Synchrony Financial (SYF)
Financials · NYSE · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
Synchrony Financial trades at $74.28, which is 115% below the $159.37 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure alone it screens as undervalued, though a DCF is an argument rather than a measurement, and the market is frequently right about why something is cheap.
Our moat model scores it 54 out of 100, which is a moat, but not a deep one. 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 7.5 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 Synchrony Financial
Synchrony Financial, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a consumer financial services company in the United States. The company provides credit products, such as credit cards, commercial credit products, and consumer installment loans. It also offers private label credit cards, dual and general purpose co-branded cards, short- and long-term installment loans, and consumer banking products; and deposit products, including certificates of deposit, individual retirement accounts, money market accounts, savings accounts, and sweep and affinity deposits, as well as accepts deposits through third-party firms. In addition, the company provides debt cancellation products to its credit card customers through online and mobile channels; and healthcare payments and financing solutions under the CareCredit and Walgreens brands; payments and financing solutions in the apparel, specialty retail, outdoor, music, and luxury industries, such as American Eagle, Dick's Sporting Goods, Guitar Center, Pandora, Polaris, Suzuki, and Sweetwater. It offers its credit products through programs established with a group of national and regional retailers, local merchants, manufacturers, buying groups, industry associations, and healthcare service providers; and deposit products through various channels, such as digital and print. It serves digital, health and wellness, retail, home, auto, telecommunications, pet, outdoor, and other industries. The company was founded in 1932 and is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
SYF passes 6 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Smart money ownership
15 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- Bill Nygren, HARRIS ASSOCIATES L P$633.81M · 0.4% of book
- Cliff Asness, AQR CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC$302.42M · 0.1% of book
- Israel Englander, MILLENNIUM MANAGEMENT LLC$73.89M · 0.0% of book
- Hosking Partners, Hosking Partners LLP$49.06M · 1.8% of book
- Ken Griffin, CITADEL ADVISORS LLC$30.53M · 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 Synchrony Financial (SYF) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of $159.37, SYF at $74.28 is 115% below 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 SYF?
15 of the institutions we track reported a position in SYF 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 SYF's P/E ratio?
SYF trades at 7.5 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 SYF, 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.