Value Investor
Start free

Fastenal

FAST on Nasdaq. Fastenal sells industrial and construction supplies to businesses. Market value $58.2bn.

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?

Good business, but not cheap right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See cheaper Industrials stocks on the list

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
2.0%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $1.98 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

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

You pay 32.8 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
33.5%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 34 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 100 of 100. Price score: 23 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$50.81 a share, 30% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $38.97 to $52.92.

Expected to report results Wednesday 14 Oct, before the market opens.

Dividend: 1.7% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.6
0.8
1.3
0.9
1.1
1.2
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$6.0bn$7.0bn$7.3bn$7.5bn$8.2bn
Operating margin
20.3%20.8%20.8%20.0%20.2%
Debt to equity
0.130.180.080.060.03
Shares outstanding
0.57bn0.57bn0.57bn1.15bn1.15bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.03× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 7.7% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesNo, 100% more shares since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $2.4 billion last quarter, up 15% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $383 million, up 16% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 20 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, about the same as a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $1.2 billion, up from $876 million.
  • About the same number of shares as a year ago.
  • It has $85 million more cash than debt, up from $8 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$1.9bn
December 2024$1.8bn
March 2025$2.0bn
June 2025$2.1bn
September 2025$2.1bn
December 2025$2.0bn
March 2026$2.2bn
June 2026$2.4bn
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$298m
December 2024$262m
March 2025$299m
June 2025$330m
September 2025$336m
December 2025$294m
March 2026$340m
June 2026$383m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
14 October 2026
Last annual report (10-K)
5 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
15 October 2026

Who owns it

5 long-term investors we follow own it, down from 6 last quarter. 1,457 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

2 investors own more than 5%.

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

What insiders did

In the last 12 months, 4 insiders bought $203,890 of shares on the open market. 5 sold $5m.

  • Papenfuss Donnalee Kathleen
    EVP-Strategy and Communication
    Sold
    Date
    13 August 2026
    Shares
    9,258
    Price
    $51.39
    Value
    $475,758
  • Ancius Michael J
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    10 August 2026
    Shares
    3,000
    Price
    $52.00
    Value
    $156,000
  • Heise Rita J.
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    5 August 2026
    Shares
    34,964
    Price
    $50.05
    Value
    $2m
  • Ancius Michael J
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    28 July 2026
    Shares
    3,000
    Price
    $49.00
    Value
    $147,000
  • Wisecup Reyne K
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    5 March 2026
    Shares
    36,920
    Price
    $47.34
    Value
    $2m
  • SATTERLEE SCOTT
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    23 January 2026
    Shares
    15,964
    Price
    $44.19
    Value
    $705,449
  • Nielsen Sarah N
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    19 November 2025
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $39.60
    Value
    $39,600
  • Johnson Daniel L.
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    17 November 2025
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $40.44
    Value
    $40,440
  • HSU Hsenghung Sam
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    13 November 2025
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $40.58
    Value
    $40,580
  • Eastman Stephen L.
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    12 November 2025
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $40.82
    Value
    $40,820

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 5 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 16 Jul 2026 and 6 later 8-Ks.

  • Changed auditor

    Worth knowing

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

    “On February 6, 2025, KPMG completed its audit of the Company's consolidated financial statements as of and for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, and the issuance of their report thereon, and its dismissal was effective immediately thereafter.”

    From an 8-K filed 6 February 2025: 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

  • It isn't cheap on profits: 32.8× 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

Your first deep dive is free.

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.