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Becton Dickinson

BDX on NYSE. BD sells medical devices and supplies to hospitals and clinics. Market value $49.2bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Some use the latest annual report instead, as marked. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to September 2025.

Should I look at this?

Good business, but not cheap right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See cheaper Health care stocks on the list

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
annual report to September 2025
5.4%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $5.43 of spare cash last year. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
annual report to September 2025
25.3×full

You pay 25.3 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to September 2025
4.5%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 4 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 81 of 100. Price score: 49 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$180.67 a share, 42% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $127.59 to $193.07.

Dividend: 2.4% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

3.5
1.5
2.1
3.1
2.7
20212022202320242025
Revenue
$19.1bn$18.9bn$19.4bn$20.2bn$21.8bn
Operating margin
11.8%12.1%10.9%11.9%11.8%
Debt to equity
0.740.640.620.780.76
Shares outstanding
0.29bn0.29bn0.29bn0.29bn0.27bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.76× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 6.3% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 4% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $5 billion last quarter, up 5% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $377 million, down 34% on a year ago.
  • 4% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $16.1 billion more than cash, down from $18.6 billion 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$5.4bn
December 2024$5.2bn
March 2025$4.5bn
June 2025$4.7bn
September 2025$8.3bn
December 2025$5.3bn
March 2026$4.7bn
June 2026$5.0bn
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$400m
December 2024$303m
March 2025$308m
June 2025$574m
September 2025$493m
December 2025$382m
March 2026-$311m
June 2026$377m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
5 November 2026
Last annual report (10-K)
25 November 2025
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
5 November 2026

Who owns it

24 long-term investors we follow own it, down from 27 last quarter. 1,434 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

4 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, $2m of it under preset trading plans.

  • Feld Michael
    EVP, Chief Revenue Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    28 September 2026
    Shares
    76
    Price
    $183.70
    Value
    $13,961
  • Feld Michael
    EVP, Chief Revenue Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    26 August 2026
    Shares
    165
    Price
    $188.49
    Value
    $31,101
  • Polen Thomas E Jr
    Chairman, CEO and President, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    13 August 2026
    Shares
    4,152
    Price
    $185.00
    Value
    $768,120
  • Goette Roland
    EVP and President, EMEA
    Sold
    Date
    11 August 2026
    Shares
    2,438
    Price
    $180.84
    Value
    $440,888
  • Feld Michael
    EVP, Chief Revenue Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    27 July 2026
    Shares
    75
    Price
    $157.13
    Value
    $11,785
  • Feld Michael
    EVP, Chief Revenue Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    26 June 2026
    Shares
    75
    Price
    $152.80
    Value
    $11,460
  • Garrison Michael David
    EVP & Pres Med.Essntl&BioPharm
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    24 June 2026
    Shares
    1,100
    Price
    $145.66
    Value
    $160,226
  • Garrison Michael David
    EVP & Pres Med.Essntl&BioPharm
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    10 June 2026
    Shares
    1,100
    Price
    $151.48
    Value
    $166,628
  • Polen Thomas E Jr
    Chairman, CEO and President, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    1 June 2026
    Shares
    2,764
    Price
    $146.35
    Value
    $404,511
  • Feld Michael
    EVP, Chief Revenue Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    26 May 2026
    Shares
    75
    Price
    $147.35
    Value
    $11,051

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 25 Nov 2025, plus the 10-Q filed 6 Aug 2026 and 17 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

  • It isn't cheap on profits: 25.3× operating profit.

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

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
Create a free account to run it

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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.