Lowe's Companies (LOW)
Consumer · NYSE · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
Lowe's Companies trades at $216.16, which is 53% above the $100.56 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure it screens as expensive, which is not the same as saying it will fall.
Our moat model scores it 42 out of 100, which is little in the way of a moat. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 17.9 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About Lowe's Companies
Lowe's Companies, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a home improvement retailer in the United States and Canada. It provides a line of products for construction, maintenance, repair, remodeling, and decorating. The company also offers home improvement products, such as appliances, seasonal and outdoor living, lumber, lawn and garden, kitchens and bath, hardware, building materials, millwork, paint, rough plumbing, tools, electrical, flooring, and décor. In addition, it provides installation services through independent contractors in various product categories; and extended protection plans and repair services. Further, the company provides design, distribution, and installation services for interior surface finishes to home builders and property managers. It sells its national brand-name merchandise and private brand products to professional customers, individual homeowners, and renters. The company serves its products through Lowes.com website, mobile applications, retail home improvement stores and outlet stores, and its branches. Lowe's Companies, Inc. was founded in 1921 and is based in Mooresville, North Carolina.
LOW passes 3 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Smart money ownership
5 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- Thomas Gayner, MARKEL GROUP INC.$348.98M · 1.6% of book
- Arrowstreet Capital, ARROWSTREET CAPITAL, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP$310.47M · 0.2% of book
- D. E. Shaw, D. E. Shaw & Co., Inc.$207.54M · 0.1% of book
- Marshall Wace, MARSHALL WACE, LLP$117.49M · 0.1% of book
- Ken Fisher, Fisher Asset Management, LLC$98.52M · 0.0% of book
A word of warning on reading these figures: a 13F reports the market value of a holding, so a fund that traded nothing at all still appears to have sold when the price fell. We found 102 companies where the standard reading gives the opposite answer. Only the share count is honest.
Common questions
Is Lowe's Companies (LOW) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of $100.56, LOW at $216.16 is 53% above fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
Which funds own LOW?
5 of the institutions we track reported a position in LOW in their most recent SEC 13F filing. A 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so it tells you what a fund held then, not what it holds now.
What is LOW's P/E ratio?
LOW trades at 17.9 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
The full research page for LOW, with financial statements, ownership detail, peer comparison and alerts, is free inside the app.
Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.