S&P Global Stock Is Down 14% in 2026 Despite Record Earnings. Is SPGI Undervalued?

Key Stats for S&P Global Stock

• 52-Week Range: $381.61 to $552.25
• Street Mean Target: ~$519
• YTD Return: -14%
• LTM EBIT Margin: 43.0%
• LTM Gross Margin: 70.9%
• NTM P/E: ~23x

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Why S&P Global’s Business Is Built Differently Than Almost Any Other Company

S&P Global (SPGI) operates four businesses that most investors encounter every day without thinking about them. S&P Global Ratings assigns credit ratings to bonds and structured products, earning fees every time a company or government accesses the debt markets.

S&P Dow Jones Indices licenses the S&P 500 and thousands of other benchmarks to asset managers, ETF providers, and exchanges, collecting a small fee on every dollar indexed to its intellectual property. S&P Global Market Intelligence sells data, analytics, and workflow tools to financial institutions. S&P Global Energy provides commodity data and pricing benchmarks to the energy industry.

What ties all four together is a recurring revenue model built on data and intellectual property that competitors cannot easily replicate, and switching costs that make customers extraordinarily sticky.

Second quarter results reinforced how well the integrated company is performing since completing the IHS Markit merger. Revenue came in at $4.15 billion, up roughly 11% year over year, with Ratings growing 17%, Indices growing over 20%, and Market Intelligence up 8%. Full-year guidance was raised across most divisions, with Ratings now expected to grow 5% to 8% and Indices upgraded to 12% to 14% organic growth.

Adjusted free cash flow guidance came in at $5.40 billion to $5.70 billion for the full year. The gross margin chart below captures how the business has recovered since the merger closed.

Gross margin fell from 73.73% in 2021 to 66.43% in 2022, when the IHS Markit acquisition closed, bringing in lower-margin data and energy businesses.

The recovery since has been steady and meaningful, with margins reaching 69.31% in 2024 and 70.25% in 2025, approaching pre-merger levels as integration synergies flow through and the higher-margin Ratings and Indices segments grow faster than the rest.

The direction matters more than the absolute level: a business expanding margins back toward the low 70s while growing revenue suggests the merger is delivering what management promised.

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The Earnings Record Is as Consistent as It Gets

One way to understand why long-term holders rarely sell S&P Global is to look at what the business has actually delivered in net income over time, which the chart below captures cleanly.

Net income grew from $3.02 billion in 2021 to $3.25 billion in 2022, dipped to $2.63 billion in 2023 as integration costs and deal-related amortization weighed on reported earnings, then recovered sharply to $3.85 billion in 2024 and $4.47 billion in 2025.

The 2023 dip is the one interruption in an otherwise consistent compounding story, and it reflected accounting mechanics from the merger rather than any deterioration in the underlying business.

With the integration now largely complete, the earnings trajectory has resumed its prior slope.

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What Does the Valuation Model Say?

At around $443, S&P Global trades at roughly 23 times forward earnings, a premium to the broader market that reflects the quality and durability of the business but sits well below where the stock was trading at its 52-week high above $552.

The TIKR mid-case model targets around $716 per share by the end of 2030, implying a total return of roughly 62% from current levels and an annualized IRR of around 12%.

The model assumes revenue growing around 5% per year and net income margins expanding toward 38%, both consistent with the company’s post-integration trajectory and its own guidance.

The Street mean target of around $519 implies a more modest near-term upside of roughly 17%, and the high case in the TIKR model pushes toward $1,260 by 2034 at a roughly 13% annualized return.

What makes the setup interesting at current prices is the combination of a genuinely great business, a multiple that has compressed meaningfully from peak levels, and a guidance raise that suggests the operational momentum is intact despite the stock’s underperformance.

Should You Buy S&P Global Stock?

S&P Global is one of the handful of businesses in the public markets that can credibly claim near-monopoly positions in multiple large markets simultaneously, and the stock’s 14% decline this year has created an entry point that looks more attractive than it did at the start of 2026.

The TIKR mid-case implies around 12% annualized returns. The margin recovery is tracking well, and the guidance raise confirms the business is executing.

The primary risks are a slowdown in debt issuance activity that would weigh on Ratings revenue and a market downturn that reduces assets under management benchmarked to S&P indices. Neither would change the long-term thesis, but either could extend the near-term underperformance.

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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 of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!