Key Takeaways for Cardinal Health Stock as of August 2026
- Revenue Miss, Profit Beat: Cardinal Health posted $63.67B in Q4 revenue, a 2.2% miss against Street estimates of $65.11B, even as adjusted EPS of $2.60 beat estimates by 7.41% and rose 25% YoY.
- FY27 Guide Raised: Management guided fiscal 2027 adjusted EPS to $12.40-$12.60, 13% to 15% growth off a clean $10.95 baseline that strips out the tariff refund, ahead of its long-term 12% to 14% target.
- GMPD Profit Swing: GMPD segment profit jumped $80M YoY to $150M, though $100M of that gain came from a onetime IEEPA tariff refund that leaves normalized segment profit at just $50M.
- CFO Flags One-Timer: CFO Aaron Alt called the $100M tariff refund a nonrecurring benefit management won’t repeat.
Cardinal Health’s headline profit beat leaned on a one-time tariff refund. See how the underlying quarter breaks down on CAH’s financials page on TIKR for free →
Cardinal Health’s Q4 Earnings Beat Hid a One-Time Tariff Boost and a Revenue Miss
Cardinal Health (CAH) closed out fiscal 2026 with a fourth quarter that missed on revenue and beat on nearly everything else, and the gap between those two outcomes says more about the quarter than either number alone. Revenue came in at $63.67 billion, 2.2% below the Street’s $65.11 billion estimate, even as the top line still grew 5.84% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA told a different story: $1.132 billion against a $942.67 million estimate, a 20.08% beat that pushed the EBITDA margin to 1.78%, up 46 basis points from a year earlier. Adjusted EPS landed at $2.60, beating estimates by 7.41% and up 25% from the prior year’s $2.08.
Part of that strength wasn’t repeatable. CFO Aaron Alt flagged it directly on the Q4 earnings call: “We recorded a onetime $100 million net operating earnings benefit from IEEPA tariff refunds in our GMPD segment… We view the refund as nonrecurring and would note, on an ongoing basis, we continue to incur costs from the tariffs that replaced IEEPA.” Strip that out and GMPD segment profit, up $80 million year over year to $150 million, falls to a normalized $50 million. Cardinal Health still pointed to a sixth straight quarter of mid-single-digit growth in its Cardinal Health brand products once the tariff distortion is removed.
Pharma carried the rest of the quarter. Segment profit grew 21% to $645 million on Specialty strength both upstream and downstream, capping a fiscal year in which Specialty revenue grew more than 25%. That momentum underpins the fiscal 2027 guide: adjusted EPS of $12.40 to $12.60, growth of 13% to 15% off a clean $10.95 baseline that excludes the tariff refund, ahead of the company’s long-term 12% to 14% target. Pharma segment profit is guided to grow 8% to 11%, GMPD to $200 million to $220 million, and the smaller Other businesses to 15% to 18%.
Capital returns are accelerating alongside the guide. The board approved a $5 billion increase to the buyback authorization, lifting total capacity to $6.4 billion, with management targeting at least $1 billion in repurchases in fiscal 2027, the third straight year above baseline. Free cash flow guidance comes in at $3.5 billion to $4 billion, down from fiscal 2026’s $5 billion, a step down after a year that included the tariff windfall. For Cardinal Health stock, the setup into fiscal 2027 is a business guiding to double-digit earnings growth off a base already cleaned of its one-time noise.
TIKR Values Cardinal Health Stock at $328, a Modest Premium to Today
TIKR’s mid-case model values Cardinal Health at $328 by mid-2032, implying a 36% total return from the current price of $240, or 7% annualized over roughly six years.
A 7% annualized return sits below what growth investors typically expect from a stock coming off 25% EPS growth, positioning Cardinal Health stock closer to a steady compounder than a re-rating story from here.
The target is reachable off the fundamentals already on the table: the fiscal 2027 guide of 13% to 15% EPS growth, a buyback program shrinking diluted shares toward roughly 233 million, and a Specialty business still compounding at double-digit rates all point toward the earnings base TIKR’s model assumes.
Should You Invest in Cardinal Health, Inc.?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
