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Cognex

CGNX on Nasdaq. Cognex sells machine vision systems to manufacturing and distribution companies. Market value $10.8bn.

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.

We can't read total debt from the filing, so debt is left out.

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 Technology stocks on the list

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
2.5%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $2.48 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
n/a

The filings do not give us enough to work this out.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
n/a

The filings do not give us enough to work this out.

Quality score: 76 of 100. Price score: 39 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$64.37 a share, 86% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $34.60 to $72.88.

Dividend: 0.5% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.3
0.2
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.3
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$1.0bn$1.0bn$838m$915m$994m
Operating margin
30.4%24.5%15.6%12.6%16.3%
Debt to equity
n/an/an/an/an/a
Shares outstanding
0.17bn0.17bn0.17bn0.17bn0.17bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • DebtUnknown
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 4.2% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 3% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $291 million last quarter, up 17% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $73 million, up 80% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 22 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 14 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $268 million, up from $180 million.
  • 1% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$235m
December 2024$230m
March 2025$216m
June 2025$249m
September 2025$277m
December 2025$252m
March 2026$268m
June 2026$291m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$30m
December 2024$28m
March 2025$24m
June 2025$41m
September 2025$18m
December 2025$33m
March 2026$52m
June 2026$73m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
12 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
5 November 2026

Who owns it

7 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 7 last quarter. 651 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26
Largest holders overall

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

Big holders and activists

2 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. 9 sold $35m.

  • Moschner Matthew
    CEO & President, Director
    Sold
    Date
    11 August 2026
    Shares
    24,962
    Price
    $64.01
    Value
    $2m
  • Long Darren Marc
    Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    27 May 2026
    Shares
    20,252
    Price
    $66.34
    Value
    $1m
  • MACDONALD LAURA ANN
    VP and PAO
    Sold
    Date
    12 May 2026
    Shares
    41,600
    Price
    $65.56
    Value
    $3m
  • Fennell Mark
    Chief Legal Officer &Secretary
    Sold
    Date
    11 May 2026
    Shares
    64,873
    Price
    $67.05
    Value
    $4m
  • MACDONALD LAURA ANN
    VP and PAO
    Sold
    Date
    11 May 2026
    Shares
    98,122
    Price
    $66.80
    Value
    $7m
  • PARROTTE DIANNE M
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    2 March 2026
    Shares
    44,000
    Price
    $54.00
    Value
    $2m
  • Papadimitriou Angelos
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    23 February 2026
    Shares
    4,150
    Price
    $55.58
    Value
    $230,657
  • Gerst Carl
    EVP, Global Sales and Products
    Sold
    Date
    23 February 2026
    Shares
    10,532
    Price
    $55.93
    Value
    $589,055
  • Kuechen Joerg
    Head of Corporate M&A
    Sold
    Date
    20 February 2026
    Shares
    61,900
    Price
    $56.03
    Value
    $3m
  • Gerst Carl
    EVP, Global Sales and Products
    Sold
    Date
    20 February 2026
    Shares
    3,804
    Price
    $55.99
    Value
    $212,986

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 serious warning signs we check for were found. 1 thing worth knowing.

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 12 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 6 Aug 2026 and 5 later 8-Ks.

  • Changed auditor

    Worth knowing

    The company changed its auditor (the firm that checks its books) in the last two years.

    “GT was dismissed as the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm upon completion of its audit services on February 13, 2026.”

    From an 8-K filed 19 February 2026: Change of auditor. Read it in the filing

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.

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.