesting
Dawn Allen	30 Jun 2026	Sale	133,301	Automatic sale to cover tax on Performance Share Plan buyout vesting
Brian McNamara	19 May 2026	Purchase	24,891	Dividend reinvestment, ordinary shares
Dawn Allen	19 May 2026	Purchase	2,596	Dividend reinvestment, ordinary shares
Alan Stewart	14 May 2026	Purchase	498	Dividend reinvestment, ordinary shares
Jonathan Workman	10 Feb 2026	Purchase	32	Share Reward Plan partnership and matching shares

On 12 March 2026 McNamara was granted 1,813,680 conditional shares and Chief Financial Officer Dawn Allen 808,297, across the Performance Share Plan and the Deferred Annual Bonus Plan, at nil cost. The one change at the top of the house in the period was at board level rather than executive: Sir Dave Lewis stepped down as Chair on 31 December 2025 and Vindi Banga, a director since the demerger, succeeded him on 1 January 2026, with Alan Stewart becoming Senior Independent Director on the same date.

10. Key Risks

Material litigation and ingredient regulation: the US Second Circuit on 30 July 2026 vacated the dismissal of the "Maximum Strength" and branded new drug application claims in the oral phenylephrine multidistrict litigation and remanded them, with Haleon US Holdings LLC a named defendant over Advil Sinus Congestion and Pain, Robitussin and Theraflu products. Separately, Haleon has received and rejected indemnity notices relating to over-the-counter Zantac under the demerger purchase agreement, and its own filings acknowledge indemnification obligations to GSK and Pfizer that "could be significant".
Growth model and competitive intensity: Haleon's own first principal risk is failure to meet medium-term organic growth guidance. Sector growth is attracting new global and local entrants, international buying groups are consolidating retail power, and digital platforms are disrupting traditional channels, all of which pressures pricing and market share.
Consumer trade-down and regional weakness: North America shrank 0.4 per cent organically in 2025 on a weakening consumer backdrop, Europe grew only 0.6 per cent in the first half of 2026 with explicit value-seeking behaviour in Germany and central and eastern Europe, and Brazil saw a double-digit decline in ENO. Private label is the natural beneficiary in a trade-down.
Currency translation: sterling strength cost 2.8 per cent of reported revenue and 3.8 per cent of adjusted operating profit in 2025, and 2.1 per cent of revenue in the first quarter of 2026. Roughly 64 per cent of revenue comes from developed markets, so translation can continue to mask organic progress for extended periods.
Balance sheet gearing to brand values: goodwill and intangibles of £25,613m sit against equity attributable to owners of £16,425m, and the company flags in its own risk factors that these are a material component of the balance sheet and may be subject to impairment. A £14m Nexium impairment was taken in the first half of 2026.
Supply chain and product quality: a voluntary nationwide US recall of four lots of Gas-X Extra Strength Softgels was announced on 4 June 2026 after potential contamination with a diluted coolant from machine leakage during packaging. No adverse events were reported and the root cause was repaired, but it illustrates a recall risk the company lists among its principal risks.
Tariffs and geopolitical instability: Haleon's own emerging risk disclosure warns that further expansion of global tariffs and protectionism in 2026, including measures targeting the sector and export controls, could disrupt its supply chain and raise costs, and it notes that the complex political relationship between the US and China, its two largest markets, creates trade disruption and cash flow risk.

11. Recent Developments

04 Aug 2026 — Procter & Gamble wins Thorne. P&G agreed to acquire the US supplements maker Thorne for US$3.8bn in cash, expected to close later in 2026. Haleon had been reported in June 2026 as a bidder alongside P&G and Unilever at a valuation of up to US$4bn.
30 Jul 2026 — Half year results in line, guidance held. Revenue of £5,602m grew 2.6 per cent organically, adjusted operating profit rose 8.2 per cent at constant currency to £1,364m and adjusted diluted earnings per share rose 12.0 per cent to 10.3p. The interim dividend was raised 9 per cent to 2.4p and full-year guidance of 3 to 5 per cent organic revenue growth was reiterated, with the currency assumption improved to slightly positive.
30 Jul 2026 — US appeals court revives part of the phenylephrine litigation. The Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of most state law claims and the civil racketeering claim, but vacated dismissal of the "Maximum Strength" and branded new drug application claims and remanded them to the Eastern District of New York.
08 Jun 2026 — £175m investment in a first Indian manufacturing site. The oral health plant in Madhya Pradesh is phased from 2025 to 2029, expected to open in early 2028, and is intended to support up to 500 jobs and a rural distribution ambition of more than three million outlets by 2030.
04 Jun 2026 — Voluntary US recall of Gas-X softgels. Four lots of Gas-X Extra Strength Softgels 125mg were recalled at consumer level nationwide over potential contamination from packaging machine leakage. No adverse events were reported.
29 Apr 2026 — First quarter trading statement. Revenue of £2,857m grew 2.2 per cent organically against a weak cold and flu season worth an estimated 130 basis points of headwind, and full-year guidance was reiterated.
11 Mar 2026 — £65m Shanghai oral health plant announced. The new facility in the Lingang New Area followed completion in June 2025 of the purchase of the remaining 12 per cent of the Tianjin TSKF joint venture, taking the China over-the-counter business into full ownership at a cumulative cost of approximately £700m.
25 Feb 2026 — FY2025 results and a new buyback. Revenue of £11,030m grew 3.0 per cent organically, adjusted operating profit grew 10.5 per cent organically, the dividend rose 7.6 per cent to 7.1p and £500m was allocated to buybacks for 2026. Net debt fell £644m and leverage improved to 2.6 times.
08 Jan 2026 — Operating model evolution announced. A new Chief Growth Officer role and six operating units were created, targeting approximately £175m to £200m of annualised gross cost savings over two years.
01 Jan 2026 — Chair succession completed. Vindi Banga succeeded Sir Dave Lewis as Chair, with Alan Stewart becoming Senior Independent Director.

12. Key Dates to Watch

13 Aug 2026 — Ordinary shares go ex-dividend for the 2.4p 2026 interim dividend; the American depositary shares go ex-dividend on 14 August 2026
14 Aug 2026 — Record date for the 2026 interim dividend
19 Aug 2026 — Latest date for completion of the £500m 2026 share buyback programme, of which £457m had been executed by 30 June 2026
28 Aug 2026 — Dividend reinvestment plan election deadline for the interim dividend
17 Sep 2026 — 2026 interim dividend paid
29 Oct 2026 — Q3 2026 trading statement, the next scheduled financial update
Expected Feb 2027 — FY2026 results; the FY2025 results were released on 25 February 2026 and the 2027 date has not yet been published
Expected Apr 2027 — 2027 Annual General Meeting; the 2026 meeting was held on 29 April 2026

Two unscheduled items could move earlier than any of the above. The Kimberly-Clark acquisition of Kenvue was awaiting European antitrust clearance with closing guided to the second half of 2026, and the remanded phenylephrine claims return to the Eastern District of New York without a published timetable. Haleon has no capital markets day scheduled for the remainder of 2026; the last was held on 1 May 2025. Share views with other investors in our Forum.

Disclaimer: This research is produced by ChartsView for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is sourced from publicly available company filings, press releases, and official data. ChartsView does not use analyst opinions or third-party ratings. Always conduct your own due diligence and consider your personal financial situation before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Last Updated: 9 August 2026

Flutter Entertainment is the world's largest online gambling group by revenue, built around FanDuel in the United States and a portfolio of established local brands elsewhere — Sky Betting & Gaming and Paddy Power in the UK and Ireland, Sisal and Snai in Italy, Sportsbet in Australia, PokerStars internationally and Betnacional in Brazil. It is incorporated in Ireland, headquartered operationally in New York, reports in US dollars under US GAAP, and since 3 August 2026 trades on a single exchange: the New York Stock Exchange. The last twelve months have been unkind. FY2025 revenue grew 17% to $16.4bn and adjusted EBITDA rose 21%, but 2026 has brought two consecutive guidance cuts, a 45% fall in second-quarter adjusted EBITDA, a step-change in gambling taxes across the UK, the US and Brazil, the loss of India, and the announced departure of the chief executive who ran the company for nearly nine years. The shares closed at $94.74 on 7 August 2026, roughly 69% below their 52-week high. This report sets out what the filings actually say.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Ticker / exchange	FLUT (New York Stock Exchange) — sole listing since the LSE secondary listing was cancelled on 3 August 2026
Sector	Consumer discretionary — online sports betting, iGaming and lottery
Incorporation / operational HQ	Ireland (Dublin registered office); global operational headquarters at One Madison Avenue, New York
CEO / Leadership	Peter Jackson, Group CEO (steps down 30 September 2026); Dan Taylor becomes Group CEO on 1 October 2026; Rob Coldrake, CFO
Employees	28,518 as at 31 December 2025, across 27 countries (FY2025 Form 10-K, Human Capital Management)
Revenue (FY2025)	$16,383m, up 16.6% year on year
Adjusted EBITDA (FY2025)	$2,845m, a 17.4% margin
Net loss (FY2025)	$(407)m group; $(310)m attributable to Flutter shareholders
Market cap	~$16.4bn, based on 173.5m shares and the $94.74 close on 7 August 2026
Reporting currency / year end	US dollars; 31 December
Dividend	None. Capital is returned through a $5bn multi-year buyback programme authorised in September 2024
Filer status	US domestic filer (Forms 10-K and 10-Q), SEC CIK 0001635327

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

Number one position in the largest market: FanDuel held roughly 39% of US online sportsbook gross gaming revenue and about 27% of iGaming in the second quarter of 2026 in the states where it operates, and Flutter estimates FanDuel captures around 70% of total US market EBITDA across the whole competitive set.
Genuine diversification outside the US: International generated $9,416m of FY2025 revenue, 57% of the group, spread across the UK and Ireland, Italy, Australia, central and eastern Europe and Brazil. Italy in particular is a licensed, taxed, concession-based market where Sisal holds the leading online position.
Cost programme is being extended, not abandoned: alongside the second-quarter results Flutter announced a phase two programme targeting a further $500m of gross operating cost and capital expenditure savings by 2029, on top of a phase one $300m target that management says is running ahead of plan.
Capital still being returned while the multiple compresses: $1.37bn has been returned since the buyback programme began, the 2026 commitment of roughly $250m was completed in May, and the shares now trade at about 0.96 times trailing revenue and roughly 11.9 times FY2025 adjusted earnings per share.

Bear Case

Guidance has been cut twice this year: FY2026 group revenue guidance has fallen from $18.4bn at the February results to $18.305bn in May and $17.91bn in August, with adjusted EBITDA guidance down from $2.97bn to $2.655bn. US adjusted EBITDA guidance alone was cut from $1.05bn to $760m.
Second-quarter earnings deteriorated sharply: revenue grew only 3% to $4,326m while adjusted EBITDA fell 45% to $508m and US segment adjusted EBITDA fell 70% to $119m, with US sales and marketing spend up 61% year on year.
Leverage is well above target: net debt was $10,480m at the end of the second quarter of 2026 and the leverage ratio was 4.3 times, against a stated medium-term target range of 2.0 to 2.5 times, after the Snaitech, NSX and Boyd stake acquisitions.
Tax is rising in every major market at once: UK remote gaming duty rose from 21% to 40% in April 2026, UK general betting duty is legislated to rise from 15% to 25% in April 2027, Brazil's federal gross gaming revenue tax rose to 13% in January 2026 on a path to 15% by 2028, and the US federal deduction for gambling losses was capped at 90% of winnings from the 2026 tax year.
Prediction markets are taking share from the outside: CFTC-regulated venues such as Kalshi and Polymarket operate without state gaming licences or state betting taxes, and Flutter's own FanDuel Predicts joint venture with CME Group was restructured on 5 and 6 August 2026 to route sports contracts away from CME's venue after disappointing growth.

3. Revenue Segments

Flutter has two formal US GAAP reportable segments, U.S. and International, restructured with effect from the first quarter of 2025. International is disclosed at regional level rather than as separate reportable segments. Percentages below are of FY2025 group revenue of $16,383m.

Segment / region	% of revenue	What it is
U.S. ($6,967m)	42.5%	FanDuel and TVG — sportsbook, iGaming, daily fantasy sports, horse-race wagering and, since December 2025, prediction markets, across US states plus Ontario and Alberta in Canada.
UKI ($3,547m)	21.7%	Sky Betting & Gaming, Paddy Power, Betfair and tombola in the UK and Ireland, including 506 Paddy Power retail betting shops.
Southern Europe & Africa ($2,746m)	16.8%	Sisal, Snai and PokerStars Italy — Italian sports betting, iGaming and lottery concessions, plus Morocco and Türkiye.
APAC ($1,428m)	8.7%	Sportsbet in Australia, predominantly online sports and racing betting, plus Junglee in India until its forced closure in August 2025.
Other ($864m)	5.3%	PokerStars international poker outside Italy and Betfair exchange activity outside Brazil.
CEE ($604m)	3.7%	Adjarabet and MaxBet in Georgia, Armenia, Serbia and neighbouring markets.
Brazil ($227m)	1.4%	Betfair and Betnacional (NSX Group, 56% owned) — sports betting, iGaming and exchange betting in a newly regulated market.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Flutter takes the spread between amounts staked by customers and amounts paid out, which is gross gaming revenue, then deducts promotional spend to reach net revenue. The FY2025 product mix was 53% sportsbook, 44% iGaming and 3% other, and 88% of group revenue was online. Net revenue margin in the second quarter of 2026 was 8.7% in the US and 13.2% internationally, a blend of structural margin from product mix such as parlay penetration and the quarter-to-quarter variance of actual sports results against expected outcomes.

Where the moat is. The clearest asset is scale in a business where pricing accuracy, risk management and product velocity compound. Flutter calls the shared layer the Flutter Edge: a common technology, pricing and risk framework that FanDuel, Sky Betting & Gaming, Sportsbet, PokerStars, Sisal, Snai, Betfair and Betnacional all draw on while keeping local brands. FY2025 technology research and development spend was $991m, supported by roughly 7,500 technologists including about 3,500 software engineers across five in-house gaming studios.

What licences buy. Regulation is a barrier as much as a burden. The 10-K documents a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction licensing footprint covering the US state skins system, UK Gambling Commission licences, Italian concessions renewed for nine-year terms from November 2025, a 20-year Australian Northern Territory bookmaker licence renewed in 2025, and Brazilian licences valid to December 2029. That compliance estate is expensive to build and effectively closed to unlicensed operators — though, as section 10 sets out, it is precisely the barrier that CFTC-regulated prediction markets currently sidestep.

Charts for FLUT and its listed peers can be compared on ChartsView Live Charts.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are taken from Flutter's own earnings releases and its Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025, with balance sheet and cash flow items independently re-derived from the SEC XBRL company facts filing for CIK 0001635327.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022	9,463	n/a†	$(2.44)	$2.79	Nil	$6,750m‡
FY2023	11,790	+24.6%	$(6.89)	$3.51	Nil	$7,005m
FY2024	14,048	+19.1%	$0.24	$7.27	Nil	$6,683m
FY2025	16,383	+16.6%	$(1.75)	$7.94	Nil	$12,157m

† Flutter reported in sterling under IFRS for FY2021 and has not restated that year into US dollars under US GAAP, so no like-for-like FY2022 growth rate exists. FY2021 revenue as originally reported was £6,036m. ‡ The FY2022 figure is total borrowings as disclosed in the FY2023 earnings release; the FY2023 to FY2025 figures are non-current long-term debt from the balance sheet. Adding the current portion gives total debt of $7,056m, $6,736m and $12,266m respectively. Flutter has never paid an ordinary dividend.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q2 2026	$4,326m	$0.49	$(1.57)
Q1 2026	$4,304m	$1.22	$1.23
Q4 2025	$4,737m	$1.74	$(0.05)
Q3 2025	$3,794m	$1.64	$(3.91)
Q2 2025	$4,187m	$2.95	$0.59
Q1 2025	$3,665m	$1.59	$1.57
FY2025 total	$16,383m	$7.94	$(1.75)

Three quarters carry large one-off items that make the GAAP line misleading on its own. Q3 2025 includes a $556m non-cash impairment following India's ban on real-money gaming and a $205m payment to Boyd Gaming for revised US market-access terms. Q4 2025 includes a $342m year-on-year increase in income tax expense. Q2 2026 includes $95m of legal loss contingencies, being a $62m Indian goods and services tax provision after a Supreme Court of India judgment and a $33m US sales and use tax accrual, plus a $52m year-on-year increase in net interest expense from acquisition financing.

Cash generation is the weak point of the FY2025 accounts. Operating cash flow was $1,184m against $1,602m in FY2024, while capital expenditure rose to $777m — $105m of property and equipment, $162m of intangible assets and $510m of capitalised software. Depreciation and amortisation was $1,517m, of which $1,388m was amortisation of intangibles, most of it acquisition-related. Statutory operating income was just $36m after a $517m goodwill impairment.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, August 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	~$16.4bn (173,539,102 shares outstanding at the $94.74 close on 7 August 2026)
Enterprise value	~$26.9bn (market cap ~$16.4bn + total debt $12,266m − cash and cash equivalents $1,828m per the FY2025 balance sheet; Flutter holds no separately disclosed marketable securities)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	Not meaningful — FY2025 diluted EPS was $(1.75) and trailing-twelve-month GAAP EPS is also negative at $(4.26). On FY2025 adjusted EPS of $7.94 the multiple is ~11.9x
P/E (forward)	~11.9x on consensus FY2026 adjusted EPS of approximately $7.97. This is a consensus analyst estimate, not company guidance, and has been revised down twice since February
P/S (TTM)	~0.96x (market cap ~$16.4bn / trailing-twelve-month revenue of ~$17.16bn)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	~17.3x on GAAP EBITDA of $1,553m (FY2025 operating income $36m + depreciation and amortisation $1,517m from the cash flow statement). This is heavily distorted by the $517m goodwill impairment; on company-reported adjusted EBITDA of $2,845m the multiple is ~9.4x
P/FCF	~40x (market cap ~$16.4bn / free cash flow ~$407m; FCF = operating cash flow $1,184m − capital expenditure $777m per the FY2025 cash flow statement, where capex is $105m property and equipment plus $162m intangibles plus $510m capitalised software)
52-week high	$309.41
52-week low	$89.71
Short interest (% of float)	~10.1% — 14.16m shares short against a float of about 129m, on a mid-July 2026 settlement date, up from a much lower level earlier in the year
Days to cover	~5.3

7. What Are They Building

Prediction markets, now being rebuilt. FanDuel Predicts launched in December 2025 in five states through a joint venture with CME Group, which holds 51% of the venture. It expanded to sports event contracts in 18 states and non-sports contracts in all 50 states during the first quarter of 2026, and was integrated into the main FanDuel app. On 5 and 6 August 2026 the structure was reworked: sports event contracts move from CME's venue to the Nadex exchange operated by Crypto.com, with CME retaining its 51% equity stake but processing only non-sports contracts, which management says account for under 1% of app activity. Flutter has separately begun market-making across the wider prediction-market ecosystem, an activity it expects to generate about $50m of revenue in 2026 after $6m in the second quarter.

New markets. Missouri launched around December 2025 with FanDuel taking the leading position on both handle and gross gaming revenue. Arkansas launched early in 2026 ahead of plan. FanDuel launched sportsbook and iGaming in Alberta on 13 July 2026, which management reports has outpaced the earlier Ontario launch.

Integration work. Snaitech's online customer base completed migration onto the Sisal platform in April 2026, unlocking cost synergies. Flutter's pricing and product capability reached what management calls a key milestone on the Betnacional platform in Brazil in May 2026, though it temporarily depressed customer engagement, with Betnacional organic revenue down 14% year on year in the second quarter. PokerStars platform migrations and a unified central and eastern European technology stack continue through 2026.

Cost transformation phase two. Announced on 5 August 2026, targeting an additional $500m of gross operating cost and capital expenditure savings by 2029 to offset inflation and known tax headwinds. Further detail has been promised at the third-quarter results.

8. Competitive Position

Market capitalisations below were taken at the close on 7 August 2026.

Peer	Market cap (August 2026)	Key 2025 metric
DraftKings (DKNG)	$11.9bn	FY2025 revenue $6.05bn, up 27%, with a first full-year GAAP profit of $3.7m against a $507.3m loss in FY2024
MGM Resorts (MGM), 50% owner of BetMGM	$11.2bn	BetMGM FY2025 net revenue $2.8bn, up 33%, with its first full-year EBITDA of $220m
Churchill Downs (CHDN)	$6.1bn	Trailing-twelve-month revenue of approximately $2.99bn from racing, TwinSpires wagering and regional gaming venues
Rush Street Interactive (RSI)	$5.8bn	Trailing-twelve-month revenue of approximately $1.37bn across North and South America
Sportradar (SRAD)	$3.9bn	Trailing-twelve-month revenue of approximately $1.39bn supplying data and content to operators including Flutter
Entain (ENT.L)	—	FY2025 group net gaming revenue £6.4bn, up 7%, including its share of BetMGM
Bet365 (private)	Not listed — privately held by the Coates family	Revenue of £4.036bn, up 9%, for the year ended 30 March 2025

The relevant comparison is not simply revenue. FanDuel's share of US online sportsbook gross gaming revenue was roughly 39% in the second quarter of 2026, down from 41% across full-year 2025, with iGaming share at about 27%. Flutter's own disclosure estimates FanDuel captures around 70% of total US market EBITDA. Outside the US, Sportsbet holds roughly 45% to 50% of the Australian online market, UKI online share is around 30%, and Sisal extended its lead to six percentage points in the Italian online market in the fourth quarter of 2025.

9. Insider Activity

Chief executive Peter Jackson — who files under his full legal name Jeremy Peter Jackson — will step down on 30 September 2026 after nearly nine years, remaining an adviser to 31 December 2026. He is succeeded by Dan Taylor, currently President of Flutter and chief executive of Flutter International, on 1 October 2026. Rob Coldrake has been chief financial officer since 31 May 2024. The pattern in the table below is worth reading carefully: almost every disposal is a mechanical sale to fund tax withholding on vested restricted stock, while the discretionary transactions in May 2026 were purchases, made at prices between roughly $92 and $103 that are now above the market.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Peter Jackson (CEO)	08 May 2026	Buy	2,400	~$101.94	~$244,656	Open market
Peter Jackson (CEO)	11 May 2026	Sell	3,084	~$98.13	~$302,633	Tax withholding on RSU settlement
Don H. Liu (Chief Legal Officer)	08 May 2026	Buy	1,459	~$102.78	~$150,038	Open market
Dan Taylor (President, incoming CEO)	May 2026 (two transactions)	Buy	2,624	~$95.88 average	~$251,586	Open market
Lennon Carolan (Director)	28 May 2026	Sell	439	$94.63	~$41,543	Tax withholding on RSU settlement
Stefan Bomhard (Director)	May 2026	Sell	177	$94.63	~$16,749	Tax withholding on RSU settlement
Rob Coldrake (CFO)	08 May 2026	Sell	129	~$98.13	~$12,659	Tax withholding on RSU settlement

Sourced from SEC Form 4 filings for CIK 0001635327. Values are approximate where a weighted-average price was reported across multiple executions.

10. Key Risks

Tax escalation across every major market: UK remote gaming duty rose from 21% to 40% in April 2026, an estimated $320m gross hit to adjusted EBITDA before mitigation and around $235m after first-order mitigation, with UK general betting duty legislated to rise from 15% to 25% in April 2027 for a further gross impact of about $540m. Brazil's federal gross gaming revenue tax rose to 13% in January 2026 and is legislated to reach 15% by 2028.
Prediction markets bypassing the licensing regime: CFTC-regulated venues including Kalshi and Polymarket operate without state gaming licences or state betting taxes. Industry estimates put combined prediction-market volume at roughly $24bn a month by April 2026 against roughly $14bn a month wagered at legal US sportsbooks in 2025. Flutter's own joint venture response was restructured in August 2026 after disappointing growth.
Leverage above the stated target range: net debt of $10,480m and leverage of 4.3 times at the end of the second quarter of 2026, against a 2.0 to 2.5 times medium-term target, leaves less headroom for further acquisitions or for absorbing a sustained earnings shortfall, and drove a $52m year-on-year increase in net interest expense in the quarter.
Regulatory closure of entire markets: India's Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025 forced the complete cessation of Junglee real-money gaming from 22 August 2025, triggering a $556m impairment and a disclosed drag of $250m of revenue and $90m of EBITDA in 2026 alone. A further $62m Indian goods and services tax provision was booked in the second quarter of 2026.
US federal gambling loss deduction cap: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act limits gambling loss deductibility to 90% of winnings from the 2026 tax year, meaning break-even bettors can owe tax on notional income. Repeal bills have stalled in Congress, and the behavioural effect on high-volume customers will only become visible through the coming American football season.
Sports results variance and customer concentration: US handle is concentrated in the NFL, NBA and MLB, and Flutter's own disclosures quantify the swing — an unfavourable $33m revenue and $22m adjusted EBITDA impact from sports results in the first quarter of 2026 alone. A one-week delay to the NFL season start is a $75m revenue and $50m EBITDA headwind already built into guidance.
Fox Option and market-access dependency: Fox Corporation retains an option over 18.6% of FanDuel, exercisable to December 2030 at a base price of $4.8bn as at 31 December 2025 escalating 5% a year, with the pricing mechanism in dispute, and a 2022 arbitration ruling already found Flutter cannot pursue a FanDuel IPO without Fox's consent. Tethered-licence states still depend on skin partners such as Boyd Gaming.
Leadership transition at the worst possible moment: the chief executive change on 1 October 2026 coincides with a guidance cut, a US sportsbook improvement plan that is mid-execution and a newly announced multi-year cost programme, concentrating execution risk in a single quarter.

11. Recent Developments

26 Feb 2026 — FY2025 results and initial FY2026 guidance. Revenue rose 16.6% to $16,383m and adjusted EBITDA rose 21% to $2,845m, but the group reported a net loss of $407m after the India impairment. Initial FY2026 guidance was set at group revenue of $18.4bn and adjusted EBITDA of $2.97bn.
11 Mar 2026 — fifth buyback tranche launched. Up to $250m of repurchases through Goldman Sachs on the NYSE, running to 21 May 2026, as part of the $5bn programme authorised in September 2024.
06 May 2026 — first-quarter results and first guidance cut. Revenue rose 17% to $4,304m and net income was $209m, but FY2026 guidance was trimmed to $18.305bn of revenue and $2.865bn of adjusted EBITDA, citing unfavourable sports results and Arkansas launch costs. Dan Taylor was named President with oversight of FanDuel, Amy Howe departed and a review of the London listing was disclosed.
11 May 2026 — buyback tranche completed early. 2.4m shares repurchased, completing the $250m commitment for the first half of 2026 ahead of the 21 May deadline.
29 May 2026 — annual general meeting. Held at the Dublin headquarters, with all resolutions passed other than one relating to a preferred-shares amendment.
12 Jun 2026 — intention to delist from London announced. Flutter published its notice of intention to cancel the secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange, following the review disclosed at the first-quarter results.
13 Jul 2026 — FanDuel launches in Alberta. Online sportsbook and iGaming went live in the Canadian province, with management reporting performance significantly ahead of the earlier Ontario launch.
03 Aug 2026 — London listing cancellation completed. The secondary listing was cancelled at 08:00 UK time, with the final day of LSE trading on 31 July 2026. Flutter now trades solely on the NYSE.
05 Aug 2026 — second-quarter results and second guidance cut. Revenue grew only 3% to $4,326m, adjusted EBITDA fell 45% to $508m and the group reported a $296m net loss. FY2026 guidance was cut again to $17.91bn of revenue and $2.655bn of adjusted EBITDA, with US adjusted EBITDA guidance reduced to $760m. The shares fell about 11.5% to a new 52-week low.
05 Aug 2026 — chief executive transition announced. Peter Jackson will step down on 30 September 2026, with Dan Taylor becoming Group CEO on 1 October 2026 and joining the board. A phase two cost programme targeting a further $500m of savings by 2029 was announced the same day.
06 Aug 2026 — FanDuel Predicts joint venture restructured. Sports event contracts move from CME Group's exchange to the Nadex venue operated by Crypto.com. CME retains its 51% equity interest but its own venue now handles only non-sports contracts.

12. Key Dates to Watch

30 Sep 2026 — Peter Jackson steps down as Group CEO and leaves the board, moving to an advisory role
01 Oct 2026 — Dan Taylor becomes Group CEO and joins the board
Expected Nov 2026 — third-quarter 2026 results, at which management has promised further detail on the phase two cost transformation programme. The 2025 equivalent was published on 12 November
31 Dec 2026 — Peter Jackson's employment with Flutter formally ends
Expected Feb 2027 — fourth-quarter and full-year 2026 results, and initial FY2027 guidance. The FY2025 equivalent was published on 26 February 2026
Expected Apr 2027 — UK general betting duty on non-horseracing betting rises from 15% to 25%, a gross impact of about $540m before mitigation
Expected Jan 2028 — new Italian retail gaming concessions for slots, betting, bingo and scratch cards are expected to start, following tenders that could launch in late 2026 or early 2027

Two further items have no fixed date. Flutter has not yet published a confirmed calendar date for its third-quarter 2026 results, and the Fox Option dispute over the pricing mechanism for Fox Corporation's right to acquire 18.6% of FanDuel remains unresolved, with the option exercisable until December 2030. Macro events that move the whole sector are listed on the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and discussion of individual names continues in the ChartsView Forum.

Last Updated: 5 August 2026

The TJX Companies is the largest off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in the world, running more than 5,200 stores across ten countries under TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Sierra, Winners, HomeSense and TK Maxx. Fiscal 2026 was the first year the group passed $60 billion of net sales, and the first quarter of fiscal 2027 delivered a 6% comparable-sales increase with every one of its four divisions positive. This report sets out what the company reported, what it is building, and what the raw valuation numbers look like as of August 2026. It contains no analyst ratings and no price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Exchange / ticker	New York Stock Exchange — TJX
Sector / industry	Consumer Discretionary — off-price apparel and home fashions retail
Headquarters	770 Cochituate Road, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA (incorporated in Delaware)
Founded	First two TJ Maxx stores opened 1977; The TJX Companies, Inc. formed 1987, successor company from 1989
CEO / Leadership	Ernie Herrman, Chief Executive Officer and President (CEO since January 2016). Carol Meyrowitz, Executive Chairman. John Klinger, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Employees	Approximately 377,000 Associates as of 31 January 2026, of whom roughly 86% work in retail stores (FY2026 Form 10-K)
Revenue (FY2026, 52 weeks to 31 January 2026)	$60,372m net sales, up 7.1% year on year
Net income (FY2026)	$5,494m; GAAP diluted EPS $4.87; adjusted diluted EPS $4.73
Market cap	Approximately $174.0bn (share price $157.55 at the close on 4 August 2026, on 1,104.7m shares outstanding)
Store estate	5,214 stores at 31 January 2026; 5,262 stores and 137.4m gross square feet at 2 May 2026
Dividend	$0.48 per share quarterly, raised 13% on 30 March 2026; $1.92 annualised, a 1.22% yield at $157.55
Fiscal year end	Saturday closest to 31 January. FY2027 is the 52-week year ending 30 January 2027

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

Every division is comping positive: Q1 FY2027 group comparable sales rose 6%, with Marmaxx +6%, HomeGoods +9%, TJX Canada +7% and TJX International +4% — a rare clean sweep for a retailer of this size.
Margin is expanding, not just sales: FY2026 pretax margin reached 12.1% from 11.5%, and Q1 FY2027 pretax margin jumped 1.7 points to 12.0%. Gross margin improved to 31.3% from 29.5% in the quarter.
Buying advantage compounds in disrupted markets: TJX buys from roughly 21,000 vendors in more than 100 countries with a 1,400-strong buying organisation, and states in the 10-K that it has never had difficulty obtaining sufficient quality merchandise in either favourable or difficult retail environments.
Capital return is large and rising: $4.3bn returned in FY2026 ($2,522m of buybacks and $1,842m of dividends), a new $3.0bn repurchase authorisation approved in February 2026, and FY2027 buyback guidance raised in May to $2.75–$3.00bn.
Store runway is still long: management sees 7,000 stores of long-term potential in current geographies against 5,214 today, with 146 net new stores planned for FY2027 and TK Maxx having entered Spain in March 2026.

Bear Case

Growth is decelerating from here: FY2027 guidance calls for comparable sales of just 3–4% and diluted EPS of $5.08–$5.15 — roughly 7–9% growth off the adjusted FY2026 base of $4.73, well below the 14% GAAP EPS growth just delivered.
FY2026 earnings were flattered by a one-off: a credit-card interchange litigation settlement produced a $419m gain, offset by $198m of incentive and discretionary bonus costs, for a net $221m pretax benefit worth $0.14 of full-year EPS. Strip it out and FY2026 EPS grew 11%, not 14%.
Tariff policy is unresolved: the Supreme Court invalidated IEEPA tariffs on 20 February 2026, an executive order then imposed a new global tariff on top of existing non-IEEPA duties, and TJX says in its 10-K that it is still evaluating the impact and cannot quantify potential refunds.
Fuel and freight are turning against the model: on 20 May 2026 management deliberately withheld part of the Q1 beat from full-year guidance because the outlook now assumes higher fuel costs for the balance of the year, unfavourable to both pretax margin and EPS.
Insiders sold heavily into the high: in the first two weeks of June 2026 the CEO, Executive Chairman, CFO and two Group Presidents disposed of roughly $32m of stock at $157–$169, none of it under Rule 10b5-1 plans, and no insider bought a single share in 2026.

3. Business Segments

TJX reports four segments. Sierra is reported inside Marmaxx rather than separately. Figures are FY2026, the 52 weeks ended 31 January 2026.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Marmaxx	60.6% ($36,585m)	US TJ Maxx (1,348 stores), Marshalls (1,255) and Sierra (145), plus tjmaxx.com, marshalls.com and sierra.com. Segment profit $5,528m, a 15.1% margin; comparable sales +4%.
HomeGoods	16.9% ($10,172m)	US HomeGoods (963 stores) and Homesense (79). Home furnishings, decor, kitchen and seasonal. Segment profit $1,246m, a 12.2% margin; comparable sales +5%.
TJX International	13.2% ($7,986m)	TK Maxx across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands and, from March 2026, Spain (673 stores), Homesense Europe (74) and TK Maxx Australia (88). Segment profit $558m, a 7.0% margin; comparable sales +4%.
TJX Canada	9.3% ($5,629m)	Winners (316 stores), HomeSense (162) and Marshalls (111). Segment profit $757m, a 13.4% margin; comparable sales +7%.

By geography, FY2026 revenue was 78% United States, 12% Europe, 9% Canada and 1% Australia. By merchandise category it was roughly 44% apparel including footwear, 36% home fashions and 20% accessories including jewellery and beauty. All six branded e-commerce sites combined accounted for about 2% of total sales in both FY2026 and FY2025.

4. Business Model and Competitive Moat

How it makes money. TJX buys merchandise opportunistically — closeouts, manufacturer overruns, order cancellations and special production made directly by brands and factories — and sells it at prices generally 20% to 60% below what full-price retailers charge for comparable goods. It does not run sales or issue coupons. Pricing, markdowns and store inventory allocation are decided centrally. Cost of sales including buying and occupancy was 69.0% of net sales in FY2026 and SG&A 19.1%, producing a 12.1% pretax margin.

Why vendors sell to it. The 10-K sets out the mechanics explicitly. TJX will buy less-than-full assortments and any quantity, disperse merchandise across a geographically diverse store network, and pay promptly. Critically, it does not ask for the concessions traditional retailers demand — no advertising, promotional or markdown allowances, no delivery concessions, no performance-based return privileges. That combination, plus an A-rated balance sheet, makes TJX the buyer of choice when a brand needs to clear inventory quietly.

The inventory engine. The point of the treasure-hunt format is velocity. FY2026 cost of sales of $41,679m against year-end merchandise inventories of $7,297m implies roughly 5.7 turns. Selling floors are deliberately built without walls between departments and largely free of permanent fixtures so the mix can be reshuffled continuously, and buyers stay in the market year-round rather than committing seasons ahead. Some merchandise is bought specifically to be stored and released in a future season — the packaway programme.

The cost advantage. Advertising promotes the banners rather than individual products, which keeps marketing spend low as a percentage of sales relative to conventional retailers. Distribution runs across roughly 31 million square feet in six countries. E-commerce is deliberately kept at about 2% of sales rather than being scaled at the expense of store economics.

5. Financial Health

Annual figures below are from TJX's Form 10-K filings and quarterly earnings press releases. TJX labels each fiscal year by the calendar year in which it ends. FY2024 was a 53-week year; all others shown were 52 weeks.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2022 (to 29 Jan 2022)	$48,550m	+51.1%	$2.70	$2.85	$1.04	$3,355m
FY2023 (to 28 Jan 2023)	$49,936m	+2.9%	$2.97	$3.11	$1.18	$2,859m
FY2024 (to 3 Feb 2024, 53 weeks)	$54,217m	+8.6%	$3.86	$3.76	$1.33	$2,862m
FY2025 (to 1 Feb 2025)	$56,360m	+4.0%	$4.26	$4.26 †	$1.50	$2,866m
FY2026 (to 31 Jan 2026)	$60,372m	+7.1%	$4.87	$4.73	$1.70	$1,870m

† TJX published no non-GAAP earnings measure for FY2025; the GAAP figure is repeated in the adjusted column for that year only. FY2022 adjusted EPS excludes a $0.15 debt-extinguishment charge; FY2023 excludes a $0.14 charge for the write-down and divestiture of the Familia (Russia) minority investment; FY2024 excludes an estimated $0.10 benefit from the 53rd week, which is why adjusted sits below GAAP; FY2026 excludes a $0.14 net benefit from the credit-card interchange-fee litigation settlement. Long-term debt is the non-current balance; TJX also carried $500m of current-portion debt at FY2023 year end and $999m at FY2026 year end (2.25% Notes maturing September 2026).

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q1 FY2027 (13 wks to 2 May 2026)	$14,323m	$1.19 ‡	$1.19
Q4 FY2026 (13 wks to 31 Jan 2026)	$17,743m	$1.43	$1.58
Q3 FY2026 (13 wks to 1 Nov 2025)	$15,117m	$1.28 ‡	$1.28
Q2 FY2026 (13 wks to 2 Aug 2025)	$14,401m	$1.10 ‡	$1.10
FY2026 total (52 wks to 31 Jan 2026)	$60,372m	$4.73	$4.87

‡ No non-GAAP measure was published for these quarters; GAAP is repeated. Q1 FY2027 net sales rose 9% (8% in constant currency) on a 6% comparable-sales gain, with pretax margin of 12.0% against 10.3% a year earlier.

Cash generation for FY2026: operating cash flow $6,874m, capital expenditure $1,957m, free cash flow $4,917m, depreciation and amortisation $1,247m. The balance sheet at 31 January 2026 showed cash and equivalents of $6,230m against total debt of $2,869m, a net cash position of roughly $3.4bn, with total shareholders' equity of $10,190m. At 2 May 2026 cash stood at $5,580m, current-portion debt at $999m, non-current long-term debt at $1,871m and shareholders' equity at $10,403m. Operating lease liabilities were $10,620m at FY2026 year end. Interested readers can follow the price action on our Live Charts page.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, August 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Share price	$157.55 (close, 4 August 2026)
Market cap	~$174.0bn ($157.55 × 1,104.7m shares outstanding)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~30.7x on trailing-twelve-month GAAP diluted EPS of $5.14 (FY2026 $4.87 less Q1 FY2026 $0.92 plus Q1 FY2027 $1.19). On the equivalent adjusted TTM figure of ~$5.00 the multiple is ~31.5x.
P/E (forward)	~30.8x on management's own FY2027 diluted EPS guidance of $5.08–$5.15, midpoint $5.115, raised on 20 May 2026
P/S (TTM)	~2.83x (market cap ~$174.0bn / TTM revenue ~$61,584m)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	~20.3x (EV ~$171.3bn / FY2026 EBITDA ~$8,425m; EBITDA = operating income $7,178m + D&A $1,247m, where operating income is net sales $60,372m less cost of sales including buying and occupancy $41,679m less SG&A $11,515m). Operating lease liabilities of $10,620m are excluded from EV; including them lifts the multiple to roughly 21.6x.
P/FCF	~35.4x (market cap ~$174.0bn / FY2026 free cash flow $4,917m; FCF = operating cash flow $6,874m less capex $1,957m per the FY2026 cash flow statement). On trailing-twelve-month FCF of ~$5,477m the multiple is ~31.8x.
Enterprise value	~$171.3bn (market cap ~$174.0bn + total debt $2,870m − cash $5,580m, per the 2 May 2026 balance sheet)
Price/book	~16.7x (market cap ~$174.0bn / shareholders' equity $10,403m at 2 May 2026)
52-week high	$170.00, reached 11 June 2026
52-week low	$128.48, reached 5 August 2025
Dividend yield	1.22% ($1.92 annualised at $157.55)
Short interest (% of float)	1.63% (17.97m shares short against a 1,102.1m-share float)
Days to cover	2.97

7. What Are They Building

Store growth. The FY2026 10-K puts long-term store potential in current geographies at 7,000 against 5,214 open at year end — Marmaxx to 3,000, HomeGoods to 1,800, Sierra to 325, TJX Canada to 650 and TJX International to 1,225. The FY2027 plan is 146 net new stores: 45 net new Marmaxx plus 24 Sierra, 24 HomeGoods plus 11 Homesense, 13 in Canada, 19 net new in Europe and 10 in Australia. Forty-eight net stores were added in Q1 FY2027 alone.

Spain. TK Maxx opened its first stores in Spain in March 2026, taking the group to ten countries. Management has publicly described long-term potential of more than 100 stores there, leveraging existing European distribution and a field office already in the market.

Mexico and the Middle East. TJX holds a 49% stake in Multibrand Outlet Stores, a joint venture with Grupo Axo covering more than 200 off-price stores in Mexico under the Promoda, Reduced and Urban Store banners, acquired in Q3 FY2025 for $193m and carried at $218m. It also holds a 35% minority stake in Brands for Less, a Middle Eastern off-price retailer with over 100 stores, carried at $348m. Both are equity-method investments, and TJX holds an option to increase its Mexican ownership over time.

Supply chain and technology capex. FY2027 capital expenditure is guided to $2.2–$2.3bn, up from $1,957m, of which roughly $992m is earmarked for offices, distribution centres and IT systems, about $1.0bn for store renovations and about $222m for new stores. It is to be funded entirely from cash on hand and internally generated funds.

What it is not building. E-commerce remains deliberately capped at about 2% of sales across six branded sites. TJX has consistently argued that scaling online would dilute both the treasure-hunt proposition and the economics of the store estate.

8. Competitive Landscape

Market capitalisations below were checked live on 4 August 2026. TJX's FY2026 revenue of $60.4bn is roughly 2.7 times Ross Stores and 5.2 times Burlington.

Peer	Market cap (August 2026)	Key 2025 metric
Ross Stores (NASDAQ: ROST)	~$80.5bn ($251.06 at the 4 August 2026 close, 320.8m shares)	FY2025 (52 weeks to 31 January 2026) revenue $22,750.6m, net income $2,145.0m, diluted EPS $6.61, comparable store sales +5% (FY2025 Form 10-K, results released 3 March 2026)
Burlington Stores (NYSE: BURL)	~$23.1bn ($367.82 at the 4 August 2026 close, 62.8m shares)	FY2025 (to 31 January 2026) total revenue $11,566.9m, net income $610.2m, diluted EPS $9.51, total sales +9% and comparable store sales +2% (Burlington Q4 FY2025 results release)
Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR)	~$25.1bn ($130.71 at the 4 August 2026 close, 192.2m shares)	FY2025 (to 31 January 2026) net sales $19,395.7m, net income $1,282.5m, diluted EPS $6.22 (SEC XBRL company facts, CIK 935703)
Ollie's Bargain Outlet (NASDAQ: OLLI)	~$4.66bn ($77.10 at the 4 August 2026 close)	FY2025 revenue $2,649.2m, diluted EPS $3.89 — the closest listed pure-play closeout operator, roughly 1/23rd of TJX's revenue base

On trailing earnings TJX is the cheapest of the three large off-price names, at roughly 30.7x against Ross at around 35x and Burlington at around 38x on 4 August 2026 quotes. The competitive pressure is real, however: Ross grew FY2025 comparable sales 5% and Burlington grew total sales 9%, and all three are chasing overlapping real estate. You can track the sector calendar on our Economic Calendar.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Ernie Herrman has been Chief Executive Officer since January 2016 and President since January 2011, and signed the FY2026 Form 10-K on 31 March 2026 as principal executive officer. Carol Meyrowitz, his predecessor as CEO, remains Executive Chairman of the Board. John Klinger is Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. No executive departures or appointments were disclosed in any 2026 Form 8-K. All ten director nominees were re-elected at the annual meeting on 9 June 2026 and PricewaterhouseCoopers was ratified as auditor.

Insider activity in 2026 has been one-directional. Every open-market sale listed below was filed with the Rule 10b5-1 checkbox set to false, meaning none was executed under a pre-arranged trading plan. There were no open-market purchases by any insider during 2026.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Ernie Herrman (CEO & President)	2 Mar 2026	Open-market sale	30,000	$160.95 (weighted average)	~$4.83m	Not 10b5-1 (discretionary)
Ernie Herrman (CEO & President)	3–5 Jun 2026	Open-market sale	67,551	$157.46–$160.68	~$10.69m	Not 10b5-1 (discretionary)
Carol Meyrowitz (Executive Chairman)	9 Jun 2026	Open-market sale	55,624	$163.65 (weighted average)	~$9.10m	Not 10b5-1 (discretionary)
Kenneth Canestrari (SEVP, Group President)	3 Jun 2026	Open-market sale	31,447	$157.50 (weighted average)	~$4.95m	Not 10b5-1 (discretionary)
Peter Benjamin (SEVP, Group President)	10 Jun 2026	Open-market sale	10,926	$165.00	~$1.80m	Not 10b5-1 (discretionary)
John Klinger (SEVP, CFO)	5 Jun 2026	Open-market sale	6,235	$160.77 (weighted average)	~$1.00m	Not 10b5-1 (discretionary)
Jackwyn L. Nemerov (Director)	11 Jun 2026	Open-market sale	957	$168.60	~$0.16m	Not 10b5-1 (discretionary)

Aggregate open-market selling in 2026 to date is approximately 202,700 shares for roughly $32.5m, concentrated in the two weeks after the 20 May Q1 print and into the stock's record-high area. Separately, routine share withholding for taxes on the 30 March and 10 April 2026 equity vestings covered the officer group, and Peter Benjamin gifted 34,129 shares to a spousal trust on 4 June 2026 — neither category is a discretionary market transaction. Ernie Herrman retained 514,848 shares after his June sales and Carol Meyrowitz 201,496.

10. Key Risks

Tariffs and trade policy (Regulatory): the Supreme Court invalidated IEEPA tariffs on 20 February 2026 and a new global tariff was imposed by executive order immediately afterwards. TJX states in its 10-K that the extent, duration and refund mechanics remain uncertain and that it is still evaluating the impact on its financial statements. Nothing is quantified in the accounts.
Consumer discretionary exposure (Macro): TJX derives 78% of revenue from a single US consumer economy selling apparel and home goods. Its own risk factors cite inflation, housing-market weakness and rising housing costs as factors that have already impacted consumer confidence and discretionary spending in recent years.
Fuel, freight and wage inflation (Operational): management explicitly withheld part of the Q1 FY2027 beat from guidance on 20 May 2026 because the outlook now assumes higher fuel costs for the rest of the year. The 10-K separately states that operating expenses will continue to reflect increasing labour costs across a 377,000-person workforce, with distribution Associates covered by collective bargaining agreements and store Associates a potential unionisation target.
Sourcing and supply-chain disruption (Operational): merchandise comes from roughly 21,000 vendors in more than 100 countries, much of it produced in Asia. Disclosed exposures include transport capacity and cost, quotas and trade restrictions, and named geopolitical flashpoints in Ukraine, the Middle East and Red Sea shipping lanes.
Currency translation (Financial): 22% of revenue is earned outside the United States. TJX International grew FY2026 sales 11% as reported but only 6% in constant currency, and TJX Canada 8% versus 9%. Unhedged mark-to-market on inventory derivatives runs straight through cost of sales and was cited as a specific drag on Q4 FY2026 gross margin.
Competition and saturation (Competitive): Ross Stores and Burlington are both expanding into overlapping real estate, and the 7,000-store long-term target implies decades of infill in already dense markets. The 10-K describes the business as highly competitive against department, specialty, off-price, discount, warehouse, outlet and online retailers.
Valuation and earnings quality (Financial): the shares trade at roughly 30.7x trailing GAAP earnings and 30.8x the midpoint of management's own FY2027 guidance, against a five-year revenue CAGR of 5.6% and guided comparable-sales growth of 3–4%. FY2026 GAAP EPS also included a $0.14 non-recurring benefit from the interchange settlement.
International execution (Operational): the Mexico joint venture and the Brands for Less stake carry $133m and $301m respectively of value in excess of TJX's share of underlying net assets. The precedent is not encouraging — the Familia (Russia) minority investment was written off in full for $218m in FY2023.
Cybersecurity (Operational): the 10-K notes that attack attempts continue to increase in sophistication including through the use of artificial intelligence, and TJX remains a high-value target given the scale of its payment infrastructure and the landmark 2006 intrusion in its history.

11. Recent Developments

20 Feb 2026 — Supreme Court invalidates IEEPA tariffs. TJX disclosed the ruling as a subsequent event in its FY2026 10-K, noting it may allow recovery of IEEPA tariff amounts previously paid, with timing and administration uncertain. A new global tariff was then imposed by executive order on top of existing non-IEEPA duties.
25 Feb 2026 — Q4 and FY2026 results, plus a new $3.0bn buyback authorisation. Q4 comparable sales rose 5% with diluted EPS of $1.58 (adjusted $1.43). FY2026 sales reached $60.4bn on 5% comps with EPS of $4.87 (adjusted $4.73). The board approved its 26th repurchase programme since 1997 and management signalled a 13% dividend increase. Initial FY2027 guidance was for comps of 2–3% and EPS of $4.93–$5.02.
Mar 2026 — TK Maxx opens its first stores in Spain. A new country for the group, taking TJX to ten countries and supporting the raised TJX International long-term store target of 1,225.
16 Mar 2026 — S&P Global Ratings affirms TJX at 'A' with a stable outlook. Moody's rates the senior unsecured debt A2 with Prime-1 commercial paper. The 10-K cites the credit rating as a direct competitive advantage in vendor negotiations.
30 Mar 2026 — quarterly dividend raised 13% to $0.48 per share. Paid 4 June 2026 to holders of record 14 May 2026.
20 May 2026 — Q1 FY2027 beats and full-year guidance is raised. Net sales rose 9% to $14.3bn on 6% comps with all four divisions positive; pretax margin improved 1.7 points to 12.0% and diluted EPS rose 29% to $1.19. FY2027 guidance went to comps of 3–4%, pretax margin of 11.9–12.0%, EPS of $5.08–$5.15 and buybacks of $2.75–$3.00bn. Management flagged higher assumed fuel costs for the balance of the year.
29 May 2026 — Q1 Form 10-Q filed alongside an automatic shelf registration. The Form S-3ASR preserves debt and equity issuance flexibility ahead of the $999m note maturity in September 2026.
9 Jun 2026 — annual meeting held and next dividend declared. All ten directors re-elected and PwC ratified. A $0.48 quarterly dividend was declared, payable 3 September 2026 to holders of record 13 August 2026.
3–11 Jun 2026 — cluster of executive open-market sales. The CEO, Executive Chairman, CFO and two Group Presidents sold roughly $32m of stock, none under Rule 10b5-1 plans.
11 Jun 2026 — shares reach a 52-week and all-time high of $170.00. The stock closed at $157.55 on 4 August 2026, about 7% below that peak and 23% above the 52-week low.

12. Key Dates to Watch

13 Aug 2026 — record date, and under T+1 settlement the ex-dividend date, for the $0.48 quarterly dividend declared on 9 June 2026
Expected 19 Aug 2026 — Q2 FY2027 results, before market open. TJX had not yet issued its own confirming press release as of 4 August 2026; the date is drawn from third-party earnings calendars and matches the company's pattern of reporting on a Wednesday before the open
3 Sep 2026 — payment date for the $0.48 quarterly dividend
Expected Sep 2026 — maturity of the $999m 2.25% ten-year Notes, the entire current-portion debt balance
31 Oct 2026 — end of the Q3 FY2027 fiscal quarter
Expected Nov 2026 — Q3 FY2027 results (the FY2026 equivalent was reported 19 November 2025)
30 Jan 2027 — FY2027 fiscal year end
Expected Feb 2027 — Q4 and full-year FY2027 results, with initial FY2028 guidance (the FY2026 equivalent was 25 February 2026)
Expected Jun 2027 — 2027 annual meeting of shareholders; the 2026 meeting was held 9 June 2026

Guidance for FY2027 currently stands at comparable-sales growth of 3–4%, pretax profit margin of 11.9–12.0% and diluted EPS of $5.08–$5.15, with capital expenditure of $2.2–$2.3bn and share repurchases of $2.75–$3.00bn. Discussion of these results continues on the ChartsView Forum.

Last Updated: 5 August 2026

Chipotle Mexican Grill operates more than 4,200 fast-casual restaurants, almost all of them company-owned, and is the only restaurant company of its size that owns and operates every one of its units in the United States, Canada and Europe. After a bruising fiscal 2025 in which comparable sales fell 1.7% and transactions fell 2.9%, the company delivered two consecutive quarters of improving comps and raised its full-year guidance on 29 July 2026. Six days later a Minnesota salmonella investigation linked to jalapenos knocked almost 10% off the share price. This report sets out what the filings show, what the company is building, and what the raw valuation numbers look like as of August 2026. It contains no analyst ratings and no price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Exchange / ticker	New York Stock Exchange — CMG
Sector / industry	Consumer Discretionary — fast-casual restaurants. One reportable operating segment ("U.S.")
Headquarters	610 Newport Center Drive, Suite 1100, Newport Beach, California, USA (incorporated in Delaware)
Founded	First restaurant opened in Denver, Colorado in 1993
CEO / Leadership	Scott Boatwright, Chief Executive Officer (interim from August 2024, permanent from November 2024). Adam Rymer, Chief Financial Officer. Curt Garner, President, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer
Employees	130,301 people worldwide plus 1,233 contract workers as of 31 December 2025 (FY2025 Form 10-K); the company described its headcount as nearly 140,000 in its 29 July 2026 release
Revenue (FY2025, year to 31 December 2025)	$11,925.6m, up 5.4% year on year
Net income (FY2025)	$1,535.8m; GAAP diluted EPS $1.14; adjusted diluted EPS $1.17
Market cap	Approximately $42.8bn (share price $33.83 at the close on 4 August 2026, on 1,265.4m shares outstanding)
Restaurant estate	4,186 company-owned plus 15 partner-operated restaurants at 30 June 2026, across the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, the Middle East and Mexico
Dividend	None. Chipotle has never declared or paid a cash dividend and states it intends to retain earnings for expansion and buybacks
Stock split	50-for-1, effective 26 June 2024. All per-share figures in this report are stated post-split

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

Traffic has turned: after five weak quarters, comparable sales went +0.5% in Q1 2026 and +2.2% in Q2 2026, with transactions positive in both (+0.6% and +1.0%). Full-year comp guidance was raised on 29 July 2026 from "about flat" to low single digit growth.
Unit growth is still running hard: 334 company-owned openings in FY2025 was a record, 149 have opened in the first half of 2026, and the 2026 target is 350–370 including 10–15 partner-operated. Roughly 80% of new company-owned units include a Chipotlane.
Debt-free balance sheet funds its own growth: zero borrowings at every year end from FY2021 to FY2025 and at 30 June 2026, with a $500m revolving facility entirely undrawn and covenants comfortably met.
Loyalty and digital are underexploited: Chipotle Rewards reached 23 million active members after the April 2026 relaunch, but only around 20% of in-restaurant transactions currently scan for loyalty against roughly 90% of owned digital transactions — management's identified biggest untapped lever. Digital is 38.3% of food and beverage revenue.
International optionality is only just starting: partner-operated entries into the Middle East (Alshaya), Mexico (Alsea, first restaurant opened 16 July 2026) and Asia (SPC Group joint venture) contribute almost nothing today — non-US revenue was 2.1% of the total in FY2025.

Bear Case

An active food-safety investigation: on 4 August 2026 Minnesota health officials linked a salmonella outbreak of at least 110 state cases to jalapenos, with 75 of 84 interviewed patients having eaten at Chipotle between mid-June and mid-July. Chipotle pulled the peppers and replaced them from other growers, and the shares fell 9.7% in a single session.
Margins are compressing even as sales recover: operating margin fell to 15.7% in Q2 2026 from 18.2%, and to 12.9% in Q1 2026 from 16.7%. Restaurant-level margin fell to 25.2% from 27.4% in Q2. FY2025 restaurant-level margin was 25.4% against 26.7% in FY2024.
Beef, freight and labour inflation are structural: food, beverage and packaging rose to 29.7% of revenue in Q2 2026 from 28.9%, driven by beef and freight, while labour rose to 25.0% from 24.7%. Avocado and dairy were only a partial offset.
Faster-growing competition: Cava grew Q1 FY2026 revenue 32.2% with same-restaurant sales of 9.7% and traffic of 6.8%, in the same window Chipotle managed a 0.5% comp. The fast-casual bowl format that Chipotle created is now crowded.
Buybacks have been executed above the current price: $2.4bn was repurchased in FY2025 at an average $42.54 and $1,354.9m in the first half of 2026 at prices including $32.55 in Q2, against $33.83 on 4 August 2026. Retained earnings have been turned negative (minus $67.2m at 30 June 2026), so book value offers no support.

3. Business Segments

Chipotle reports a single "U.S." operating segment; Canada, Europe and the international partner-operated restaurants are disclosed together as "All other" and do not meet the quantitative thresholds for separate reporting. The disaggregation below is as disclosed in the FY2025 Form 10-K and the Q2 2026 results.

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Food and beverage revenue	99.5% ($11,866.1m in FY2025; $3,332.8m in Q2 2026)	In-restaurant, order-ahead and app sales of burritos, bowls, tacos, salads and drinks. This is effectively the entire business.
Delivery service revenue	0.5% ($59.6m in FY2025; $15.8m in Q2 2026)	Delivery fees charged on orders placed through Chipotle's own channels. Down 10.4% in FY2025 as the mix shifted back toward pick-up.
U.S. reportable segment	97.9% ($11,679.4m in FY2025)	3,938 company-owned US restaurants at 31 December 2025. Segment income from operations $2,587.5m.
All other (Canada, Europe, international partner)	2.1% ($246.2m in FY2025)	104 company-owned restaurants in Canada, the UK, France and Germany, plus 14 partner-operated restaurants in the Middle East. Growing from a very small base.

Digital sales were 36.7% of food and beverage revenue in FY2025, 38.6% in Q1 2026 and 38.3% in Q2 2026, and include website, app and third-party aggregator orders. Average restaurant sales — the trailing-twelve-month unit volume for restaurants open at least twelve full months — were $3.102m at 30 June 2026, against $3.104m at 31 December 2025 and $3.213m at 31 December 2024.

4. Business Model and Competitive Moat

How it makes money. Chipotle sells food, and almost nothing else. There is no US franchise royalty stream, no licensing income of consequence and no packaged-goods arm. Revenue is 99.5% food and beverage, generated by 4,186 company-owned restaurants at an average unit volume of roughly $3.10m. Because every unit is corporate, every dollar of same-store sales flows through Chipotle's own P&L — and so does every dollar of wage and commodity inflation. FY2025 cost structure was 29.6% food, beverage and packaging, 25.1% labour, with $652.0m of general and administrative expense, producing a 16.2% operating margin.

The unit economics and the Chipotlane. The drive-through digital pick-up lane is the single most important format decision the company has made. Management states that Chipotlanes increase new restaurant sales, margins and returns; 257 of 334 FY2025 openings included one, rising to 80 of 100 openings in Q2 2026. The 2026 plan targets roughly 80% Chipotlane penetration on new company-owned units.

Sourcing as brand. The Food with Integrity programme — responsibly raised meats without antibiotics or added growth hormones, responsibly grown produce, no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives — is what allows Chipotle to price above the quick-service average. It cuts both ways: it narrows the supplier base, creates intermittent shortages, and raises input costs relative to competitors who buy on price alone.

Balance-sheet self-funding. With no debt at any year end from FY2021 to FY2025 and an undrawn $500m revolver, Chipotle funds 350-plus openings a year, roughly $700m of annual capex and over $2bn of buybacks entirely from operating cash flow of $2.1bn. Its only debt-like obligation is $5,419m of operating lease liabilities at 30 June 2026, against $2,200m of shareholders' equity.

5. Financial Health

All per-share figures are stated on a post-split basis following the 50-for-1 stock split effective 26 June 2024. FY2022 and FY2023 GAAP EPS are as retroactively restated by Chipotle in its FY2024 Form 10-K; FY2021 figures and the FY2021–FY2023 adjusted EPS figures are the originally reported pre-split numbers divided by 50, as the company did not republish those years on a post-split basis.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021 (to 31 Dec 2021)	$7,547.1m	+26.1%	$0.46	$0.51	Nil	Nil
FY2022 (to 31 Dec 2022)	$8,634.7m	+14.4%	$0.64	$0.66	Nil	Nil
FY2023 (to 31 Dec 2023)	$9,871.6m	+14.3%	$0.89	$0.90	Nil	Nil
FY2024 (to 31 Dec 2024)	$11,313.9m	+14.6%	$1.11	$1.12	Nil	Nil
FY2025 (to 31 Dec 2025)	$11,925.6m	+5.4%	$1.14	$1.17	Nil	Nil

† Chipotle has never declared or paid a dividend. Long-term debt is genuinely nil: the us-gaap LongTermDebt tag reads zero at every one of these year ends in the company's SEC XBRL filings, and the FY2025 10-K states there were no outstanding borrowings under the $500m revolving credit facility at 31 December 2025 or 2024. The only debt-like liability is operating leases, which rose from $3,520.3m at FY2021 year end to $5,075.8m at FY2025 year end and $5,419.2m at 30 June 2026. Comparable restaurant sales over the five years ran +19.3%, +8.0%, +7.9%, +7.4% and −1.7%.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q2 2026 (13 wks to 30 Jun 2026)	$3,348.6m	$0.33	$0.32
Q1 2026 (13 wks to 31 Mar 2026)	$3,088.2m	$0.24	$0.23
Q4 2025 (13 wks to 31 Dec 2025)	$2,983.5m	$0.25	$0.25
Q3 2025 (13 wks to 30 Sep 2025)	$3,003.4m	$0.30	$0.29
FY2025 total (year to 31 Dec 2025)	$11,925.6m	$1.17	$1.14

Q2 2026 revenue rose 9.3% on a 2.2% comparable-sales gain (check +1.2%, transactions +1.0%), with operating income of $525.6m and an operating margin of 15.7% against 18.2% a year earlier. Non-GAAP adjustments in the quarter totalled $18.2m pretax: restaurant asset impairment $3.9m, Recipe for Growth restructuring $3.3m, legal proceedings $10.0m and stock-based compensation retention $0.9m.

Cash generation for FY2025: operating cash flow $2,113.9m, capital expenditure $666.3m, free cash flow $1,447.6m, depreciation and amortisation $361.4m. At 31 December 2025 the balance sheet showed cash and equivalents of $350.5m, current marketable securities of $698.6m and long-term investments of $197.1m, with shareholders' equity of $2,830.6m and no debt. At 30 June 2026 cash stood at $228.2m, current investments at $449.7m and long-term investments at $97.1m, with shareholders' equity down to $2,199.8m after $1,354.9m of first-half buybacks. Price action is tracked on our Live Charts page.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, August 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Share price	$33.83 (close, 4 August 2026, down 9.72% on the salmonella investigation)
Market cap	~$42.8bn ($33.83 × 1,265.4m shares outstanding as of 24 July 2026)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~31.0x on trailing-twelve-month GAAP diluted EPS of $1.09 (Q3 2025 $0.29 + Q4 2025 $0.25 + Q1 2026 $0.23 + Q2 2026 $0.32). On the equivalent adjusted TTM figure of ~$1.12 the multiple is ~30.2x; on FY2025 GAAP EPS of $1.14 it is ~29.7x.
P/E (forward)	~24.7x on consensus forward earnings. Chipotle publishes no EPS guidance of its own — its 2026 outlook covers comparable sales, openings and tax rate only — so no management-guided forward multiple exists.
P/S (TTM)	~3.44x (market cap ~$42.8bn / TTM revenue ~$12,424m)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	~18.3x (EV ~$42.1bn / FY2025 EBITDA ~$2,297m; EBITDA = operating income $1,935.8m + D&A $361.4m from the FY2025 cash flow statement). Operating lease liabilities of $5,419m are excluded from EV; capitalising them lifts the multiple to roughly 20.7x.
P/FCF	~29.6x (market cap ~$42.8bn / FY2025 free cash flow $1,447.6m; FCF = operating cash flow $2,113.9m less capex $666.3m per the FY2025 cash flow statement). On trailing-twelve-month FCF of ~$1,569m the multiple is ~27.3x.
Enterprise value	~$42.1bn (market cap ~$42.8bn + total debt nil − cash $228.2m and current marketable securities $449.7m, per the 30 June 2026 balance sheet)
Price/book	~19.5x (market cap ~$42.8bn / shareholders' equity $2,199.8m at 30 June 2026). Retained earnings are negative at −$67.2m following cumulative buybacks.
52-week high	$44.27, reached 18 August 2025
52-week low	$28.04, reached 4 June 2026
Dividend yield	Nil — no dividend has ever been declared
Short interest (% of float)	4.53% (50.63m shares short, settlement date 15 July 2026)
Days to cover	2.57

7. What Are They Building

Recipe for Growth. Set out on 3 February 2026, the strategy has five pillars: protect and strengthen the core through operational and culinary excellence; evolve brand messaging and accelerate menu innovation and new occasions; modernise the business model with technology including artificial intelligence and a relaunched rewards programme; expand global reach through company-owned and partner-operated markets; and cultivate industry-best talent. Restructuring costs are being charged against the programme — $3.3m in Q2 2026.

New restaurants. The 2026 target is 350–370 openings including 10–15 partner-operated, following a record 334 company-owned openings in FY2025. The first half delivered 149 company-owned units, roughly 80% of them with a Chipotlane. That pace takes the estate past 4,200 restaurants.

International. Mexico opened on 16 July 2026 with partner Alsea, in San Pedro Garza Garcia in the Monterrey metropolitan area, with further Nuevo Leon openings planned for 2026 and Mexico City in 2027. The Middle East runs through Alshaya with roughly 15 restaurants across the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar. Asia arrives via a joint venture with South Korea's SPC Group announced on 10 September 2025, with the first Korean restaurant planned for 2026 and Singapore in early 2027. Company-owned international units total 104 across Canada, the UK, France and Germany.

Loyalty and menu. Chipotle Rewards was relaunched on 13 April 2026 as Rewards on Repeat — the largest change since inception, adding monthly free food drops, expanded redemption, selectable birthday rewards and extended points expiry. Active membership reached 23 million by late July, up 9.5% since the relaunch, with daily enrolments up nearly 20%. On menu, Chipotle Honey Chicken returned on 21 April 2026 with a cumulative attachment rate above 25%, and two further limited-time protein offerings are planned for the second half of 2026.

Automation. Autocado, the avocado cutting and coring cobot developed with Vebu, and the Augmented Makeline built with Hyphen Technologies both entered restaurants in September 2024. Broader equipment testing is expected during 2026 with any scaled deployment following later. These remain pilots rather than a rollout. Chipotle holds Series B preferred shares in Hyphen and stakes in Vebu, Nuro and supplier Tractor Beverage through its Cultivate Next fund, which made six further investments in July 2026.

8. Competitive Landscape

Market capitalisations were checked live on 4 August 2026. Chipotle sits between the global quick-service giants and the smaller, faster-growing fast-casual challengers.

Peer	Market cap (August 2026)	Key 2025 metric
McDonald's (NYSE: MCD)	~$190.7bn ($268.34 at the 4 August 2026 close)	Q2 2026, reported 4 August 2026: global comparable sales +1.3% with US comps of only +0.8%; revenue $7.10bn, up 3.7%; GAAP EPS $3.32, up 6% (McDonald's corporate Q2 2026 results)
Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX)	~$119.7bn ($104.97 at the 4 August 2026 close)	Q3 FY2026, reported 29 July 2026: global comparable store sales +7.9%, North America +8.1% with transactions +4.5%; net revenues $9.3bn; GAAP EPS $0.91 (Starbucks investor relations)
Cava Group (NYSE: CAVA)	~$7.39bn ($63.44 at the 4 August 2026 close)	Q1 FY2026: revenue $434.4m, up 32.2%; same-restaurant sales +9.7% with traffic +6.8%; restaurant-level profit margin 25.1%; FY2026 guidance raised to 75–77 net new restaurants (Cava investor relations)
Texas Roadhouse (NASDAQ: TXRH)	~$13.69bn ($208.24 at the 4 August 2026 close)	Q2 2026 results due 6 August 2026; management indicated same-store sales tracking around +6.5% through the first five weeks of the quarter (Texas Roadhouse investor relations)

The comparison that matters most is Cava. In the quarter Chipotle comped +0.5%, Cava comped +9.7% on 6.8% traffic growth at a restaurant-level margin within 100 basis points of Chipotle's. That is direct evidence of share movement inside the fast-casual bowl category Chipotle effectively created. Against that, Chipotle's forward multiple of roughly 24.7x sits well below Cava's, and above McDonald's at roughly 19.1x. Earnings dates for all of these are tracked on our Economic Calendar.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Scott Boatwright is Chief Executive Officer, having served as interim CEO from August 2024 following Brian Niccol's departure to Starbucks and been appointed permanently in November 2024. He remains in post and was quoted by that title in the 29 July 2026 results release. Adam Rymer is Chief Financial Officer and Curt Garner is President, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer. The senior team has turned over substantially: Ilene Eskenazi was elevated to Chief Legal and Human Resources Officer on 12 January 2026 as Chris Brandt departed as President and Chief Brand Officer; Arlie Sisson joined in a newly created Chief Digital Officer role on 4 May 2026; and Fernando Machado became Chief Brand Officer on 1 June 2026.

Insider activity in 2026 is almost entirely routine equity administration. There were no open-market purchases by any insider during 2026, and only one discretionary sale.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Patricia Fili-Krushel (Director)	24 Feb 2026	Open-market sale	3,350	$36.58	~$122,543	Plan status not stated on the filing
Scott Boatwright (CEO)	15 Feb 2026	Grant, and withholding for tax on vesting	+229,457 granted / 120,810 withheld	$35.84 (withholding)	~$4.33m withheld	Incentive plan — not a market transaction
Curtis Garner (President, CSTO)	15 Feb 2026	Grant, and withholding for tax on vesting	+254,846 granted / 134,177 withheld	$35.84 (withholding)	~$4.81m withheld	Incentive plan — not a market transaction
Adam Rymer (CFO)	15 Feb 2026	Grant, and withholding for tax on vesting	+25,526 granted / 8,971 withheld	$35.84 (withholding)	~$321,521 withheld	Incentive plan — not a market transaction
Laurie Schalow (Chief Corporate Affairs Officer)	15 Feb 2026	Grant, and withholding for tax on vesting	+76,577 granted / 37,113 withheld	$35.84 (withholding)	~$1.33m withheld	Incentive plan — not a market transaction
Nine non-employee directors	11 Jun 2026	Annual director equity grant	6,880 each	$31.25	$215,000 each	Director compensation plan
Albert Baldocchi (Director)	20 May 2026	Gift	6,672	Not applicable	Not applicable	Gift — not a market transaction

Separately, on 6 February 2026 Scott Boatwright received 444,445 stock-only stock appreciation rights with an exercise price of $39.39 — above the current share price — and had 8,048 shares withheld at $39.39 on 9 February 2026 for tax on an RSU vesting. Albert Baldocchi remains by far the largest individual insider holder at 3,224,640 shares. The net read is neutral: insiders are neither accumulating nor distributing, and the only discretionary sale in the year was worth about $123,000.

10. Key Risks

Food safety, live and unresolved (Operational): Minnesota health officials announced on 4 August 2026 that jalapenos served at Chipotle and other Mexican restaurants appear to be the source of a salmonella outbreak of at least 110 state cases, with 89% of interviewed patients having eaten at Chipotle between 14 June and 14 July 2026. Chipotle removed the peppers and replaced them from other growers. The company carries a severe historical scar here from the 2015–2016 E. coli and norovirus outbreaks and the resulting 2020 federal resolution, and personal-injury litigation is a realistic consequence.
Fragile traffic recovery (Operational): comparable sales were negative for most of the last two years — FY2025 finished at −1.7% with transactions at −2.9% — and the recovery to +0.5% and +2.2% is only two quarters old. Average unit volume has fallen from $3.213m at the end of 2024 to $3.102m at 30 June 2026.
Margin compression (Financial): operating margin fell to 15.7% in Q2 2026 from 18.2%, and to 12.9% in Q1 2026 from 16.7%. Restaurant-level margin fell to 25.2% from 27.4%. Costs are rising faster than the sales recovery.
Commodity and wage inflation (Macro): food, beverage and packaging rose to 29.7% of Q2 2026 revenue from 28.9% on beef and freight inflation, while labour rose to 25.0% from 24.7%. Avocado supply is a structural single-point exposure given guacamole's role in the menu and its dependence on Mexican imports.
Competitive share loss (Competitive): Cava grew same-restaurant sales 9.7% with 6.8% traffic growth in a quarter when Chipotle managed 0.5%. Sweetgreen, Wingstop and value menus at the large quick-service chains compress the category from both directions.
Valuation with no book-value floor (Financial): roughly 31x trailing GAAP earnings, 24.7x forward, 18.3x EV/EBITDA, 29.6x free cash flow and 19.5x book, for a business that grew FY2025 revenue 5.4% and EPS 2.7%. Buybacks have driven retained earnings negative, so there is no accounting equity cushion.
Concentration and operating leverage (Structural): one brand, one segment, 97.9% of revenue from the United States, no franchise royalty stream to cushion a downturn, and $5,419m of operating lease liabilities against $2,200m of equity.
Executive churn (Operational): since August 2024 the company has replaced its CEO, its President and Chief Brand Officer, and its Chief Legal Officer, and created a new Chief Digital Officer role. Retention equity tied to the former CEO's departure is still flowing through non-GAAP adjustments two years later.
Legal and contingency exposure (Regulatory): Q2 2026 carried a $10.0m charge for legal proceedings expected to exceed typical costs, following a legal drag on Q1 labour costs and a $21.4m adjustment in FY2024. Wage-and-hour and predictive-scheduling litigation are discussed explicitly in the 10-K.

11. Recent Developments

12 Jan 2026 — leadership transitions announced. Ilene Eskenazi was elevated to Chief Legal and Human Resources Officer, succeeding Chief Legal Officer Roger Theodoredis, and Stephanie Perdue was named interim Chief Marketing Officer following the departure of Chris Brandt as President and Chief Brand Officer.
3 Feb 2026 — Q4 and FY2025 results confirm a negative comp year. FY2025 comparable sales were −1.7% with transactions at −2.9%; Q4 comps were −2.5%. Revenue rose 5.4% to $11.93bn with GAAP EPS of $1.14 and adjusted EPS of $1.17 on a record 334 company-owned openings. Initial 2026 guidance was for about flat comps and 350–370 openings, alongside the new Recipe for Growth strategy.
13 Apr 2026 — Chipotle Rewards relaunched as Rewards on Repeat. The largest overhaul since the programme's inception, adding monthly free food drops, expanded redemption, selectable birthday rewards, extended points expiry and a redesigned app experience.
27 Apr 2026 — Fernando Machado appointed Chief Brand Officer and Arlie Sisson named Chief Digital Officer. Machado took effect 1 June 2026 and Sisson, previously a senior digital leader at Hyatt, on 4 May 2026 in a newly created role.
29 Apr 2026 — Q1 2026 comps turn positive but margins collapse. Revenue rose 7.4% to $3,088.2m with comps of +0.5% and transactions of +0.6%, but operating margin fell to 12.9% from 16.7% on the biennial All Managers Conference, wage inflation and legal costs. GAAP EPS fell 17.9% to $0.23.
4 Jun 2026 — shares touch a 52-week low of $28.04. The stock had fallen roughly 37% from its August 2025 high before the Q2 recovery.
11 Jun 2026 — annual meeting held and a further $1.3bn buyback authorised. All ten director nominees were elected and Ernst & Young ratified as auditor at the virtual meeting; the board approved an additional $1.3bn of repurchase capacity the same day.
16 Jul 2026 — first Mexican restaurant opens. Located in San Pedro Garza Garcia in the Monterrey metropolitan area with partner Alsea, following the development agreement signed in April 2025. Further Nuevo Leon openings are planned for 2026 and Mexico City for 2027.
29 Jul 2026 — Q2 2026 beats and full-year comp guidance is raised. Revenue rose 9.3% to $3,348.6m on comps of +2.2% with transactions +1.0% and check +1.2% — a second consecutive quarter of improving traffic. GAAP EPS was flat at $0.32 and adjusted flat at $0.33. Full-year comparable-sales guidance moved from about flat to low single digit growth. The shares rose 12.5% the following session.
4 Aug 2026 — Minnesota salmonella outbreak linked to jalapenos. State health officials reported at least 110 cases, with 75 of 84 interviewed patients having eaten at Chipotle between mid-June and mid-July. Chipotle said its traceability system identified jalapenos from a common lot, removed them from all restaurants that had received them and replaced them from different growers. The shares closed at $33.83, down 9.72%, on roughly 2.6 times average volume.

12. Key Dates to Watch

Expected Aug 2026 — further public health updates from the Minnesota Department of Health, the FDA and the CDC on the salmonella investigation, and any Chipotle disclosure of financial impact
30 Sep 2026 — end of the Q3 2026 fiscal quarter
Expected Oct 2026 — Q3 2026 results. Chipotle had not announced the date as of 5 August 2026; it typically confirms roughly two months ahead, and Q3 2025 was reported on 30 October 2025
31 Dec 2026 — FY2026 fiscal year end, against a full-year target of 350–370 new restaurants
Expected Feb 2027 — Q4 and full-year 2026 results with initial 2027 guidance; the FY2025 equivalent was 3 February 2026
Expected Jun 2027 — 2027 annual meeting of shareholders; the 2026 meeting was held virtually on 11 June 2026
TBC — first South Korean restaurant under the SPC Group joint venture, guided for 2026, with Singapore in early 2027
TBC — no investor day has been announced; the company's investor relations events page showed no upcoming events as of 5 August 2026

There are no dividend dates to watch: Chipotle has never paid one. Capital return runs entirely through repurchases, with $1.7bn of authorisation remaining at 30 June 2026 following the additional $1.3bn approved on 11 June 2026. Discussion continues on the ChartsView Forum.

Last Updated: 4 August 2026

Target Corporation is a general-merchandise retailer operating 1,995 stores at the end of fiscal 2025 and generating net sales of $104,780m. It has spent four years in a slow grind: revenue has fallen in three consecutive fiscal years, operating income has dropped 43% from its fiscal 2021 peak, and comparable sales were negative in all four quarters of fiscal 2025. Then, on 20 May 2026, the first quarter under new Chief Executive Michael Fiddelke delivered comparable sales up 5.6% with traffic up 4.4%, and guidance was raised. The shares have risen more than 20% year to date and touched a 52-week high of $150.07 on 3 August 2026, after falling more than 50% between April 2024 and November 2025. The second-quarter print on 19 August 2026 is the first real test of whether that inflection is durable. This report contains no analyst opinions, ratings or price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Target Corporation
Ticker / Exchange	TGT, New York Stock Exchange
Share price	$149.35 (last trade 3 Aug 2026; prior settled close $144.49 on 31 Jul 2026)
Market cap	$67.83bn (454.19m shares outstanding at $149.35, 3 Aug 2026)
Revenue (fiscal 2025, year ended 31 Jan 2026)	$104,780m net sales, down 1.7% year on year
Net earnings (fiscal 2025)	$3,705m, with GAAP diluted EPS of $8.13 and adjusted diluted EPS of $7.57
Comparable sales (fiscal 2025)	Down 2.6%, with traffic down 2.2% and average transaction down 0.4%
CEO / Leadership	Michael J. Fiddelke, Chief Executive Officer since February 2026. Brian C. Cornell is Executive Chair, having been CEO from August 2014 to January 2026. Jim Lee is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Lisa R. Roath is Chief Operating Officer
Employees	Approximately 415,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal team members at 31 Jan 2026
Stores	1,995 at 31 Jan 2026 across 250.5m retail square feet; the 2,000th store opened 15 Mar 2026
Headquarters	1000 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Incorporated	Minnesota, 1902
Dividend	$1.16 per quarter, $4.64 annualised, a yield of approximately 3.1% at $149.35. The 236th consecutive dividend since October 1967
Sector	Consumer and retail (SEC SIC 5331, Retail Variety Stores)

You can pull up an interactive price chart for Target and its peers on the ChartsView Live Charts page.

2. The Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

The first quarter broke a four-year pattern: first-quarter fiscal 2026 net sales rose 6.7% to $25,443m with comparable sales up 5.6%, comparable traffic up 4.4% and digital comparable sales up 8.9%. That followed eleven quarters in which comparable sales had been broadly negative, and it was enough for management to raise full-year sales guidance by two percentage points and point earnings to the high end of the $7.50 to $8.50 range.
Roundel is changing the margin mix: advertising revenue reached $915m in fiscal 2025, up 41% from $649m, and now carries its own risk factor in the Form 10-K. Combined non-merchandise revenue of $2,063m grew 24.6% in the first quarter of fiscal 2026. This income is close to pure incremental margin and is doing much of the work offsetting merchandise gross margin pressure.
The valuation is the cheapest in the peer set: Target trades on 0.64 times trailing sales against approximately 1.25 times for Walmart and 1.54 times for Costco, and on roughly 19.7 times trailing GAAP earnings after a period in which the stock halved. The dividend yields approximately 3.1% and is on track for a 55th consecutive annual increase.
Balance sheet capacity is intact: credit ratings are A2 from Moody's and A from Standard and Poor's as at 2 May 2026, total debt was $15,415m against $3,534m of cash, and buybacks have been suspended entirely with $8.3bn of authorisation still outstanding, giving management an unused lever.

Bear Case

One quarter against an unusually soft base: the 5.6% comparable-sales gain in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 lapped a quarter that fell 3.8% and was itself depressed by a consumer boycott. The second quarter, reporting 19 August 2026, laps a much harder minus 1.9% comparison, and the shares have already re-rated from roughly 11 times to 19.7 times trailing earnings on the strength of that single print.
The earnings power has genuinely shrunk: operating income has fallen from $8,946m in fiscal 2021 to $5,117m in fiscal 2025, a 43% decline on essentially flat revenue. Adjusted operating margin is 4.6% against 8.4% in fiscal 2021, and after-tax return on invested capital has compressed from 33.1% to 13.8%.
The new chief executive is spending heavily into a weak margin: Fiddelke has committed an incremental $2bn in fiscal 2026, taking capital expenditure to approximately $5bn from $3,727m and adding $1bn of operating investment. Fiscal 2025 free cash flow of $2,835m barely covered dividends of roughly $2,065m before that step-up.
Insider selling is one-directional: there were no open-market purchases by any insider in the twelve months to August 2026, against roughly $15m of discretionary open-market selling, none of it under a Rule 10b5-1 plan. Executive Chair Brian Cornell sold 100,000 shares across March and May 2026 for approximately $12.6m, and the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Merchandising Officer both sold blocks in May and June 2026.

3. Business Segments

Target operates as a single reportable segment. The chief operating decision maker is the Chief Executive Officer, who reviews consolidated net earnings and operating income, and virtually all revenue is generated in the United States. The company does, however, disaggregate net sales by merchandise category, and from the fiscal 2025 Form 10-K it splits Beauty and Household essentials into separate lines, giving six merchandise categories rather than five.

Segment / category	% of revenue	What it is
Food and beverage	23.0% ($24,136m, fiscal 2025)	Dry and perishable grocery, snacks, candy, beverages, deli, bakery, meat and produce, plus in-store food service which is primarily Starbucks.
Household essentials	17.2% ($18,017m)	Household cleaning, paper products, over-the-counter healthcare, vitamins and supplements, baby gear and pet supplies.
Hardlines	15.1% ($15,800m)	Electronics including video games and consoles, toys, sporting goods, entertainment and luggage, currently being repositioned under the "Fun 101" banner.
Apparel and accessories	15.0% ($15,737m)	Apparel for women, men, young adults, children, toddlers and babies, plus jewellery, accessories and shoes.
Home furnishings and decor	14.9% ($15,608m)	Bed and bath, home decor, school and office supplies, storage, small appliances, kitchenware, furniture, lighting, home improvement and seasonal merchandise.
Beauty	12.6% ($13,214m)	Skin and bath care, cosmetics, hair care, oral care, deodorant and shaving products.
Advertising (Roundel)	0.9% ($915m)	Target's in-house retail media network selling advertising against its first-party shopper data; up 41% year on year.
Other revenue	1.1% ($1,148m)	Credit card profit sharing of $522m plus $626m of other income including Target Circle 360 membership fees, Target Plus marketplace commissions and Shipt.
Other merchandise	0.2% ($205m)	Residual merchandise sales not allocated to a named category.

The split that matters commercially is discretionary against frequency. Apparel, Hardlines and Home furnishings together account for approximately 45.0% of sales, a far higher discretionary share than Walmart or Costco carry, while Food and beverage, Beauty and Household essentials make up approximately 52.8%. Home furnishings and decor sales have fallen from $17,760m in fiscal 2023 to $15,608m in fiscal 2025, a 12% decline in two years.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Target buys general merchandise and food and sells it at a mark-up through 1,995 large-format stores and a digital channel that is overwhelmingly fulfilled from those same stores. Roughly two-thirds of digital sales are filled by same-day options such as Drive Up, Order Pickup and Shipt, which means the store estate doubles as the distribution network and digital orders do not carry the standalone fulfilment cost that a pure e-commerce operator faces. Gross margin was 27.9% in fiscal 2025 against a selling, general and administrative rate of 20.6%, leaving a 4.6% adjusted operating margin.

The second profit engine. The more interesting economics sit outside merchandise. Roundel advertising, Target Circle 360 membership fees, Target Plus marketplace commissions and credit card profit sharing together produced $2,063m in fiscal 2025, or 2.0% of net sales, up from 1.6% the prior year. These streams carry far higher incremental margin than selling a T-shirt, and they grew 24.6% in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 while merchandise sales grew 6.4%.

Where the moat is real. Target's differentiation is design and owned brands rather than price. It runs a portfolio of exclusive labels alongside designer collaborations, which gives it products a shopper cannot price-check on Amazon. The store footprint within ten miles of most of the United States population is genuinely hard to replicate, and the 2,000th store opened in March 2026 with a plan for 300 more by 2035.

Where it is structurally disadvantaged. Scale. Walmart's revenue is $706bn and Amazon's $717bn against Target's $105bn, roughly seven times the buying power and logistics capacity. Target's own Form 10-K warns it "may be unable to match or surpass the advances in technologies and capabilities, including artificial intelligence, that our competitors implement", and that shoppers may increasingly initiate purchases through third-party AI agents whose ranking algorithms Target does not control.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are taken from Target's fiscal year earnings press releases, Forms 10-K and 10-Q, and SEC XBRL company facts. Target's fiscal year ends on the Saturday nearest 31 January and is labelled by the calendar year in which it begins, so fiscal 2025 ran from 2 February 2025 to 31 January 2026. Fiscal 2023 was a 53-week year, which inflates that year's revenue and earnings against its neighbours.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	106,005	+13.3%	$14.10	$13.56	$3.38	$13,549m
FY2022	109,120	+2.9%	$5.98	$6.02	$4.14	$16,009m
FY2023	107,412	-1.6%	$8.94	$8.94 †	$4.38	$14,922m
FY2024	106,566	-0.8%	$8.86	$8.86 †	$4.46	$14,304m
FY2025	104,780	-1.7%	$8.13	$7.57 ‡	$4.54	$14,326m

† Target reports an adjusted diluted EPS reconciliation in every Form 10-K, but there were no reconciling items in fiscal 2023 or fiscal 2024, so adjusted EPS equalled GAAP EPS in those years.
‡ Fiscal 2025 adjusted EPS is below GAAP because the GAAP figure includes $593m of pretax gains from credit card interchange fee litigation settlements, worth $0.97 per share, partly offset by $250m of pretax business transformation charges worth $0.41 per share.

Long-term debt is the non-current balance-sheet figure taken from the SEC XBRL tag LongTermDebtAndCapitalLeaseObligations. Adding the current portion gives total debt of $16,456m at 31 January 2026 and $15,415m at 2 May 2026. Revenue for fiscal 2023 onward is presented on the fiscal 2025 Form 10-K basis, where the previous "Sales" plus "Other revenue" presentation was renamed to a single "Net sales" line; the totals are unchanged and comparable across all five years.

Quarter / Half	Revenue ($m)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q1 FY2026 (ended 2 May 2026)	25,443	$1.71	$1.71
Q4 FY2025 (ended 31 Jan 2026)	30,453	$2.44	$2.30
Q3 FY2025 (ended 1 Nov 2025)	25,270	$1.78	$1.51
Q2 FY2025 (ended 2 Aug 2025)	25,211	$2.05	$2.05
Q1 FY2025 (ended 3 May 2025)	23,846	$1.30	$2.27
FY2025 total	104,780	$7.57	$8.13

Comparable sales for those quarters ran plus 5.6%, minus 2.5%, minus 2.7%, minus 1.9% and minus 3.8% respectively, most recent first. The first quarter of fiscal 2026 is the only positive comparable quarter in the set.

Cash flow and balance sheet. Fiscal 2025 cash provided by operating activities was $6,562m, down from $7,367m in fiscal 2024 and $8,621m in fiscal 2023. Expenditures for property and equipment were $3,727m, leaving free cash flow of $2,835m. Depreciation and amortisation on the cash flow statement was $3,134m. Operating income was $5,117m, down 8.1%, with adjusted operating income of approximately $4.8bn, down 14.2%, at a 4.6% margin. Net interest expense rose to $445m from $411m on higher average debt.

At 2 May 2026, the most recent reported balance sheet, Target held cash and cash equivalents of $3,534m against a current portion of long-term debt and other borrowings of $1,133m and non-current long-term debt of $14,282m, for total debt of $15,415m and net debt of $11,881m. Inventory was $12,317m. First-quarter operating cash flow was $716m against capital expenditure of $1,035m. No shares were repurchased in either the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 or the first quarter of fiscal 2026, despite approximately $8.3bn remaining under the August 2021 authorisation.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, August 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	$67.83bn (454.19m shares at $149.35, 3 Aug 2026)
Enterprise value	Approximately $79.7bn (market cap $67.83bn plus total debt $15,415m less cash and cash equivalents $3,534m, per the 2 May 2026 balance sheet)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	19.7x on trailing twelve-month GAAP diluted EPS of $7.57 (fiscal 2025 $8.13 less Q1 FY2025 $2.27 plus Q1 FY2026 $1.71)
P/E (forward)	17.6x to 18.7x on management's own fiscal 2026 guidance of GAAP and adjusted EPS of $7.50 to $8.50, which was guided on 20 May 2026 to land near the high end of that range. At $8.50 the multiple is 17.6x; at the $8.00 midpoint it is 18.7x. This is company guidance, not an analyst estimate
P/S (TTM)	0.64x on trailing twelve-month net sales of $106,377m (fiscal 2025 $104,780m less Q1 FY2025 $23,846m plus Q1 FY2026 $25,443m)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	Approximately 9.7x (enterprise value $79.71bn divided by EBITDA of $8,251m; EBITDA = fiscal 2025 operating income $5,117m plus depreciation and amortisation $3,134m). Note fiscal 2025 operating income includes $593m of interchange settlement gains and $250m of transformation charges
P/FCF	Approximately 23.9x (market cap $67.83bn divided by free cash flow $2,835m; FCF = fiscal 2025 operating cash flow $6,562m less capital expenditure $3,727m). Capital expenditure is guided to rise to approximately $5bn in fiscal 2026, which would compress free cash flow materially on unchanged operating cash flow
52-week high	$150.07, set 3 Aug 2026, a fresh high made in the current session
52-week low	$83.44, set 20 Nov 2025
Short interest (% of float)	4.43% (20,099,170 shares short, settlement date 15 Jul 2026). A second source reported 3.80% of float on an undated basis, so treat 3.8% to 4.4% as the plausible range
Days to cover	4.15 on the 15 Jul 2026 settlement data; a second undated source indicated 2.6
Dividend yield	Approximately 3.1% ($1.16 quarterly, $4.64 annualised)

7. What Are They Building

On 3 March 2026, alongside fourth-quarter results, Michael Fiddelke set out a multi-year plan built on an incremental $2bn of spending in fiscal 2026: more than $1bn of additional capital expenditure taking the total to approximately $5bn, plus $1bn of operating investment including hundreds of millions of dollars of extra store payroll and training. Management described it as producing more changes inside stores than any year in the last decade.

Roundel retail media. Target's in-house advertising network generated $915m in fiscal 2025, up 41% from $649m in fiscal 2024 and $522m in fiscal 2023. During fiscal 2025 Target launched Precision Plus by Roundel, which applies first-party data and machine learning to improve advertising outcomes. Roundel now carries a dedicated risk factor in the Form 10-K, an indication of how material management considers it.

Target Circle 360 and the membership flywheel. Same-day delivery powered by Circle 360 grew more than 30% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 and more than 27% in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, with membership revenue more than doubling year on year in the fourth quarter. Management has stated an ambition to triple Circle 360 membership over three years. Target Plus, the third-party digital marketplace, grew revenue over 30% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 and expands the digital assortment without inventory risk.

Stores and supply chain. The fiscal 2026 plan is 30 or more new stores and over 130 full-store remodels, building towards 300 new stores by 2035. Next-day delivery reach is being extended into 20 new metropolitan areas and already covers more than half the United States population. Fiscal 2025 saw inventory shrink rates return to pre-pandemic levels.

Merchandising and owned brands. The flagship home brand Threshold is being relaunched in summer 2026 with shop-in-shops in 200 stores. A new owned brand, Good Little Garden, covers fresh floral. Beauty is being rebuilt around a Target Beauty Studio format offering specialty-level service. Hardlines is being repositioned as "Fun 101" around sports, pop culture, toys and trading cards. Health and wellness assortment was expanded 30% from January 2026, with vitamins and nutrition up approximately 20% chainwide from April 2026. Recent collaborations include kate spade new york and partnerships with Taylor Swift and Tom Holland.

Technology. Target lists "accelerate technology" as one of four stated growth priorities, covering AI applied to merchandising, planning, inventory management and personalisation, expanded AI tooling to simplify work for store and headquarters teams, and generative AI in the guest experience.

8. Competitive Landscape

Peer	Market cap (Aug 2026)	Key 2025 metric
Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN)	$3,055.23bn	Net sales of $716.9bn for the year ended 31 Dec 2025
Walmart (NYSE: WMT)	$881.04bn	Total revenue of $706.4bn for the fiscal year ended 31 Jan 2026, approximately seven times Target's
Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST)	$423.11bn	Total revenue of $275.2bn for the fiscal year ended 31 Aug 2025
TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX)	$173.99bn	Revenue of $60.4bn for the fiscal year ended 31 Jan 2026, on a market cap roughly 2.6 times Target's despite 58% of the revenue
Kroger (NYSE: KR)	$35.67bn	Total revenue of $147.6bn for the fiscal year ended 31 Jan 2026
Dollar General (NYSE: DG)	$28.17bn	Net sales of $42.7bn for the fiscal year ended 30 Jan 2026

The comparison that frames the debate is price to sales. Target trades at 0.64 times trailing sales against approximately 1.25 times for Walmart and 1.54 times for Costco, the widest discount to Walmart in the peer set. That gap reflects the market pricing in Target's higher discretionary exposure, its four consecutive years of falling operating income and a 4.6% operating margin, rather than a simple mispricing. Peer revenue figures are drawn from SEC XBRL company facts; market capitalisations were checked live on 3 August 2026.

9. Leadership and Insider Activity

Michael J. Fiddelke became Chief Executive Officer in February 2026, having previously been Chief Operating Officer. His appointment was announced on 20 August 2025 and confirmed as effective in the fiscal 2025 Form 10-K. Brian C. Cornell, Chief Executive from August 2014 to January 2026, is now Executive Chair; he was re-elected as a director at the 10 June 2026 annual meeting with 87.2% support, the lowest of any nominee. Jim Lee has been Chief Financial Officer since September 2024. Lisa R. Roath became Chief Operating Officer in February 2026 and Cara A. Sylvester became Chief Merchandising Officer at the same time, replacing Rick Gomez who stepped down on 15 February 2026.

Across the twelve months to 4 August 2026 there were no open-market purchases by any Target insider. All open-market activity was selling, and none of it was made under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Lisa R. Roath, EVP and Chief Operating Officer	29 Jun 2026	Sale	7,000	$138.07	$966,490	Not a 10b5-1 plan
Cara A. Sylvester, EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer	29 May 2026	Sale	10,000	$125.89	$1,258,905	Not a 10b5-1 plan
Brian C. Cornell, Executive Chair	27 May 2026	Sale	50,000	$129.85	$6,492,622	Not a 10b5-1 plan
Matthew A. Liegel, Chief Accounting Officer	17 Mar 2026	Sale	2,053	$117.19	$240,593	Not a 10b5-1 plan
Brian C. Cornell, Executive Chair	10 Mar 2026	Sale	50,000	$121.76	$6,088,025	Not a 10b5-1 plan

Cornell sold 100,000 shares in total across March and May 2026 for roughly $12.6m, into the stock's recovery, and that is the single most notable insider signal in the period. Chief Executive Michael Fiddelke has not sold any shares since taking the role; his only Form 4 activity has been the receipt of restricted and performance share units on 11 March and 7 April 2026, with shares withheld for tax on vesting. The same pattern of award and tax-withholding activity applies to Jim Lee, Melissa Kremer, Prat Vemana and the non-executive directors.

10. Key Risks

Traffic and the discretionary consumer (Macro): fiscal 2025 comparable sales fell 2.6%, driven by a 2.2% decline in traffic rather than basket size, and were negative in all four quarters. Roughly 45% of sales sit in discretionary categories, a materially higher share than Walmart or Costco carry. Home furnishings and decor alone has fallen 12% in two years.
Expectations risk after the re-rating (Financial): the shares have risen more than 20% year to date to a 52-week high on the strength of one strong quarter against a soft base. The second quarter reporting 19 August 2026 laps a harder comparison, and any deceleration would hit a multiple that has already expanded from roughly 11 times to 19.7 times trailing earnings.
Tariffs and sourcing (Macro): approximately half of Target's merchandise is sourced outside the United States, with China the largest single source. The 20 February 2026 Supreme Court ruling struck down IEEPA tariffs but established no refund process, and new tariffs were announced in February 2026 in response. Target states it cannot estimate the financial effects and warns the ultimate resolution could materially affect its financial position, results and cash flows.
Brand and reputational exposure (Operational): the Form 10-K carries an explicit risk factor noting Target has previously experienced negative perceptions of its business that adversely affected consumer behaviour and results. The year-long consumer boycott that followed the rollback of diversity programmes produced double-digit monthly traffic declines through 2025 and was only formally called off in March 2026.
Competitive scale disadvantage (Operational): Walmart and Amazon each generate roughly seven times Target's revenue, with correspondingly deeper price investment and logistics capacity. Target's own filings warn it may be unable to match competitors' technology and AI capabilities, and that shoppers may increasingly transact through third-party AI agents whose algorithms Target does not control.
Margin compression (Financial): operating income has fallen 43% from $8,946m in fiscal 2021 to $5,117m in fiscal 2025 on flat revenue, adjusted operating margin has halved from 8.4% to 4.6%, and after-tax return on invested capital has fallen from 33.1% to 13.8%.
Execution risk on the investment programme (Operational): a chief executive six months into the role is committing an incremental $2bn in fiscal 2026 while operating margin sits at a multi-year low. The Form 10-K carries a specific risk factor stating that business transformation initiatives may not achieve their intended objectives.
Cash flow cover and capital allocation (Financial): operating cash flow has fallen for three consecutive years from $8,621m to $6,562m. Fiscal 2025 free cash flow of $2,835m covered dividends of roughly $2,065m with limited headroom, and capital expenditure is guided to rise to approximately $5bn. Buybacks have been suspended entirely despite $8.3bn of remaining authorisation.
Shrink tailwind exhausted (Operational): inventory shrink improved to pre-pandemic rates in fiscal 2025, which flattered the gross margin bridge. That benefit cannot repeat at the same magnitude, and shrink retains a dedicated risk factor in the Form 10-K.
Roundel concentration (Financial): advertising revenue growth of 41% is carrying a disproportionate share of the margin-mix improvement. Target's own filings now warn that Roundel may not maintain or grow advertising revenue; a slowdown would expose the underlying merchandise margin.

11. Recent Developments

20 Aug 2025 — Michael Fiddelke appointed Chief Executive Officer. The board unanimously elected the then Chief Operating Officer to succeed Brian Cornell effective 1 February 2026, with Cornell becoming Executive Chair. Announced alongside second-quarter fiscal 2025 results showing net sales of $25,211m, down 0.9%, comparable sales down 1.9% and both GAAP and adjusted EPS of $2.05.
23 Oct 2025 — Approximately 1,800 corporate roles eliminated. Around 1,000 layoffs plus 800 unfilled positions, about 8% of a roughly 22,000-person global corporate workforce, concentrated at the Minneapolis headquarters with no store or supply chain roles affected. The related $250m pretax business transformation charge is disclosed in the Form 10-K; the headcount figure is press-reported.
19 Nov 2025 — Third-quarter fiscal 2025 results. Net sales of $25,270m, down 1.5%, comparable sales down 2.7%, GAAP EPS of $1.51 against adjusted EPS of $1.78 after severance and asset charges. Non-merchandise sales grew 17.7%.
01 Feb 2026 — Fiddelke takes over as Chief Executive. Confirmed in the fiscal 2025 Form 10-K. Lisa Roath was appointed Chief Operating Officer effective 15 February 2026 and Rick Gomez, Chief Commercial Officer, stepped down on the same date.
20 Feb 2026 — Supreme Court rules IEEPA tariffs were not statutorily authorised. Target disclosed that no refund process exists and it cannot estimate any recovery, and that new tariffs were announced in February 2026 in response.
03 Mar 2026 — Fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2025 results and Financial Community Meeting. Full-year net sales of $104,780m, down 1.7%, comparable sales down 2.6%, GAAP EPS $8.13 and adjusted EPS $7.57. Fiddelke unveiled an incremental $2bn investment for fiscal 2026, 30 or more new stores, 130 or more full-store remodels and 300 new stores by 2035. Initial fiscal 2026 guidance was sales growth of around 2% and EPS of $7.50 to $8.50.
12 Mar 2026 — The year-long consumer boycott is formally called off. The campaign, launched in early 2025 after Target rolled back diversity programmes and joined by more than 200,000 participants, ended after Fiddelke renewed commitments to Black-owned businesses, supplier diversity and historically Black colleges and universities.
15 Mar 2026 — Target opens its 2,000th store. A 148,000 square foot food-forward prototype in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, with a food and beverage department 30% larger than the chain average.
20 May 2026 — First-quarter fiscal 2026 results well ahead of the prior trend. Net sales of $25,443m, up 6.7%, comparable sales up 5.6%, comparable traffic up 4.4%, digital comparable sales up 8.9% and non-merchandise sales up 24.6%. GAAP and adjusted EPS of $1.71. Guidance was raised to sales growth of around 4% and EPS near the high end of $7.50 to $8.50.
11 Jun 2026 — Quarterly dividend raised 1.8% to $1.16. Declared the day after the annual meeting, keeping Target on track for a 55th consecutive annual increase and marking the 236th consecutive dividend since October 1967.
18 Jul 2026 — Joe DePinto elected to the board. The former President and Chief Executive of 7-Eleven joined effective 1 August 2026, sitting on the Audit and Risk and Infrastructure and Finance committees.

12. Key Dates to Watch

12 Aug 2026 — record date for the $1.16 quarterly dividend declared on 11 June 2026. Target publishes the record date but not an ex-dividend date; under T+1 settlement the ex-date would be expected on the same day.
19 Aug 2026 — second-quarter fiscal 2026 results, with a conference call from 8:00am to 9:00am Eastern time. Confirmed on Target's own investor events page. This laps a minus 1.9% comparable-sales quarter and is the first real test of the first-quarter inflection.
01 Sep 2026 — payment date for the $1.16 quarterly dividend.
Expected November 2026 — third-quarter fiscal 2026 results. The exact date has not yet been published by Target.
Expected March 2027 — fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 results together with the Financial Community Meeting. The pattern has been 3 March 2026, 4 March 2025 and 5 March 2024. Not yet announced.
Expected June 2027 — annual meeting of shareholders. The 2026 meeting was held on 10 June 2026. Not yet announced.

Several strategic milestones carry published timing but no fixed date: the relaunch of the Threshold owned brand with shop-in-shops in 200 stores during summer 2026, the introduction of the Target Beauty Studio format later in 2026, and the delivery of 30 or more new stores and 130 or more full-store remodels across fiscal 2026. You can track the consumer and inflation data releases that drive discretionary retail demand on the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and discuss this name with other members in the ChartsView Forum.

Last Updated: 21 July 2026

NEXT plc is a British clothing, footwear and homeware retailer that has quietly become one of the most efficient operators in European retail. It sells its own NEXT-branded product alongside more than a thousand third-party brands, runs a growing international online business, operates a consumer credit book, and rents out its e-commerce infrastructure to other retailers through its Total Platform arm. The year to January 2026 was, in the words of its own Chairman, "a very good year": statutory revenue reached £6,901.3m and statutory profit before tax £1,193m. This report sets out what the company reported, what management has guided, and what could change the picture — using only figures taken from NEXT's own filings and announcements.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	NEXT plc
Ticker / Exchange	NXT — London Stock Exchange (LSE:NXT)
Sector	Consumer & Retail — clothing, footwear, homeware, consumer credit
CEO / Leadership	Lord Simon Wolfson (Chief Executive since 2001); Jonathan Blanchard, Chief Financial Officer; Michael Roney, Chairman
Headquarters	Enderby, Leicester, United Kingdom
Employees	48,827 average employees in the 53 weeks to 31 January 2026 (31,589 full-time equivalents)
Fiscal year end	Late January — FY2025/26 was a 53-week period ending 31 January 2026
Revenue (FY to Jan 2026)	£6,901.3m statutory revenue including credit account interest, up +12.8% (53 weeks vs 52 weeks)
Net income (FY to Jan 2026)	£898.0m profit after taxation; £888.5m attributable to equity holders of the parent
Dividend per share (FY to Jan 2026)	268p declared (87p interim paid 5 January 2026; 181p final proposed, payable 3 August 2026)

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

International online is the growth engine: Online (International) total Group sales grew +39.5% to £1,297m and divisional profit grew +51.2% to £198m, now the fastest-expanding part of the Group.
Guidance has been raised, not cut: full-year pre-tax profit guidance for the year to January 2027 was set at £1,210m in March 2026 and raised again to £1,218m in the 6 May 2026 first-quarter statement after full price sales beat forecast by £28m.
Heavy, disciplined cash returns: £839m was returned to shareholders in FY2025/26 through dividends (£286.5m), share buybacks (£131.4m) and a £421.5m B Share Scheme capital distribution, with a further £500m of returns anticipated in the year ahead.
Optionality from the platform and brand strategy: Total Platform sales rose +17.0% and the Group continues to add owned brands — the intellectual property of Russell & Bromley and maternity brand Seraphine were acquired for £5.6m combined during the year.

Bear Case

Middle East conflict is a live drag: management states the region represents around 6% of total turnover and has booked £15m of additional costs on the assumption disruption lasts three months, with explicit warnings about freight, pricing and demand if it persists.
Retail stores are shrinking in profit terms: Retail Stores divisional profit fell -4.4% to £226m in FY2025/26 and first-quarter full price store sales fell -3.4%, leaving a large fixed-cost estate working against the online story.
UK cost inflation is structural, not one-off: the company flagged a 13% increase in the cost of part-time entry-level wages and a £25m hit to Retail from employment cost changes, pressures that recur rather than reverse.
Unresolved equal pay litigation: NEXT remains subject to equal pay claims from store colleagues; the Employment Tribunal found against the company on seven matters in August 2024 and the contingent liability is disclosed in the accounts.

3. Business Segments

NEXT reports statutory sales across six divisions. The table below uses statutory sales for the 53 weeks to 31 January 2026, as disclosed in the half year and segment analysis of the Annual Report and Accounts January 2026.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Online (UK)	37.5% (£2,587.4m)	The next.co.uk business selling NEXT-branded product plus more than a thousand third-party brands under the LABEL banner, delivered to home or store.
Retail Stores	27.4% (£1,888.0m)	The physical UK and Eire store estate, which also acts as a collection and returns network for the online business.
Online (International)	18.6% (£1,280.4m)	Overseas online sales shipped from UK warehouses and local hubs, plus sales through international aggregator platforms.
Total Platform	10.6% (£734.3m)	Third-party e-commerce and infrastructure services, and the consolidated results of subsidiary brands Reiss, FatFace and Joules.
NEXT Finance	4.4% (£305.7m)	Interest income from the nextpay and pay in 3 consumer credit products, on an average customer debtor balance of £1,284m in FY2025/26.
Other business activities	1.5% (£105.5m)	Franchise operations, NEXT Sourcing (the in-house sourcing arm) and the Group's property activities.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. NEXT buys or sources product, sells it at a full price margin through stores and websites, and clears residual stock through end-of-season Sale events. Layered on top are three higher-margin income streams: commission earned on third-party brands sold through its websites, interest income from its own consumer credit book, and fees from renting its warehousing, distribution and software stack to other retailers through Total Platform. In FY2025/26 the Group converted £6,901.3m of statutory revenue into £1,278.8m of operating profit — a margin the company itself frames in terms of a 16.5% pre-tax profit margin on the NEXT Group measure.

Where the durability comes from. The moat is operational rather than brand-based. NEXT owns the warehousing, the software and the delivery network, which means each incremental third-party brand added to LABEL carries very little marginal cost. That same infrastructure is then sold on to competitors as a service. Management is explicit that cost control is the engine, not the garnish: the Chief Executive's review states that "controlling costs delivers the margins required to invest in the marketing and infrastructure that drives growth — it serves the top line as much as the bottom line."

How capital is allocated. The company applies an unusually literal return test to every project, summarised in the results as "the Company grows by following the money", with a stated twenty-year average capital expenditure to pre-tax profit ratio of 20%. Total capital expenditure was £168m in FY2025/26 and is planned at £237m in the year ahead, driven by an accelerated E3 warehouse programme intended to support around £1.5bn of additional online full price sales capacity.

Why the credit book matters. NEXT Finance is not a bolt-on. It delivered £195m of divisional profit after funding costs in FY2025/26 on an average debtor balance of £1,284m, and the bad debt charge disclosed in the Chief Executive's review was £2m for the year (including a non-recurring £20m release), against £18m the prior year. The credit product also underpins customer loyalty and basket size in the core online business.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are taken from NEXT plc's own results announcements and the Annual Report and Accounts January 2026. Note that the year to January 2026 was a 53-week period; the prior four years were 52 weeks.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY to Jan 2022	4,625.9	—	530.8p	—†	127p (plus 270p special)	—†
FY to Jan 2023	5,034.0	+8.8%	573.4p	576.8p	206p	£790.7m
FY to Jan 2024	5,491.0	+9.1%	661.6p	578.8p	207p	£790.8m
FY to Jan 2025	6,118.1	+11.4%	615.1p	636.3p	233p	£543.8m
FY to Jan 2026 (53 wks)	6,901.3	+12.8%	760.1p	744.2p	268p	£600.0m

† The "Adjusted EPS" column is NEXT Group post-tax Earnings Per Share, the company's headline measure which excludes brand amortisation and minority interests. NEXT restated this measure onto its current basis from the year to January 2023 onwards, so no comparable figure is published for the year to January 2022. The long-term debt column is non-current corporate bonds per the consolidated balance sheet; the January 2022 balance is not disclosed in the comparatives available in the January 2024 and January 2026 Annual Reports. GAAP EPS is statutory Basic Earnings Per Share.

Quarter / Half	Revenue (£m)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H2 to Jan 2026 (incl. 53rd week)‡	3,756.8	414.0p	435.9p
H1 to Jul 2025	3,144.5	330.2p	324.2p
H2 to Jan 2025‡	3,258.0	353.5p	347.2p
H1 to Jul 2024	2,860.1	282.8p	267.9p
FY to Jan 2026 total (53 weeks)	6,901.3	744.2p	760.1p

‡ NEXT reports on a half-yearly basis rather than quarterly. Second-half figures are derived as the reported full year less the reported first half. First-half figures are as reported in the half year results for the 26 weeks to 26 July 2025 and the comparable prior period.

Balance sheet and cash flow, 53 weeks to 31 January 2026: cash generated from operations was £1,466.7m and net cash from operating activities £1,233.6m after £233.1m of corporation taxes paid. Payments to acquire property, plant and equipment were £135.4m and purchases of intangible assets £35.8m. Depreciation, impairment and disposals on property, plant and equipment were £119.2m, right-of-use asset depreciation and related items £156.4m, and amortisation and impairment of intangibles £59.1m. At the year end the Group held £60.2m of cash and cash equivalents against corporate bonds of £112.9m current and £600.0m non-current, plus lease liabilities of £168.1m current and £831.7m non-current. Net debt excluding leases was £713.4m, a net debt to PBIT ratio of 0.60, and total equity was £1,780.5m.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, July 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	No current disclosed net short positions at or above the 0.5% notification threshold on the FCA short position register (register dated 10 July 2026)

7. What Are They Building

The clearest capital commitment in the FY2025/26 results is warehouse capacity. NEXT has pulled forward the next three phases of its E3 online boxed warehouse development, with £307m of E3 capital expenditure identified across the programme and £48m falling in the year ahead. The stated reason is that online sales grew +28% over the last two years against an internal expectation of +10%, and that with online growth forecast at +8% this year the existing network would be 94% full at peak. The additional capacity is expected to accommodate around £1.5bn of additional online full price sales.

The second build is international. Management describes advancing "on two fronts — product and international", with International Aggregators sales growing from £13m to £61m in the year, an increase of +364%. Online (International) full price sales grew +12.8% in the first quarter of the current year despite the Middle East disruption.

The third is the brand portfolio. Beyond the consolidated subsidiaries Reiss, FatFace and Joules, the Group acquired the brand name, domain and intellectual property of Russell & Bromley during the year, alongside maternity brand Seraphine, for £5.6m combined. Management states that by the end of the current year it will have launched three new wholly-owned brands, including Russell & Bromley.

Finally, the company has set out a specific position on artificial intelligence within its cost-control agenda, with a dedicated section of the Chief Executive's review addressing how AI can assist in controlling the fixed overheads that have risen alongside the shift online.

8. Peer Comparison

Peer	Key 2025 metric
Industria de Diseno Textil (Inditex, ITX.MC)	Trailing revenue of ~€40.34bn, roughly six times NEXT's revenue base and the scale benchmark for European fashion retail.
Associated British Foods (ABF.L, owner of Primark)	Trailing revenue of ~£19.42bn across food and retail; Primark is NEXT's principal UK value-clothing competitor on the high street.
Marks and Spencer Group (MKS.L)	Trailing revenue of ~£17.27bn; the closest UK comparator combining a large store estate with a growing clothing and home online business.
JD Sports Fashion (JD.L)	Trailing revenue of ~£12.66bn; competes for the same UK and international online apparel spend at a materially lower market capitalisation.
Frasers Group (FRAS.L)	Trailing revenue of ~£5.33bn; the other UK operator pursuing a multi-brand acquisition strategy comparable to NEXT's Total Platform approach.

Market capitalisations and trailing revenue figures retrieved July 2026. Inditex figures are in euros; the remainder are in pounds sterling.

9. Insider Activity

The transactions below are drawn from NEXT plc regulatory news service announcements made under article 19 of the UK Market Abuse Regulation and from the published director dealings record for the twelve months to July 2026. Chief Executive Lord Simon Wolfson remains by far the largest individual holder among the directors, retaining 828,162 shares after his October 2025 disposal.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Jonathan Neil Blanchard (CFO)	25 Jun 2026	Sell	18,012	Open market transaction
Amy Elizabeth Stirling (Independent Director)	07 May 2026	Buy	375	Open market purchase
Lord Simon Wolfson (CEO)	06 May 2026	Award vesting	2,822	Deferred Share Bonus Plan — settlement of 2024 award, net of tax and national insurance
Jeremy Stakol (Executive Director)	24 Apr 2026	Buy	236	Open market purchase
Simon Adam Wolfson (CEO)	29 Oct 2025	Sell	50,000	Open market transaction
Amy Elizabeth Stirling (Independent Director)	18 Sep 2025	Buy	472	Open market purchase

10. Key Risks

Geopolitical disruption to the international business: management states the Middle East represents around 6% of total turnover and has provided for £15m of additional costs on a three-month disruption assumption, warning of knock-on effects on freight rates, factory gate prices, selling prices and consumer demand if the conflict persists.
Structural decline in the store estate: Retail Stores profit fell -4.4% to £226m in FY2025/26 and first-quarter full price store sales fell -3.4%, meaning a large fixed-cost, long-lease estate is generating a shrinking share of Group profit.
UK labour and employment cost inflation: the company disclosed a 13% increase in the cost of part-time entry-level wages and a £25m hit to the Retail division from employment cost changes, pressures which management expects to require continued offsetting through cost control and pricing.
Equal pay litigation: NEXT remains subject to equal pay claims from current and former store colleagues. The Employment Tribunal found in the company's favour on eleven matters but against it on seven in August 2024, and the matter is carried as a contingent liability in the financial statements.
Consumer credit exposure: NEXT Finance carried an average customer debtor balance of £1,284m in FY2025/26. The reported bad debt charge of £2m benefited from a non-recurring £20m release, so the underlying charge is higher and would rise if UK consumer credit conditions deteriorate.
Execution risk on accelerated capital expenditure: total capital expenditure is planned to rise from £168m to £237m as the E3 warehouse programme is pulled forward, with £307m of E3 spend identified. Management expects the profit and loss impact to be marginal, but the additional depreciation and overhead is contingent on the forecast online growth materialising.

11. Recent Developments

04 Jul 2026 — Press reports of takeover interest in Harvey Nichols. Sky News reported that NEXT was preparing a takeover bid for the luxury department store chain Harvey Nichols, with plans said to be at a relatively early stage. Reuters could not immediately verify the report; Harvey Nichols declined to comment and NEXT did not respond to requests for comment. No regulatory announcement has been made by the company.
25 Jun 2026 — Chief Financial Officer share sale. Jonathan Blanchard sold 18,012 ordinary shares at £148.02, a consideration of £2,666,175.87, retaining 36,025 shares.
06 May 2026 — First-quarter trading statement and guidance upgrade. Full price sales in the 13 weeks to 2 May 2026 rose +6.2% against a forecast of +4.0%, which was £28m ahead of plan and driven by exceptionally strong growth of +11.8% in the first five weeks. The additional sales added £8m of profit, lifting full-year NEXT Group pre-tax profit guidance to £1,218m. Online UK total full price sales rose +10.1% and Online International +12.8%, while Retail Stores fell -3.4%.
26 Mar 2026 — Results for the year ending January 2026. Statutory revenue of £6,901.3m, up +12.8%, and statutory profit before tax of £1,193m, up +20.8%. A final ordinary dividend of 181p was proposed and guidance for the year to January 2027 set at £1,210m of pre-tax profit with post-tax EPS of 787.3p.
06 Jan 2026 — Christmas trading statement. NEXT published its January trading statement covering the Christmas period, which formed the basis for the profit guidance subsequently increased by £8m at the March full-year results following better than expected full price sales in January and improved clearance rates in the end-of-season Sale.
Nov 2025 — Exceptional gain on land disposal. The Group recorded a £16m exceptional profit on the sale of land in November 2025, with proceeds from the sale of held for sale assets of £55.7m shown in the FY2025/26 cash flow statement.

12. Key Dates and Catalysts

03 Aug 2026 — Final ordinary dividend payment date for the 181p per share final dividend declared with the January 2026 results.
05 Aug 2026 — Second-quarter trading statement, per the company's published financial calendar. This is the next scheduled update on full price sales against the +4.5% full-year growth guidance and the £1,218m pre-tax profit guidance.
17 Sep 2026 — Half year results for the 26 weeks to July 2026, the first full profit and loss disclosure of the current financial year and the point at which the interim dividend is normally declared.
Expected Nov 2026 — Third-quarter trading statement, following the pattern of prior years.
Expected Jan 2027 — Christmas and full-year trading statement, historically the point at which final full-year profit guidance is set.

Scheduled UK and global market-moving releases around these dates can be tracked on the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and readers can discuss this research with other members in the ChartsView Forum.

Last Updated: 20 Jul 2026

Tesco PLC is the United Kingdom's largest grocery retailer, with a UK market share of 28.5% at its 2025/26 year end — the highest level it has held in a decade. Beyond the UK it operates in the Republic of Ireland and Central Europe, runs the Booker wholesale business supplying independent retailers and caterers, and owns the dunnhumby data science business and an Insurance & Money Services arm. The financial year just started has opened into a materially more competitive UK market. This report sets out what the company has published, with no analyst opinions and no price targets.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Tesco PLC
Ticker / Exchange	TSCO (London Stock Exchange)
Sector	Consumer & Retail — food retail and wholesale
Revenue (FY2025/26, statutory, 53 weeks, exc. VAT, inc. fuel)	£73,712m, up 5.4%
Sales exc. VAT and fuel (52-week basis)	£66,588m, up 4.6% at actual rates
Statutory operating profit (FY2025/26)	£2,985m, up 10.1%
Adjusted operating profit (52-week basis)	£3,152m, up 0.8% at actual rates
Statutory diluted EPS / adjusted diluted EPS	27.1p / 29.0p
Dividend per share (FY2025/26)	14.5p, up 5.8%
Free cash flow (52-week basis)	£1,957m, up 11.8%
Net debt (28 Feb 2026)	£(10,563)m; net debt/EBITDA 2.1x
UK grocery market share	28.5%, up 24bps year on year
CEO / Leadership	Ken Murphy, Chief Executive; Imran Nawaz, Chief Financial Officer
Employees	~340,000 colleagues (at 28 February 2026)
Financial year end	Last Saturday of February (28 February 2026 — a 53-week year)

2. Bull and Bear Case

Bull Case

Market share at a ten-year high: UK share reached 28.5%, up 24bps in the year and up 122bps across three years, with December 2025 the highest share in a decade. Group like-for-like sales grew 3.5% and UK like-for-like sales 4.2%, with growth in every channel.
Cash generation is improving faster than profit: free cash flow rose 11.8% to £1,957m against adjusted operating profit growth of just 0.8%, driven by a £385m working capital inflow, and management upgraded its medium-term free cash flow guidance range to £1.5–2.0bn from £1.4–1.8bn.
Capital returns are substantial and ongoing: £937m of dividends were paid and the £1.45bn buyback announced in April 2025 was completed, with a further £750m buyback announced to run to April 2027.
Cost programme is funding the price investment: around £535m was delivered through the Save to Invest programme in the year, which together with sales growth offset investment in the customer offer, National Insurance increases and the new Extended Producer Responsibility levy.

Bear Case

Growth slowed materially in the new year: in the Q1 trading statement of 18 June 2026, covering the 13 weeks to 30 May 2026, group like-for-like sales grew only 1.0% against 3.5% for the prior full year, with UK like-for-like up 1.8%.
Booker is going backwards: Booker like-for-like sales fell 3.2% in Q1 2026/27, having grown just 0.2% in FY2025/26, with the exit of a lower-margin national contract cited as part of the reason.
Margin is drifting down: group adjusted operating margin fell 12bps to 4.3%, with UK & ROI down 15bps to 4.7%. Profit grew 0.8% while sales grew 4.6% — the gap is the cost of holding share.
Net debt rose while the buyback continued: net debt increased £1,109m to £(10,563)m and net debt/EBITDA moved from 2.0x to 2.1x, with lease liabilities up £168m and the prior year having benefited from around £700m of Banking disposal proceeds that were returned to shareholders.

3. Business Segments

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
UK	74.8% (£49,819m)	The core UK grocery business across large stores, convenience, online and clothing. Like-for-like sales up 4.2%; market share 28.5%; Tesco Finest sales up 14.5%.
Booker	13.6% (£9,040m)	Wholesale supply to independent retailers, symbol groups and the catering trade. Like-for-like sales up 0.2%; adjusted operating profit £292m at a 3.2% margin.
Central Europe	6.7% (£4,490m)	Retail operations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Like-for-like sales up 2.2%; adjusted operating profit £115m at a 2.5% margin.
Republic of Ireland	4.9% (£3,239m)	Reported within the UK & ROI segment, whose adjusted operating profit was £2,745m.
Insurance & Money Services	Reported within group revenue rather than the sales measure above	Over 2.5m insurance policies in force and around 4m banking customers served through the Barclays partnership. Adjusted operating profit rose £12m to £167m.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Tesco buys food and general merchandise at scale and resells it at a thin margin across a very large volume base. Group adjusted operating margin was 4.3% in 2025/26 on £66,588m of sales. Profit therefore comes from throughput and buying terms rather than from pricing power over the customer. Booker adds a wholesale channel at an even thinner 3.2% margin, while Insurance & Money Services and dunnhumby contribute higher-margin income that is small in absolute terms but does not require store capital.

Why scale is the moat. Being the largest buyer in a market where the top four players hold most of the volume gives Tesco lower unit costs than any UK competitor except the discounters, and it can convert that advantage into price without giving up as much margin as a smaller rival would. Its response to competitive pressure has been exactly that: Everyday Low Prices was expanded from 1,000 to 3,000 products in January 2026, alongside Aldi Price Match on over 600 lines, with more than 10,000 products cheaper at the year end than at the start at an average reduction of 9.5%.

The Clubcard and data layer. Clubcard Prices creates a two-tier price architecture that rewards identified customers and generates the transaction data that dunnhumby monetises. This is what allows targeted rather than blanket price investment, and it is the mechanism by which Tesco has been able to gain share while growing profit, if only slightly.

Where the model is fragile. The moat is a cost moat, not a switching-cost moat. Grocery customers face no barrier to shopping elsewhere, and a determined competitor with a different owner's cost of capital can compress industry margins for as long as it chooses to. That is the pressure the group is now facing, and it is why FY2026/27 adjusted operating profit is guided to a wide £3.0–3.3bn range against £3,152m delivered.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are taken from Tesco's Preliminary Results announcements for 2025/26 (15 April 2026), 2024/25, 2023/24 and 2022/23, and from the Interim Results 2025/26 of 2 October 2025. Statutory revenue is stated excluding VAT and including fuel.

Fiscal Year	Revenue (£m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Net debt (YE)
FY2021/22 (to 26 Feb 2022)	61,344	—	19.64p	21.86p	10.90p	£(10,516)m
FY2022/23 (to 25 Feb 2023)	65,762	+7.2%	10.08p	21.85p	10.90p	£(10,493)m
FY2023/24 (to 24 Feb 2024)	68,187	+3.7%	24.53p†	23.41p	12.10p	—
FY2024/25 (to 22 Feb 2025)	69,916	+2.5%	23.13p†	27.38p	13.70p	£(9,454)m
FY2025/26 (to 28 Feb 2026)	73,712	+5.4%	27.1p†	29.0p	14.5p	£(10,563)m

GAAP EPS and Adjusted EPS are stated on a diluted basis. † From continuing operations; the Banking operations were treated as a discontinued operation in FY2024/25 and there are no discontinued operations in FY2025/26. FY2021/22 and FY2022/23 per-share figures are as reported at the time and are not restated for that reclassification, so they are not directly comparable with later years. FY2025/26 statutory figures reflect a 53-week reporting period while the alternative performance measures are presented for the 52 weeks to 22 February 2026. Net debt is Tesco's own definition and includes lease liabilities; the FY2023/24 comparative is not restated on the current basis in the sources reviewed and is shown as unavailable.

Tesco reports statutory results half-yearly, with trading statements in between. The table below shows the most recent period first; second-half figures are derived as the full year less the reported first half.

Quarter / Half	Revenue (£m)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
H2 2025/26 (incl. week 53, to 28 Feb 2026)	37,676§	13.57p§	12.88p§
H1 2025/26 (26 weeks to 23 Aug 2025)	36,036	15.43p	14.22p
H2 2024/25 (to 22 Feb 2025)	35,143§	12.93p§	8.51p§
H1 2024/25 (26 weeks to 24 Aug 2024)	34,773	14.45p	14.62p
FY2025/26 total	73,712	29.0p	27.1p

§ Derived as the reported full year less the reported first half. Tesco does not publish a standalone second-half statement.

Cash flow and balance sheet. Capital expenditure on the company's ongoing-business definition was £1,511m, up £54m, with statutory capital expenditure of £1.7bn including property buybacks and store purchases. Guidance for 2026/27 is around £1.6bn of capital expenditure. Net debt of £(10,563)m includes lease liabilities, with net debt before lease liabilities of £(2,679)m. Free cash flow more than covered the £(750)m of buyback outflows and £(937)m of dividends paid during the year. Amortisation of acquired intangibles, principally from the Booker merger, was £(78)m and is treated as an adjusting item.

6. Valuation Metrics

Share prices, and figures worked out from them, are not shown for London-listed companies on ChartsView.

Raw metrics, July 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Short interest (% of float)	No current disclosed net short positions at or above the 0.5% notification threshold on the FCA short position register (daily file dated 10 July 2026); the only Tesco entries are historic disclosures from 2017 and 2018.

7. What Are They Building

The stated ambition is 30% of UK grocery sales, and the 2026/27 executive bonus has been tied to market share to reinforce it. The operational programme behind that is price and availability rather than expansion: Everyday Low Prices was widened from 1,000 to 3,000 lines in January 2026, Aldi Price Match covers more than 600 lines, and over 2,000 new and improved products were launched during the year including a large-scale refresh of the frozen range.

The physical estate is still growing selectively. Tesco opened 77 stores in the UK, nine in the Republic of Ireland and seven in Central Europe during 2025/26, and refreshed 300 stores across the group. Four new superstores and five Express stores opened in Ireland alone.

The technology programme is where incremental capital is going. Management has flagged warehouse automation and electronic shelf-edge labels as high-returning projects within the roughly £1.6bn of capital expenditure planned for 2026/27, alongside distribution network optimisation. Tesco Whoosh rapid delivery now covers 73% of UK households and contributed around 2ppts of the 11.2% online sales growth. Tesco Marketplace, the third-party seller platform, more than doubled average weekly traffic and grew average basket spend by around 90% before migrating to the Mirakl platform.

8. Peer Comparison

Peer	Key 2025/26 metric
Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (AMS: AD)	The largest listed European food retailer by market value in this comparison, operating across the Netherlands, Belgium, Central Europe and the eastern United States.
Carrefour SA (EPA: CA)	France's largest listed grocer, valued at roughly a third of Tesco despite a comparable revenue base, reflecting the market's differing view of the two margin structures.
J Sainsbury plc (LSE: SBRY)	—

9. Insider Activity

Chief Executive Ken Murphy and the wider executive team received shares on the release of the 2021 Long-Term Incentive Plan on 3 July 2026. As is standard for UK LTIP vestings, a large portion of the gross award was withheld to cover income tax and National Insurance, and several participants sold the balance in the market on the same day. For Ken Murphy and Chief Financial Officer Imran Nawaz, the net shares are subject to a post-vesting holding period until 3 July 2028, so neither sold. The transactions below are plan-driven rather than discretionary and should be read as such.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Plan Type
Ken Murphy (Chief Executive)	3 Jul 2026	LTIP release (gross)	1,291,639	LTIP 2021 — 607,071 shares withheld for tax; 684,568 net shares held to 3 July 2028
Imran Nawaz (Chief Financial Officer)	3 Jul 2026	LTIP release (gross)	627,003	LTIP 2021 — 294,692 withheld for tax; 332,311 net shares held to 3 July 2028
Andrew Yaxley	3 Jul 2026	Sale	239,397	Sale of net LTIP 2021 shares on release
Guus Dekkers	3 Jul 2026	Sale	215,052	Sale of net LTIP 2021 shares on release
Natasha Adams	3 Jul 2026	Sale	213,022	Sale of net LTIP 2021 shares on release
Ken Murphy (Chief Executive)	3 Jul 2026	Purchase	30	Share Incentive Plan (partnership shares)
Stewart Gilliland (Non-Executive Director)	Jul 2026	Purchase	680	Open-market purchase, held jointly with Michelle Gilliland

10. Key Risks

Price war risk: a sustained discounting campaign by Asda or another major competitor would compress industry margins irrespective of Tesco's own execution.
Demand and household spending risk: the company explicitly flagged that its FY2026/27 guidance depends on economic conditions affecting household spending, and the £3.0–3.3bn adjusted operating profit range is wide enough to accommodate a materially weaker outcome than the £3,152m just delivered.
Slowing momentum: Q1 2026/27 group like-for-like sales growth of 1.0% is a sharp deceleration from 3.5% for the prior full year, and Booker like-for-like sales fell 3.2% in the quarter.
Cost inflation risk: the year absorbed increased National Insurance contributions and the new Extended Producer Responsibility levy. The Save to Invest programme delivered around £535m of savings to offset these; if the savings run rate slows while statutory cost inflation continues, the offset disappears.
Balance sheet and lease risk: net debt rose £1,109m to £(10,563)m while £750m of buybacks and £937m of dividends were paid, taking net debt/EBITDA to 2.1x within a stated target range of c.2.8–2.3x. Lease liabilities rose £168m on renewals and extensions.
Concentration risk: the UK and Republic of Ireland provide the large majority of both sales and profit, so there is limited geographic diversification to absorb a downturn in the domestic market.

11. Recent Developments

06 Jul 2026 — Long-Term Incentive Plan 2021 releases disclosed. Tesco published PDMR notifications covering the 3 July 2026 release of the 2021 LTIP, including 1,291,639 gross shares to Ken Murphy and 627,003 to Imran Nawaz at £4.666, with net shares for both subject to a holding period until 3 July 2028.
18 Jun 2026 — Q1 2026/27 trading statement. For the 13 weeks to 30 May 2026, group like-for-like sales grew 1.0% and UK like-for-like sales 1.8%, with food up 2.6% and fresh food up 3.6%. Booker like-for-like sales fell 3.2%. Full-year guidance of £3.0–3.3bn adjusted operating profit and £1.5–2.0bn free cash flow was maintained.
15 Apr 2026 — Preliminary Results 2025/26 published. Statutory revenue of £73,712m was up 5.4%, adjusted operating profit £3,152m up 0.8%, free cash flow £1,957m up 11.8%, and adjusted diluted EPS 29.0p up 6.0%. A final dividend of 9.7p took the full-year dividend to 14.5p, and a new £750m share buyback was announced to complete by April 2027.
15 Apr 2026 — Medium-term free cash flow guidance upgraded. The range was raised to £1.5–2.0bn from £1.4–1.8bn, reflecting management confidence in future cash generation.
Jan 2026 — Everyday Low Prices expanded from 1,000 to 3,000 products. The expansion sat alongside Aldi Price Match on over 600 lines and weekly Clubcard Prices, with over 10,000 products cheaper at the year end than at the start at an average reduction of 9.5%.
Dec 2025 — UK market share reached a decade high. Share peaked during the month on the way to a 28.5% year-end position, up 24bps year on year and up 122bps over three years.
02 Oct 2025 — Interim Results 2025/26. Statutory revenue of £36,036m was up 3.6%, adjusted diluted EPS 15.43p up 6.8%, and the interim dividend was raised 12.9% to 4.80p.

12. Key Dates

18 Jun 2026 — Q1 2026/27 trading statement published, covering the 13 weeks to 30 May 2026
03 Jul 2026 — Long-Term Incentive Plan 2021 release date; holding period for executive directors runs to 3 July 2028
Expected Oct 2026 — Interim Results 2026/27 for the 26 weeks to late August 2026, the next scheduled reporting event
Expected Nov 2026 — 2026/27 interim dividend payment, following the FY2025/26 pattern
Expected Jan 2027 — Christmas trading statement covering the festive period
Expected Apr 2027 — Preliminary Results 2026/27, and the stated completion date for the £750m share buyback announced in April 2026

Discussion of Tesco and the wider UK grocery sector takes place in the ChartsView Forum.

Last Updated: 18 July 2026

Lowe's Companies (NYSE: LOW) is the world's second-largest home improvement retailer, operating 1,759 stores across the United States with roughly 196 million square feet of selling space and around 300,000 associates. Fiscal 2025 (ended 30 January 2026) returned the business to growth — total sales of $86.3 billion, up 3.1% — helped by two transformative Pro-market acquisitions: Artisan Design Group (June 2025, $1.325bn) and Foundation Building Materials (October 2025, $8.8bn). The shares trade near the bottom of their 52-week range as a soft housing market weighs on big-ticket DIY demand, while the company leans on Pro customers, online growth and its newly assembled distribution arm. This research is data-only: figures come from Lowe's press releases, 10-K and 10-Q filings, and SEC XBRL data. You can chart the stock live on our Live Charts page.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Lowe's Companies, Inc.
Ticker / Exchange	LOW / New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
Sector / Industry	Consumer & Retail — home improvement retail and building-products distribution
Headquarters	Mooresville, North Carolina, United States
Founded	1946 (first store in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina)
CEO / Leadership	Marvin R. Ellison, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO since July 2018)
Employees	Approximately 300,000 associates
Stores	1,759 stores, ~196 million sq ft of retail selling space (at 30 January 2026)
Fiscal year end	Friday nearest 31 January (FY2025 ended 30 January 2026)
Market cap	~$121bn (16 July 2026: ~560.7m shares at $216.16)
Revenue (FY2025)	$86,286m net sales (up 3.1% year on year)
Net income (FY2025)	$6,654m; diluted EPS $11.85
Dividend	$1.25 per share quarterly (raised 4% on 29 May 2026; 25+ consecutive years of increases)

2. Bull & Bear Case

Bull Case

Pro-market transformation: the $8.8bn Foundation Building Materials and $1.325bn Artisan Design Group acquisitions bolt a 370+ branch distribution network and interior-finish installation services onto Lowe's, attacking the professional segment where Home Depot has historically led.
Growth has resumed: FY2025 sales rose 3.1% to $86.3bn after two down years, comparable sales turned positive (+1.3% in Q4 FY2025, +0.6% in Q1 FY2026), and online sales grew 15.5% in Q1 with appliances, home services and Pro all contributing.
Dividend credentials intact: the board raised the quarterly dividend 4% to $1.25 on 29 May 2026 — extending a 25-year-plus increase streak — while FY2025 operating cash flow of $9.9bn comfortably funded $2.2bn of capex and $2.6bn of dividends.
Valuation reset: at $216 the shares sit ~26% below their 52-week high and about 6% above the 52-week low, on roughly 17x the mid-point of FY2026 adjusted EPS guidance ($12.25–12.75) — a discount to Home Depot on most trailing measures.
Pent-up housing demand: management's FY2026 outlook of $92–94bn sales assumes only flat-to-2% comps; any recovery in housing turnover or rate-sensitive big-ticket projects would come on top of accretion from FBM and ADG.

Bear Case

Housing and rates headwind: DIY big-ticket demand remains weak, comps have been barely positive (+0.4% in Q3 FY2025, +0.6% in Q1 FY2026), and the stock's slide toward its 52-week low reflects doubts that the FY2026 guide survives a soft housing market.
Leverage stepped up for FBM: long-term debt rose to $39.8bn at FY2025 year-end (from $35.3bn) and shareholders' equity is negative (-$9.3bn at 1 May 2026) after years of buybacks — buyback capacity is now constrained while the balance sheet digests the deal.
Integration and margin dilution: FBM and ADG brought $129m of pre-tax acquisition costs in Q3 FY2025, $149m in Q4 and $96m in Q1 FY2026, plus a ~40bp expected drag on FY2026 operating margin from intangible amortisation; distribution is structurally lower-margin than retail.
GAAP earnings still declining: GAAP EPS fell from $13.20 (FY2023) to $12.23 (FY2024) to $11.85 (FY2025), and some commentators have even questioned long-run dividend affordability if housing stays frozen — the payout is rising while earnings drift lower.
Scale gap to Home Depot: at $164.7bn FY2025 sales and ~$335bn market cap, Home Depot is roughly twice Lowe's size, with its own Pro distribution build-out (SRS Distribution), keeping price and service competition intense.

3. Business Segments

Lowe's reports one large Retail Home Improvement segment plus an "Other" bucket containing the newly acquired distribution businesses (FBM and ADG). Figures are FY2025 net sales (year ended 30 January 2026) from the 10-K disaggregation note.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Home Décor (retail)	36.5% ($31,527m)	Appliances, décor, flooring, kitchens & bath and paint — the big-ticket, discretionary heart of the store.
Building Products (retail)	30.7% ($26,533m)	Building materials, electrical, lumber, millwork and rough plumbing — skews toward Pro customers and project work.
Hardlines (retail)	28.0% ($24,185m)	Hardware, lawn & garden, seasonal & outdoor living, and tools.
Other retail sales	2.2% ($1,833m)	Services and other revenue within the Retail Home Improvement segment.
Other segment (FBM & ADG)	2.6% ($2,208m, partial year)	Foundation Building Materials (drywall, metal framing, ceilings, insulation distribution; 370+ branches) and Artisan Design Group (design, distribution and installation of interior finishes) — consolidated from their June and October 2025 closings, so FY2025 reflects only a partial-year contribution.

4. Business Model & Moat

How it makes money. Lowe's earns a retail margin selling home-improvement products through 1,759 US stores and Lowes.com, supplemented by installation and home services, a growing retail-media business, and credit-card economics. FY2025 gross economics: $86.3bn of net sales at a 66.2% cost-of-sales ratio in the retail segment, producing $10.2bn of consolidated operating income. The FBM and ADG deals add wholesale distribution economics — branch-based, contractor-facing, lower gross margin but sticky, order-book-driven revenue that deepens share of the professional wallet.

The moat. Scale is the primary advantage: national store density, ~196 million square feet of selling space, supply-chain infrastructure and $86bn of purchasing power that only Home Depot can match. The MyLowe's Rewards loyalty programmes and the Total Home strategy (fulfil any project, DIY or Pro, product plus installation) raise switching costs, while 15.5% online sales growth in Q1 FY2026 shows the omnichannel model compounding — customers who blend store, app and delivery spend materially more than single-channel shoppers.

Capital allocation. Lowe's runs a shareholder-heavy model: $2.6bn of dividends in FY2025 and a long buyback history that has driven book equity negative (-$9.9bn at year-end; a accounting artefact of returning more than earned capital, not an insolvency signal). Buybacks paused around the FBM funding — the near-term priority is deleveraging the $39.8bn long-term debt stack while integrating the acquisitions.

5. Financial Health

Annual figures are from Lowe's audited 10-K filings and SEC XBRL data. Lowe's fiscal year ends on the Friday nearest 31 January; FY2022 contained 53 weeks. FY2025 net sales include partial-year contributions from ADG (from June 2025) and FBM (from October 2025).

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021 (ended 28 Jan 2022)	$96,250m	+7.4%	$12.04	$12.04*	$3.00	$24,285m
FY2022 (53 weeks, ended 3 Feb 2023)	$97,059m	+0.8%	$10.17	—*	$3.95	$33,270m
FY2023 (ended 2 Feb 2024)	$86,377m	-11.0%	$13.20	$13.20*	$4.35	$35,770m
FY2024 (ended 31 Jan 2025)	$83,674m	-3.1%	$12.23	—*	$4.55	$35,319m
FY2025 (ended 30 Jan 2026)	$86,286m	+3.1%	$11.85	—*	$4.75	$39,819m

* Lowe's publishes adjusted (non-GAAP) diluted EPS at the quarterly level rather than as a stated full-year figure. FY2021 and FY2023 contained no non-GAAP adjustments, so GAAP is shown. FY2022 GAAP was depressed by Canadian retail exit charges (Q4 FY2022 adjusted EPS was $2.28 versus $1.58 GAAP); FY2024 GAAP included a Canadian contingent-consideration gain (Q4 FY2024 adjusted $1.93 versus $1.99 GAAP); FY2025 GAAP included FBM/ADG acquisition expenses (Q4 FY2025 adjusted $1.98 versus $1.78 GAAP). Long-term debt is per each year's 10-K. Dividend/share is declared per fiscal year.

Quarterly figures (most recent first):

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q1 FY2026 (ended 1 May 2026)	$23,078m	$3.03	$2.90
Q4 FY2025 (ended 30 Jan 2026)	$20,584m	$1.98	$1.78
Q3 FY2025 (ended 31 Oct 2025)	$20,813m	$3.06	$2.88
Q2 FY2025 (ended 1 Aug 2025)	$23,959m	—†	$4.27
FY2025 total	$86,286m	—†	$11.85

† No adjusted figure published for the period in the releases reviewed; the acquisition-cost adjustments began with Q3 FY2025.

Cash generation remains the anchor: FY2025 operating cash flow of $9,864m against capital expenditure of $2,213m, with depreciation and amortisation of $2,194m. Q1 FY2026 delivered sales of $23.1bn (up 10.3%, boosted by FBM/ADG consolidation), comparable sales up 0.6%, adjusted EPS of $3.03 and $3.35bn of operating cash flow. Note the balance sheet carries negative shareholders' equity (-$9.3bn at 1 May 2026) — a consequence of cumulative buybacks exceeding retained earnings, common among mature US retailers — and total debt of ~$37.9bn.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, July 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	~$121bn (16 July 2026: ~560.7m shares at $216.16)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~18x (price $216.16 / trailing four-quarter GAAP EPS of $11.83: Q2 FY25 $4.27 + Q3 FY25 $2.88 + Q4 FY25 $1.78 + Q1 FY26 $2.90)
P/E (forward)	~17x (FY2026 adjusted EPS guidance of $12.25–12.75; GAAP guidance $11.75–12.25 implies ~18x)
P/S (TTM)	~1.4x (market cap ~$121bn / trailing four-quarter revenue of $88,434m)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	~12.8x (EV ~$158bn / FY2025 EBITDA ~$12.3bn; EBITDA = operating income $10,153m + D&A $2,194m per the FY2025 statements)
P/FCF	~16x (market cap ~$121bn / FCF ~$7.7bn; FCF = operating cash flow $9,864m − capex $2,213m per the FY2025 cash flow statement)
Enterprise value	~$158bn (market cap ~$121bn + total debt $37,941m (long-term $36,751m + current maturities $810m + short-term borrowings $380m) − cash $786m − short-term investments $458m, per the 1 May 2026 balance sheet)
52-week high	$293.06
52-week low	$203.40
Short interest (% of float)	~1.2% (~6.8m shares; July 2026 reading)
Days to cover	~3.0 (July 2026)

7. What Are They Building?

Lowe's is assembling an end-to-end home platform: retail plus distribution plus installation, serving both the homeowner and the professional.

A Pro ecosystem. ADG (closed June 2025) brought design, distribution and installation of interior finishes for homebuilders and property managers; FBM (closed 9 October 2025) added 370+ wholesale branches supplying drywall, framing, ceilings and insulation to contractors across the US and Canada. Together they extend Lowe's from the store aisle into the jobsite supply chain, aligned with its planned-spend Pro strategy, and added $3.6bn of goodwill in the "Other" segment.

Digital and AI. Online sales grew 15.5% year on year in Q1 FY2026, and the company continues to invest in its app, same-day fulfilment options and AI-driven tools for associates and customers, alongside new store openings planned for 2026.

Guidance. For FY2026 management targets $92.0–94.0bn of total sales (roughly $6–8bn of which reflects full-year FBM/ADG consolidation), comparable sales flat to up 2%, adjusted operating margin of 11.6–11.8% and adjusted diluted EPS of $12.25–12.75 — affirmed on 20 May 2026. Macro catalysts for the housing complex — rate decisions, CPI and housing data — can be tracked on our Economic Calendar.

8. Peer Comparison

Lowe's competes with the other big-box home improvement retailer and a set of specialty operators. Figures are from each company's reported results and market data as at the dates shown.

Peer	Market cap (Jul 2026)	Key 2025 metric
Home Depot (NYSE: HD)	~$335bn	FY2025 sales $164.7bn, up 3.2%; comparable sales +0.3%; diluted EPS $14.23
Tractor Supply (NASDAQ: TSCO)	~$15bn	FY2025 net sales $15.52bn, up 4.3%; comparable sales +1.2%
Floor & Decor (NYSE: FND)	~$6.1bn	CY2025 revenue $4.68bn, up 5.1%

9. Insider Activity

Form 4 filings in 2026 show sales and plan-based activity from several executive vice presidents; no open-market purchases by executives were identified, and Chairman, President and CEO Marvin R. Ellison reported no open-market transactions in the filings reviewed.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Margrethe R. Vagell (EVP, Supply Chain)	18 Jun 2026	Open-market sale	2,500	$223.83	~$0.56m	Not stated in filing
Janice M. Dupré (EVP, Human Resources)	16 Jun 2026	Option exercise and sale	14,150	$221.90 (sale)	~$3.14m	Not stated in filing
Juliette W. Pryor (EVP, Chief Legal Officer)	Jun 2026	Open-market sale	9,330	$224.81	~$2.10m	Not stated in filing

10. Key Risks

Housing market and interest rates: home-improvement demand tracks housing turnover, home-price appreciation and financing costs; a prolonged freeze in existing-home sales or higher-for-longer rates would pressure the FY2026 comp guidance of flat to +2%.
DIY consumer weakness: big-ticket discretionary projects (kitchens, flooring, appliances — the 36.5% Home Décor division) remain the softest part of the mix and are the last to recover in a stretched-consumer environment.
Acquisition integration: FBM and ADG must be integrated across systems, logistics and culture; acquisition-related expenses have already totalled several hundred million dollars, and distribution's structurally lower margins dilute the retail P&L (~40bp expected FY2026 margin drag from amortisation alone).
Balance-sheet leverage: long-term debt rose to $39.8bn at FY2025 year-end to fund FBM, against negative shareholders' equity of -$9.9bn; sustained earnings pressure would narrow the cushion for the dividend-growth streak and delay buyback resumption.
Competitive intensity: Home Depot's greater scale ($164.7bn FY2025 sales) and its own Pro-distribution push (SRS) constrain pricing power, while Tractor Supply, Floor & Decor, Menards and online channels chip at category share.
Tariffs and sourcing costs: a meaningful share of merchandise is imported; shifting US tariff policy can raise product costs or force price moves in highly price-transparent categories.
Weather and seasonality: spring is the retail high season; adverse weather in Q1–Q2 reliably distorts comparable sales and inventory positioning.

11. Recent Developments

15 Jul 2026 — Habitat for Humanity partnership renewed. Lowe's renewed its longstanding national partnership supporting home repair and rehabilitation projects with local Habitat affiliates.
29 May 2026 — Dividend raised 4% to $1.25 per share. Payable 5 August 2026 to holders of record on 22 July 2026, extending a 25-year-plus streak of annual increases; CEO Marvin Ellison cited the board's confidence in the company's trajectory.
20 May 2026 — Q1 FY2026 results; outlook affirmed. Sales of $23.1bn (up 10.3% with FBM/ADG consolidated), comparable sales up 0.6%, GAAP EPS $2.90 and adjusted EPS $3.03 (up 3.8%); online sales grew 15.5%. Full-year guidance of $92–94bn sales and $12.25–12.75 adjusted EPS was affirmed.
25 Feb 2026 — Q4 and FY2025 results; cautious FY2026 guide. Q4 sales of $20.6bn with comps up 1.3% and adjusted EPS of $1.98 beat expectations, but the shares fell on soft initial FY2026 guidance; FY2025 closed with sales up 3.1% at $86.3bn and GAAP EPS of $11.85.
09 Oct 2025 — Foundation Building Materials acquisition completed. The $8.8bn deal (announced 20 August 2025) added a leading North American distributor of drywall, metal framing, ceilings and insulation with 370+ branches, following the June 2025 completion of the $1.325bn Artisan Design Group purchase.

12. Key Dates & What to Watch

22 Jul 2026 — record date for the increased $1.25 quarterly dividend
05 Aug 2026 — dividend payment date
19 Aug 2026 — Q2 FY2026 results expected (per exchange earnings calendars; the peak-season quarter that carries the year)
Expected Nov 2026 — Q3 FY2026 results
Expected Feb 2027 — Q4 and full-year FY2026 results with FY2027 guidance

Watch comparable-sales momentum against the flat-to-+2% guide, FBM/ADG integration costs, and the pace of debt reduction. Discuss the stock with other members on our Forum.

Last Updated: 15 July 2026

PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ: PEP) is one of the world's largest convenient foods and beverages companies, owning Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos, Quaker, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew and dozens of other billion-dollar brands sold in more than 200 countries. The company sits at an interesting juncture: revenue keeps grinding higher and international momentum is the best it has been in years, yet the shares trade near a 52-week low as North American demand softens and activist investor Elliott Management pushes a far-reaching operational overhaul. This research sets out the reported facts — from primary filings and company releases — so you can weigh the situation yourself.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	PepsiCo, Inc.
Ticker / Exchange	PEP / NASDAQ
Sector	Consumer Staples — Convenient Foods & Beverages
Headquarters	Purchase, New York, USA
Founded	1965 (merger of Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay)
CEO / Leadership	Ramon Laguarta (Chairman & Chief Executive Officer since 2018/2019)
Employees	Approximately 306,000 worldwide (about 125,000 in the US), per FY2025 Form 10-K
Market cap	~$187.7bn (mid-July 2026)
Revenue (FY2025)	$93,925m (net revenue, fiscal year ended 27 December 2025)
Net income (FY2025)	$8,240m attributable to PepsiCo; diluted GAAP EPS $6.00
Dividend	$5.92 per share annualised (raised 4% effective June 2026) — 54th consecutive annual increase; yield ~4.3%
Fiscal year end	Last Saturday of December (52/53 weeks); FY2025 ended 27 Dec 2025

2. Bull & Bear Case

Bull Case

Elliott-backed self-help programme: Following Elliott Management's ~$4bn stake (September 2025) and the December 2025 cooperation agreement, PepsiCo is cutting nearly 20% of its product SKUs, closing underperforming food plants and redirecting savings into marketing and consumer value — a concrete margin-recovery lever that does not depend on the macro backdrop.
International momentum at multi-year highs: Year-to-date 2026 global organic volume is growing at its fastest rate since 2022, with every international segment (EMEA, LatAm Foods, Asia Pacific Foods, International Beverages Franchise) delivering strong net revenue growth in Q2 2026.
Dividend King income anchor: 54 consecutive annual dividend increases, an annualised payout of $5.92 per share (~4.3% yield at ~$137), roughly $8.9bn of planned 2026 cash returns and a new $10bn buyback authorisation through February 2030.
Valuation reset already in the price: The shares trade near their 52-week low ($130.60) and at roughly 16x guided FY2026 core EPS — a substantial discount to their own history and to peer Coca-Cola — while FY2026 guidance (organic revenue +2–4%, core constant-currency EPS +4–6%) was affirmed in July 2026.

Bear Case

North America is the soft spot: PepsiCo Foods North America net revenue fell 2% in Q2 2026 on lower effective net pricing, and North American beverage volumes declined 4% as, in the CEO's words, "consumer budgets tighten due to rising inflationary pressures" — the largest profit pool is going backwards.
Margin pressure from affordability investments: Core operating margin contracted 40 basis points year-over-year in Q2 2026 (16.8%) as pricing moderates and the company invests in affordability initiatives, so productivity gains are being competed away rather than dropping through.
Rising leverage while FCF barely covers the dividend: Long-term debt rose to $42.3bn at YE2025 (from $37.2bn a year earlier) after 2025 acquisitions, and FY2025 free cash flow of ~$7.7bn sits below the ~$7.9bn of dividends planned for 2026 — leaving buybacks and M&A reliant on the balance sheet.
Structural headwinds to snacking: GLP-1 weight-loss drug adoption, "permissible" eating trends and mounting US regulatory scrutiny of artificial ingredients all pressure the long-run volume outlook for the core Frito-Lay salty-snacks franchise.

3. Business Segments

From fiscal 2026 PepsiCo reports six operating segments (restated for 2025 comparatives). FY2025 net revenue of $93,925m split as follows:

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
PepsiCo Beverages North America (PBNA)	30.0% ($28,197m)	US/Canada drinks: Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Aquafina, bubly, poppi and other ready-to-drink brands, bottled and distributed largely in-house
PepsiCo Foods North America (PFNA)	29.3% ($27,528m)	Frito-Lay (Lay's, Doritos, Cheetos, Tostitos) and Quaker Foods in the US and Canada
Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)	19.2% ($18,025m)	Combined convenient foods and beverages across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Walkers, Lay's, Pepsi, 7UP)
Latin America Foods (LatAm Foods)	11.2% ($10,549m)	Snacks and foods across Mexico, Brazil and wider Latin America (Sabritas, Gamesa, Doritos)
International Beverages Franchise (IB Franchise)	5.3% ($4,997m)	Concentrate sales to franchise bottlers for beverages outside North America
Asia Pacific Foods	4.9% ($4,629m)	Convenient foods across Asia Pacific, Australia/New Zealand and China region

4. Business Model & Moat

How it makes money. PepsiCo manufactures, markets and distributes convenient foods and beverages. Roughly 59% of FY2025 revenue came from North America, where the company largely owns its manufacturing and direct-store-delivery (DSD) distribution; internationally it operates a mix of owned operations and franchise bottling, where it sells higher-margin concentrate. Snacks contribute the majority of operating profit: PFNA alone generated $6.2bn of FY2025 GAAP operating profit versus $1.1bn at PBNA, which is in the early innings of a margin-recovery programme.

The moat. Scale and shelf presence are the core advantages. PepsiCo's DSD network delivers fresh product and merchandising directly to hundreds of thousands of retail outlets — an asset few competitors can replicate — and the brand portfolio (Lay's, Doritos, Gatorade, Pepsi, Quaker) commands durable shelf space and pricing power. In salty snacks, Frito-Lay holds a dominant US market share, giving PepsiCo category-captain status with retailers.

Capital intensity and returns. The model is moderately capital-intensive: FY2025 capital spending was $4.4bn (4.7% of revenue), with management guiding capex below 5% of revenue for 2026 and a free-cash-flow conversion ratio of at least 80% of core net income. The 2025 acquisitions (including the poppi prebiotic-soda brand) and the Elliott-agreed portfolio pruning are aimed at shifting the mix toward faster-growing, higher-return products.

5. Financial Health

All figures from PepsiCo earnings press releases and SEC filings (10-K/8-K, XBRL). PepsiCo reports on a 52/53-week fiscal year ending the last Saturday of December.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	$79,474m	+12.9%	$5.49	$6.26	$4.25	$36,026m
FY2022	$86,392m	+8.7%	$6.42	$6.79	$4.53	$35,657m
FY2023	$91,471m	+5.9%	$6.56	$7.62	$4.95	$37,595m
FY2024	$91,854m	+0.4%	$6.95	$8.16	$5.33	$37,224m
FY2025	$93,925m	+2.3%	$6.00	$8.14	$5.62	$42,321m

FY2025 GAAP EPS of $6.00 sits well below adjusted (core) EPS of $8.14 mainly because of non-cash impairments of the Rockstar and Be & Cheery brands ($1.86bn recognised in Q2 2025), restructuring charges under the multi-year productivity plan, and acquisition/divestiture items. FY2025 operating cash flow was $12,087m, capital spending $4,415m and depreciation & amortisation $3,451m. Dividend/share figures are dividends declared per the 10-K XBRL data.

Quarter / Half	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q2 2026 (12 wks to 13 Jun 2026)	$24,181m	$2.20	$2.18
Q1 2026 (12 wks to 21 Mar 2026)*	$19,443m	$1.61	$1.70
Q4 2025 (17 wks to 27 Dec 2025)	$29,343m	$2.26	$1.85
Q3 2025 (12 wks to 6 Sep 2025)*	$23,937m	$2.29	$1.90
FY2025 total	$93,925m	$8.14	$6.00

*Q1 2026 and Q3 2025 figures derived arithmetically from the company's reported year-to-date and full-year press-release figures. Q2 2026 (reported 9 July 2026): net revenue +6.4%, organic revenue +2.4%, core EPS +4%; fiscal 2026 guidance affirmed — organic revenue +2–4% and core constant-currency EPS +4–6%, implying reported net revenue growth of 4–6% and core EPS growth of ~5–7%.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, July 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	~$187.7bn (mid-July 2026; ~1,369m diluted shares, ~$137/share)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~18.0x (TTM GAAP EPS $7.63 = FY2025 $6.00 − H1 2025 $2.25 + H1 2026 $3.88)
P/E (forward)	~16x (guided FY2026 core EPS of roughly $8.55–8.70, i.e. +5–7% on FY2025 core EPS of $8.14; company guides non-GAAP only)
P/S (TTM)	~1.9x (market cap ~$187.7bn / TTM revenue ~$96.9bn)
Enterprise value	~$230bn (market cap ~$187.7bn + total debt $53.2bn ($10.6bn short-term + $42.6bn long-term) − cash & short-term investments $10.7bn, per 13 Jun 2026 balance sheet)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	~15.4x on FY2025 GAAP EBITDA of ~$14.9bn (operating profit $11,498m + D&A $3,451m); note FY2025 GAAP operating profit includes $1.86bn brand impairments — on core operating profit ($14,912m) EBITDA is ~$18.4bn and EV/EBITDA ~12.5x
P/FCF	~24.5x (market cap ~$187.7bn / FY2025 FCF ~$7.67bn; FCF = operating cash flow $12,087m − capital spending $4,415m per FY2025 cash flow statement)
52-week high	$171.48
52-week low	$130.60 (the stock traded ~$135–139 on 14 Jul 2026, close to the low)
Short interest (% of float)	1.74% (23.76m shares as of 30 Apr 2026 settlement, per MarketBeat/FINRA data)
Days to cover	3.9 (as of 30 Apr 2026)

7. What Are They Building

A leaner portfolio. Under the December 2025 framework agreed with Elliott Management, PepsiCo is removing close to 20% of its SKUs by early 2027, closing underperforming food-manufacturing plants (the first closed in July 2026) and reinvesting the savings in marketing and price-pack value for consumers. Management calls this "elevating productivity across the organization to improve operating leverage".

A reshaped beverage business. The 2025 acquisitions — most visibly poppi in functional/prebiotic soda — plus zero-sugar variants, hydration (Gatorade, Propel), energy and protein drinks are repositioning PBNA toward growth categories; acquisitions contributed 6 percentage points of PBNA's Q2 2026 net revenue growth. The brand "restaging" programme covers certain global trademarks through 2026–2027.

Functional and permissible snacking. The portfolio is being evolved toward portion-control packs, diverse ingredients and functional benefits (protein, fiber, hydration) — a direct response to changing consumer preferences and the GLP-1 era. International expansion (EMEA, Asia Pacific Foods, LatAm) remains the volume engine, with year-to-date 2026 organic volume growth at its best since 2022.

8. Peer Comparison

Peer	Market cap (July 2026)	Key 2025 metric
Coca-Cola (KO)	~$359bn	Beverage pure-play with a franchise-bottler concentrate model; market cap roughly double PepsiCo's
Mondelez (MDLZ)	~$76.8bn	Global snacking (biscuits/chocolate); FY2025 GAAP EPS $1.89 depressed by cocoa-cost shock vs adjusted $2.92
Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP)	~$43bn	North American beverages and coffee; completed ~$18.3bn JDE Peet's acquisition on 1 Apr 2026
Monster Beverage (MNST)	~$63bn (Jun 2026)	Energy-drinks specialist distributed largely through the Coca-Cola system; PepsiCo competes via Rockstar and Celsius distribution partnerships

Peer market caps as reported by public market-data aggregators in June–July 2026; each figure should be re-checked at the time of reading as valuations move daily.

9. Insider Activity

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
David Flavell (EVP, General Counsel)	01 Mar 2026	Grant (PSUs/RSUs)	37,991	—	—	Equity award; 2,143 shares withheld for tax at $169.05
David W. Gibbs (Director)	06 May 2026	Grant	1,000	—	—	One-time new-director equity grant
Daniel Vasella (Director)	31 May 2026	Grant (deferred)	1,481	—	—	Director Deferral Program
Susan M. Diamond (Director)	01 Jun 2026	Grant (deferred)	565	$141.52	~$80,000	Director Deferral Program
Jennifer Bailey (Director)	01 Jun 2026	Grant (deferred)	424	$141.52	~$60,000	Director Deferral Program

2026 Form 4 filings show only routine equity grants, director-fee deferrals and tax-withholding dispositions — no material insider open-market purchases or sales have been reported this year. Chairman & CEO Ramon Laguarta has not reported any open-market transactions in 2026 to date.

10. Key Risks

US consumer demand: North American food and beverage category growth moderated through H1 2026 as consumer budgets tightened; PFNA revenue fell 2% and NA beverage volumes fell 4% in Q2 2026. A prolonged US slowdown would hit the group's largest profit pool.
Margin and input-cost pressure: Core operating margin contracted 40bps in Q2 2026; commodity, packaging, labour and tariff-related input costs, plus deliberate affordability investments, could keep margins under pressure despite productivity savings.
Regulatory and health-policy risk: Growing US scrutiny of artificial ingredients, sugar and ultra-processed food, packaging/plastics legislation, and potential new taxes on snacks or sweetened beverages could raise costs or curb demand.
Structural volume risk from GLP-1 adoption: Widening use of weight-loss drugs may durably reduce salty-snack and sugary-drink consumption in developed markets — the core of PepsiCo's profit base.
Balance-sheet and rating risk: Long-term debt rose ~$5bn in FY2025 to $42.3bn while free cash flow (~$7.7bn) runs below planned dividends (~$7.9bn for 2026); sustained debt-funded returns or M&A could pressure credit metrics.
Execution risk on the transformation: The Elliott-agreed programme (SKU cuts, plant closures, brand restaging) must deliver savings without disrupting service levels or shelf presence; failure would leave costs high just as pricing power fades.
FX and emerging-market exposure: Around 40% of revenue is generated outside North America; currency swings (a 2.2pp tailwind in Q2 2026 can reverse) and volatility in markets like Mexico, Turkey and Egypt affect reported results.

11. Recent Developments

09 Jul 2026 — Q2 2026 results: revenue beat, core EPS a cent light. Net revenue rose 6.4% to $24.18bn (ahead of consensus near $23.95bn) with organic growth of 2.4%; core EPS of $2.20 grew 4% but came in one cent below the $2.21 consensus. GAAP EPS jumped 137% to $2.18 against a prior-year quarter depressed by $1.86bn of brand impairments. International businesses were strong across the board while North American beverage volumes fell 4%; fiscal 2026 guidance was affirmed.
03 Feb 2026 — FY2025 results, 4% dividend increase and new $10bn buyback. FY2025 net revenue rose 2% to $93.9bn; core EPS was $8.14. PepsiCo announced a 4% increase in the annualised dividend to $5.92 per share effective with the June 2026 payment — the 54th consecutive annual increase — plus a new $10bn share-repurchase authorisation through 28 February 2030. 2026 cash returns are planned at ~$8.9bn ($7.9bn dividends, $1.0bn buybacks).
08 Dec 2025 — Cooperation framework with Elliott Management. After Elliott disclosed a ~$4bn stake in September 2025, PepsiCo agreed a programme to cut nearly 20% of product SKUs, close underperforming plants (the first closed in July 2026) and reinvest savings in marketing and consumer value. Elliott received no board seat, and PepsiCo did not adopt the more radical proposal to refranchise North American bottling.
19 May 2025 — poppi acquisition folded into PBNA. The 2025 acquisition of prebiotic-soda brand poppi (announced March 2025 for ~$1.95bn including anticipated tax benefits) plus other deals contributed a 6-percentage-point boost to PBNA's Q2 2026 reported net revenue growth, anchoring the push into functional beverages.

12. Key Dates & What to Watch

13 Oct 2026 — Q3 2026 results (pre-market), per the company's investor calendar as aggregated by TipRanks — watch North American volume trends and any update on SKU-cut savings
Expected Sep 2026 — next quarterly dividend payment ($1.48 per share quarterly run-rate following the June 2026 increase)
Expected Feb 2027 — Q4/FY2026 results and fiscal 2027 guidance, including progress against the ~20% SKU-reduction target set for early 2027
Expected May 2027 — annual meeting of shareholders

Track PEP price action on our Live Charts, upcoming macro catalysts on the Economic Calendar, and join the discussion in the ChartsView Forum.

Last Updated: 7 July 2026

Ross Stores, Inc. (Nasdaq: ROST) is the second-largest off-price apparel and home retailer in the United States, operating 2,267 stores across two banners — Ross Dress for Less and dd's DISCOUNTS — at the end of fiscal 2025. The company buys brand-name merchandise opportunistically and sells it at 20% to 60% below department and specialty store regular prices, running a lean, treasure-hunt model that has compounded for decades. Fiscal 2025 (the year ended 31 January 2026) delivered record sales of $22.75bn and diluted EPS of $6.61, and the business entered fiscal 2026 with unusual momentum: first-quarter comparable store sales jumped a very robust 17% and EPS grew 37%, prompting management to raise full-year guidance. This report walks through the numbers, the valuation, the competitive picture and the risks, using only primary-source filings.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Company	Ross Stores, Inc.
Ticker	ROST (Nasdaq)
Sector	Consumer & Retail — Off-price apparel & home
CEO	James G. (Jim) Conroy (CEO since February 2025)
Headquarters	Dublin, California, USA
Employees	Approximately 100,000 (full and part-time)
Stores	2,267 (Ross Dress for Less + dd's DISCOUNTS) at 31 Jan 2026
Revenue (FY2025, ended 31 Jan 2026)	$22.75bn
Net income (FY2025)	$2.15bn
Diluted EPS (FY2025)	$6.61
Market cap (4 Jul 2026)	Approximately $68.5bn
Dividend	$0.405 per share quarterly ($1.62 annualised)

2. Bull & Bear Case

Bull Case

Extraordinary momentum: First-quarter fiscal 2026 comparable store sales rose 17% and EPS grew 37% to $2.02, far above the company's own $1.60–$1.67 guidance, with traffic the primary driver.
Structural store runway: Management sees long-term potential to grow from roughly 2,300 locations today toward 3,600 (about 2,900 Ross and 700 dd's), a multi-year unit-growth engine.
Fortress balance sheet: The company ended fiscal 2025 with $4.59bn cash against $1.52bn total debt, funding both aggressive buybacks and a growing dividend from internal cash flow.
Off-price counter-cyclicality: The treasure-hunt, value proposition tends to gain share when consumers trade down, and abundant retail inventory keeps buyers well supplied with branded goods at discounts.
Consistent capital return: Ross bought back $1.05bn of stock in fiscal 2025 and authorised a new two-year $2.55bn programme in March 2026, on top of a dividend raised for many consecutive years.

Bear Case

Momentum may not persist: Management itself attributed part of the 17% first-quarter comp to tax-refund-driven spending, and full-year comp guidance of 6% to 7% implies a marked deceleration from the Q1 pace.
Tariff and cost exposure: Ross flagged an approximate $0.16 per share tariff-related cost impact in fiscal 2025, and further trade-policy changes on imported apparel and home goods could pressure margins.
Rich valuation for a retailer: At roughly 30x trailing earnings, the shares price in continued execution; any comp stumble against tough comparisons could compress the multiple quickly.
Intense off-price competition: Larger rival TJX and fast-expanding Burlington are opening stores aggressively and competing for the same branded closeout merchandise.
Consumer-spending sensitivity: A weaker low-to-moderate-income consumer, unseasonable weather or a merchandise-sourcing misstep can all swing quarterly sales and earnings.

3. Business Segments

Ross reports as a single off-price retail operating segment, selling through two store banners. It does not disclose revenue by banner, so the split below is estimated from the store base at 31 January 2026.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Ross Dress for Less	~92% (est.)	The core national off-price chain offering brand-name apparel, accessories, footwear and home fashions at 20%–60% below regular department/specialty prices. The large majority of the 2,267-store base.
dd's DISCOUNTS	~8% (est.)	A separate banner targeting more moderate-income households in convenient neighbourhood locations, offering value-focused apparel and home merchandise at sharper opening price points.

4. Business Model

Ross runs a classic off-price model built on opportunistic buying and disciplined cost control. Rather than committing to merchandise far in advance like traditional retailers, its buying organisation purchases brand-name and designer goods close to need — taking advantage of manufacturer overruns, cancelled orders and packaway opportunities — and passes the discount to shoppers.

How it makes money: Ross earns a retail gross margin on merchandise sold through no-frills stores. In fiscal 2025 cost of goods sold was $16.45bn on $22.75bn of sales, and selling, general and administrative expense was $3.60bn, leaving operating income of $2.71bn (an operating margin of roughly 11.9%). The economics hinge on inventory turns, low occupancy and payroll costs per store, and the buyers' ability to source attractive branded goods at desirable discounts.

Unit economics and moat: The treasure-hunt format — ever-changing, limited-quantity assortments — drives frequent visits and low return rates while discouraging direct online substitution. Scale gives Ross vendor access and buying leverage that smaller off-price players cannot match. Capital return is central to the model: the company self-funds new-store growth and returns surplus cash through buybacks and a rising dividend, repurchasing $1.05bn of stock and paying $528m of dividends in fiscal 2025.

5. Financial Health

All figures below are drawn from Ross Stores' fiscal year-end earnings press releases (SEC Form 8-K exhibit 99.1) and the associated condensed consolidated financial statements. Ross reports on a 52/53-week fiscal year ending on the Saturday nearest 31 January; fiscal 2025 ended 31 January 2026. The company reports GAAP results only and does not publish a separate non-GAAP "adjusted" EPS, so the Adjusted EPS column mirrors GAAP except where a one-off item is noted.

Fiscal Year	Revenue	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021 (Jan 2022)	$18.92bn	—	$4.87	$4.87	$1.14	$2,452.3m
FY2022 (Jan 2023)	$18.70bn	−1.2%	$4.38	$4.38	$1.24	$2,456.5m
FY2023 (Feb 2024)	$20.38bn	+9.0%	$5.56	$5.56	$1.34	$2,211.0m
FY2024 (Feb 2025)	$21.13bn	+3.7%	$6.32	$6.18¹	$1.47	$1,515.1m
FY2025 (Jan 2026)	$22.75bn	+7.7%	$6.61	$6.61	$1.62	$1,017.9m

¹ FY2024 adjusted EPS of $6.18 excludes a $0.14 per share gain from the sale of a packaway facility. Long-term debt is the non-current portion at year-end; Ross also carried $499.7m current portion of long-term debt at 31 January 2026, for total debt of $1.52bn against $4.59bn of cash.

Quarter	Revenue	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q1 FY2026 (May 2026)	$6.01bn	$2.02	$2.02
Q4 FY2025 (Jan 2026)	$6.64bn	$2.00	$2.00
Q3 FY2025 (Nov 2025)	$5.60bn	$1.58	$1.58
Q2 FY2025 (Aug 2025)	$5.53bn	$1.56	$1.56
Q1 FY2025 (May 2025)	$4.98bn	$1.47	$1.47
FY2025 total	$22.75bn	$6.61	$6.61

Operating cash flow was $3.03bn in fiscal 2025 and capital expenditure was $819m, leaving roughly $2.21bn of free cash flow — comfortably covering both the dividend and buybacks. See the Live Charts for the current price picture.

6. Valuation

Raw metrics, July 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	~$68.5bn (share ~$212.75 × ~322m diluted shares, 4 Jul 2026)
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	~29.7x (share $212.75 / TTM EPS $7.16; TTM = FY2025 $6.61 + Q1 FY2026 $2.02 − Q1 FY2025 $1.47)
P/E (forward)	~27.9x (FY2026 EPS guidance midpoint $7.62)
P/S (TTM)	~2.9x (market cap $68.5bn / TTM revenue ~$23.78bn)
P/FCF	~31x (market cap $68.5bn / FCF ~$2.21bn; FCF = operating CF $3,026.9m − capex $819.3m per FY2025 cash flow statement)
Enterprise value	~$65.4bn (market cap $68.5bn + total debt $1.52bn − cash $4.59bn per FY2025 balance sheet)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	~20x (EV $65.4bn / FY2025 EBITDA ~$3.22bn; EBITDA = operating income $2,707m + D&A $509m)
52-week high	$242.81 (6 Jun 2026)
52-week low	$126.32
Short interest (% of float)	~2.4% (mid-May 2026 settlement)
Days to cover	~2.5 days

7. What Are They Building

Ross's growth agenda is deliberately unglamorous: more stores, better merchandising and a sharper customer experience. Under CEO Jim Conroy, who joined from Boot Barn in early 2025, the company has leaned into marketing to acquire and engage customers, invested in the in-store experience, and refined its Spring and seasonal assortments — efforts management credits for the broad-based traffic strength in the first quarter of fiscal 2026.

The core long-term project is unit expansion. Ross continues to open roughly 80–90 net new stores a year and has stated it sees room to grow the Ross banner toward about 2,900 locations and dd's DISCOUNTS toward about 700, versus 2,267 combined today. Alongside store growth, the company is widening its addressable customer base through the lower-price-point dd's banner and expanding distribution-centre capacity to support the larger fleet. There is no meaningful e-commerce build-out; Ross remains a physical-store, buy-it-when-you-see-it retailer, which keeps capital intensity low and free cash flow high.

8. Competitive Landscape

Ross competes in the US off-price channel, chiefly against TJX (T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods) and Burlington, as well as against traditional department stores' clearance operations and online discounters. Off-price players compete for the same pool of branded closeout merchandise and increasingly for the same value-seeking customer.

Peer	Market cap (Jul 2026)	Key 2025 metric
The TJX Companies (TJX)	~$177bn	Off-price leader; ~21% US off-price share; expanding globally toward 7,000+ stores
Burlington Stores (BURL)	~$16bn	Fast-growing #3 off-price; ~110 net new stores planned; treasure-hunt/fashion focus
Ross Stores (ROST)	~$68.5bn	#2 off-price; 2,267 stores; FY2025 sales $22.75bn, EPS $6.61

9. Leadership & Ownership

James G. (Jim) Conroy has served as Chief Executive Officer since February 2025 and joined the Board in 2024. He previously led Boot Barn Holdings as President and CEO and brings more than 25 years of retail management experience. Longtime executive chairman Michael Balmuth stepped down from that role on 31 January 2026 and retired from the Board in early 2026. Insider transactions in 2026 have been dominated by scheduled equity grants and Balmuth's post-retirement stock sales rather than open-market purchases.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Michael Balmuth (Fmr Exec Chairman)	23 Mar 2026	Sale	25,615	~$213.66	~$5.47m	Form 144 / 10b5-1
Michael Balmuth (Fmr Exec Chairman)	24 Mar 2026	Sale	20,449	~$214.45	~$4.39m	Form 144 / 10b5-1
James G. Conroy (CEO)	22 Mar 2026	Grant (RSUs)	21,140	$0.00	Equity award	2017 Equity Incentive Plan

No material open-market insider buying has been reported in 2026; the CEO's directly held stake stood at approximately 178,293 shares following the March grant.

10. Risks

Comparable-sales deceleration (Operational): The 17% Q1 FY2026 comp was partly tax-refund-driven; guidance implies a sharp slowdown to 6–7% for the year, and a miss against tough comparisons would pressure the shares.
Tariffs and trade policy (Macro/Regulatory): Ross imports apparel, footwear and home goods; new or higher tariffs (it cited ~$0.16 EPS of tariff cost in FY2025) can raise merchandise costs and dampen consumer confidence.
Merchandise sourcing (Operational): The model depends on the availability of attractive brand-name closeout goods at desirable discounts; a tighter supply of quality merchandise would compress margins or assortments.
Consumer spending (Macro): Ross skews to lower-and-moderate-income shoppers whose discretionary spending is sensitive to inflation, employment and interest rates.
Competitive intensity (Competitive): TJX and Burlington are expanding store counts and bidding for the same branded merchandise, which can pressure both sourcing costs and market share.
Weather and seasonality (Operational): Unseasonable weather can disrupt demand for seasonal apparel and cause temporary store closures and delivery delays.

11. Recent Developments

21 May 2026 — Robust first-quarter results. Ross reported Q1 FY2026 sales up 21% to $6.0bn, comparable store sales up 17%, and EPS up 37% to $2.02, well above its $1.60–$1.67 guidance; operating margin reached 13.4%.
21 May 2026 — Full-year outlook raised. Management lifted fiscal 2026 comp guidance to 6–7% (from 3–4%) and EPS guidance to $7.50–$7.74, growth of 13–17% over the prior year's $6.61.
March 2026 — New buyback authorisation. The Board approved a two-year $2.55bn share-repurchase programme; Ross remains on track to buy back $1.275bn of stock in fiscal 2026 and repurchased 1.5m shares for $319m in Q1.
3 Mar 2026 — Record fiscal 2025 close. Q4 FY2025 sales rose 12% to $6.6bn with a 9% comp and EPS of $2.00; full-year sales reached a record $22.75bn with EPS of $6.61.
31 Jan 2026 — Board transition. Michael Balmuth stepped down as Executive Chairman, completing the leadership handover to CEO Jim Conroy.

12. Key Dates

Expected late August 2026 — Q2 FY2026 results (13 weeks ending 1 Aug 2026); guidance is for 6–7% comps and EPS of $1.85–$1.93.
Expected November 2026 — Q3 FY2026 results.
Expected March 2027 — Q4 and full fiscal 2026 results.
Expected August 2026 — Next quarterly dividend of $0.405 per share, typically declared alongside Q2 results.

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