QualityDipStocks / Finance · Health insurance
Principal Financial Group PFG
Not in a dip by our rules: 6% below its 52-week high.
A quality company trading above our fair value estimate.
- Fair value est.
- $97.49−13%
- Market Value
- forming
- Off 52-wk high
- −6%
- Risk vs market
- Lowbeta 0.55
5 bullish · 5 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $111.63
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$81.01−27.4%
- Fair value est.base case$97.49−12.7%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$111.63you are here
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$118.51+6.2%
Fair value estimate
How the range is computed
Financials model (residual income). Same residual-income model as the base: cost of equity 9.5% ±1 point and return on equity 12.3% ±2 points. Bear = 10.5% and 10.3%; bull = 8.5% and 14.3%. A model estimate from public filings, not a forecast of where the price will go.
Price sits inside the range.
What the price implies To be worth today’s price, PFG would need a return on equity of about 14% a year; our estimate uses 12%.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much PFG moved for each 1% move in the S&P 500 (SPY); 1.0 moves with the market. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Past behavior, not a forecast.
Moves much less than the market, but its own price swings are 1.7× the S&P 500’s (it moves on its own news).
- Beta vs S&P 500
- 0.55
- Volatility
- 22% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- 0.32
- Correlation QQQ
- 0.13
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 5 of 5
ValuationP/E of 12.0× is 39% below its own average of 19.7× at the last 3 fiscal year-ends.
Cash returnsShare count down 3.7% in a year: $1.0B of buybacks over 12 months.
Cash returnsDividend yield of 3.0% ($701M paid over 12 months, 35% of earnings).
ProfitabilityReturn on equity of 17% over the last 12 months, up 4 points in two years.
QualityPasses all four of our quality checks: cash generation, returns on capital, growth and balance sheet.
Top bearish points 5 of 5
ValuationOur residual-income fair value estimate is $97.49, 13% below the price.
GrowthDiluted EPS fell 21% to $5.25 in FY2025.
GrowthSales shrank 4% a year from FY2022 to FY2025.
GrowthSales grew 5.2% over the last 12 months, below the 11% median for the 142 Finance companies we cover.
ProfitabilityNet margin of 12%, below the 21% median for the 142 Finance companies we cover.
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on Principal Financial Group in the last 48 hours. Headlines as published, each linked. Their words, not ours.
No notable mentions in the last 48 hours. Checked Nov 1, 9:09 PM ET.
Compare with peers
Closest in size in Finance
All fundamentals
P/E 12.0 · ROE 17% · Sales +5%
Valuation
- P/E
- 12.0×3-yr-end avg 19.7× · Finance median 13.5×
- Price / FCF
- n/acash flow isn't a clean measure for an insurer
- FCF yield
- n/acash flow isn't a clean measure for an insurer
- EV / EBITDA
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
- Price / sales
- 1.43×
- Price / book
- 2.01×
- Market cap
- $23.7Bprice × diluted shares
- Enterprise value
- $23.8B
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $16.6B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +5.2%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- −3.8%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $8.98
- EPS growth, last FY
- −21.4%
- Net income, 12 months
- $2.0B
- Net income growth
- +26%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
- Operating margin
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Net margin
- 11.9%
- FCF margin
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Return on equity
- 17%
- Return on invested capital
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $4.5B
- Total debt
- $4.5B
- Net cash
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
- Debt / equity
- n/adeposits/float make debt/equity not comparable for an insurer
- Interest coverage
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- FCF growth, 12 months
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Dividend yield
- 2.96%$701M paid
- Payout ratio
- 35%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $1.0B4.3% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- −3.7%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
Trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026; balance sheet at Sep 30, 2026. From Principal Financial Group’s SEC filings. Sparklines show up to six fiscal years. n/a means we don’t hold that number, with the reason. How each is computed.
Valuation details
DCF $97.49
Financials model (residual income): book value $77.50 a share on Sep 30, 2026, plus the earnings above a 9.5% cost of equity. ROE 12.3%, the average of 12.2% for the trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026 and 12.4% over fiscal 2021–2025, on average common equity; payout 81% of earnings (dividends 35% + net buybacks 46%), so book grows by the retained rest; the return above 9.5% fades halfway toward 9.5% over 10 years, then grows at 3% (terminal value). From the 10-Q filed Oct 29, 2026.
Setup & signals
No setup armed
No setup armed, so there’s no trigger or stop to track yet. Reversal signal rules only arm once a company is in a dip.
Momentum & 52-week range
RSI 53 · 5 days +2.8%
The business
FCF $5.3B · Sales +25%
- Free cash flow, 12 months$5.3B
- Free-cash-flow yield22.0%
- Return on equity17%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+25%
Information only, not investment advice. Fair value estimates and talking points are rule-based model output from public data and can be wrong; stop levels are reference points, not orders. How every number is computed.
Get a text when PFG fires a reversal signal
One text when a published rule fires on PFG or any of the 333 quality companies we track: the ticker, the price, the stop and a link to the numbers. Nothing else.