Finance

Investment Services

185 investable US stocks · data to Saturday, October 24, 2026

Acquirer's Multiple percentile today57th percentile

Dearer than in 68% of quarters since 1999Its usual range since 1999 is the 31st to 66th percentile (the middle 80% of quarters), with a median of the 51st. Lower is cheaper: the 10th percentile is cheaper than 90% of the investable US market; the 50th is the middle.

Is it cheap because returns are depressed?

The industry is in its usual range on the multiple, and returns on assets are in their usual range. Free cash flow yield is low (lower than in 78% of quarters). A low multiple can be warranted when returns on assets are low, and a high one when they are high, so the multiple reads best next to returns and free cash flow, each against the industry's own history.

For banks, insurers and other financials, operating income and cash flow aren't comparable with other companies. Read these percentiles against the industry's own history rather than against other industries.

Against its own history

Each chart is the industry's median stock as a percentile of all investable US stocks, quarterly since 1999. For the Acquirer's Multiple and debt to equity, lower is better. The shaded band is its usual range (the middle 80% of quarters); the dashed line is its long-run median; the dot is today. Green shading marks the better end of each scale and red the worse, and today's dot takes the colour of where it sits.

Acquirer's MultipleUsual rangePercentile of enterprise value ÷ operating income: lower is cheaper. Dearer than in 68% of quarters since 1999.

Free cash flow yieldLower than usualPercentile of free cash flow yield: higher is a bigger yield. Lower than in 78% of quarters since 1999.

Shareholder yieldLower than usualDividends plus buybacks, as a percentile: higher is a bigger yield. Lower than in 84% of quarters since 1999.

Dividend yieldNear its lowestPercentile of dividend yield: higher is a bigger yield. Lower than in 90% of quarters since 1999.

Return on assets, 5-yrUsual rangePercentile of five-year return on assets: higher is better. Lower than in 50% of quarters since 1999.

Debt to equityMore debt than usualPercentile of debt to equity: lower is less debt. More indebted than in 84% of quarters since 1999.

Company sizeSmaller than usualPercentile of market cap: higher is larger. Smaller than in 87% of quarters since 1999.

Investment Services stocks in the screens today

In today's screens, cheapest first. ● marks one of a screen's 30 tracked picks.

Stock	Screen	Acquirer's Multiple	FCF yield	Shareholder yield

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Other Finance industries

Specialty Finance cheaper than 86%United States Banks cheaper than 86%Mortgage Banking cheaper than 84%Insurance cheaper than 75%Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) cheaper than 62%Real Estate Investment and Services dearer than 55%International Banks dearer than 61%Finance Software and Services dearer than 67%

Quarterly since 1999 from point-in-time data. Each quarter, every investable US stock (price above $3, market cap above $75M, average daily trading above $850,000, no OTC, ADRs or MLPs) is placed in a percentile (0-100) against all the others on each metric. An industry's value is the median percentile of its stocks. Industries follow FactSet's RBICS classification. Percentiles describe the past; they are not investment advice or a forecast.