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Belden

BDC on NYSE. Belden sells connection products to distributors, end users, installers, and manufacturers. Market value $4.4bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Should I look at this?

Worth a closer look

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

Nothing stood out in the numbers we check.

Read what could go wrong

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
4.9%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $4.87 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
15.4×full

You pay 15.4 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
11.7%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 12 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 90 of 100. Price score: 85 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$111.35 a share, 14% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $98.00 to $159.99.

Dividend: 0.2% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
0.2
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$2.3bn$2.6bn$2.5bn$2.5bn$2.7bn
Operating margin
11.5%13.9%12.6%10.8%11.6%
Debt to equity
1.531.021.040.881.02
Shares outstanding
0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)8 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt1.02× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 9.2% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 9% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $750 million last quarter, up 12% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $69 million, up 12% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 12 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 11 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $212 million, down from $216 million.
  • 2% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $891 million more than cash, down from $980 million a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$655m
December 2024$666m
March 2025$625m
June 2025$672m
September 2025$698m
December 2025$720m
March 2026$696m
June 2026$750m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$54m
December 2024$58m
March 2025$52m
June 2025$61m
September 2025$57m
December 2025$68m
March 2026$51m
June 2026$69m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
17 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
29 October 2026

Who owns it

6 long-term investors we follow own it, down from 8 last quarter. 373 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

5 investors own more than 5%.

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 5 sold $3m, $3m of it under preset trading plans.

  • Lieser Brian
    EVP - Chief Comm. Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    15 September 2026
    Shares
    1,900
    Price
    $114.39
    Value
    $217,341
  • Lieser Brian
    EVP - Chief Comm. Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    14 April 2026
    Shares
    2,719
    Price
    $130.69
    Value
    $355,346
  • Zink Doug
    VP and CAO
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    6 February 2026
    Shares
    1,452
    Price
    $133.96
    Value
    $194,510
  • Zink Doug
    VP and CAO
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    5 February 2026
    Shares
    485
    Price
    $126.00
    Value
    $61,110
  • Tate Leah
    SVP - HR
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    4 February 2026
    Shares
    2,954
    Price
    $130.00
    Value
    $384,020
  • KLEIN JONATHAN C
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    11 December 2025
    Shares
    3,000
    Price
    $124.19
    Value
    $372,570
  • Zink Doug
    VP and CAO
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    9 December 2025
    Shares
    4,000
    Price
    $125.00
    Value
    $500,000
  • Lieser Brian
    EVP, Solutions
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    5 December 2025
    Shares
    1,270
    Price
    $120.00
    Value
    $152,400
  • Bhadra Hiran
    SVP, Strategy & Technology
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    5 December 2025
    Shares
    1,600
    Price
    $120.00
    Value
    $192,000
  • Tate Leah
    SVP - HR
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    3 December 2025
    Shares
    2,554
    Price
    $120.00
    Value
    $306,480

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the warning signs we check for were found.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 17 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 30 Jul 2026 and 5 later 8-Ks.

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

What changed in the risks this year

Companies must list what could hurt them each year. These are the parts that changed since last year’s report.

  • Our reliance on legacy information technology systems and the challenges associated with their maintenance and upgrade could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

    Could happen
    We may undertake significant IT infrastructure upgrade and modernization projects to address these challenges. Such projects, however, involve substantial risks, including significant capital expenditure and resource allocation, disruption to operations, implementation and integration challenges, data loss or corruption, and failure to achieve anticipated benefits.
    Read more

  • Our reliance on legacy information technology systems and the challenges associated with their maintenance and upgrade could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

    Could happen
    We rely on a variety of information technology (IT) systems and infrastructure to support our operations, including critical business processes, data management, and customer-facing applications. Some of these systems are legacy technologies that have been in place for a significant period. While we strive to maintain and update our IT infrastructure, our reliance on these legacy systems presents several risks, including performance and reliability issues, security vulnerabilities, integration challenges, increased maintenance costs, and compliance risks.
    Read more

  • Our ability to remain competitive will be determined, in part, by our ability to successfully implement AI into our product offerings and back office processes.

    Could happen
    We are increasingly incorporating AI and machine learning technologies into our products, services, and internal operations. While we believe AI offers significant opportunities, its development and deployment involve inherent risks that could materially impact our business. These risks include, but are not limited to (1) operational and performance risks related to the quality of data and sophistication of the algorithms; (2) the evolving legal and regulatory landscape; (3) ethical and reputational risk associated with biased or inaccurate results; (4) cybersecurity and data privacy risk; (5) intellectual property risk; (6) risks related to attracting and retaining AI talent; (7) dependence on third-party AI providers; and (8) speed and quality of adoption.
    Read more

Read it in the annual report

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.