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Kirby

KEX on NYSE. Kirby moves chemicals, oil and other liquids by barge for refiners and industrial customers. Market value $7.4bn.

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
6.4%high

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $6.44 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

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

You pay 17.1 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
6.3%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 6 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 82 of 100. Price score: 83 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$139.85 a share, 76% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $79.52 to $157.69.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.2
0.1
0.1
0.4
0.4
0.5
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$2.2bn$2.8bn$3.1bn$3.3bn$3.4bn
Operating margin
-11.5%6.9%10.8%12.2%14.8%
Debt to equity
0.400.350.320.260.27
Shares outstanding
0.06bn0.06bn0.06bn0.05bn0.05bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)6 of 7 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.27× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 9.2% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 12% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $922 million last quarter, up 8% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $90 million, down 5% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 14 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 13 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $476 million, up from $261 million.
  • 5% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $998 million more than cash, down from $1 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$831m
December 2024$802m
March 2025$786m
June 2025$855m
September 2025$871m
December 2025$852m
March 2026$844m
June 2026$922m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$90m
December 2024$43m
March 2025$76m
June 2025$94m
September 2025$92m
December 2025$92m
March 2026$81m
June 2026$90m

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)
4 November 2026

Who owns it

7 long-term investors we follow own it, up from 6 last quarter. 466 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

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. 10 sold $19m.

  • Woodruff William Matthew
    VP of Public and Govt Affairs
    Sold
    Date
    15 May 2026
    Shares
    678
    Price
    $147.37
    Value
    $99,917
  • O'Neil Christian G.
    President and COO
    Sold
    Date
    15 May 2026
    Shares
    11,287
    Price
    $145.93
    Value
    $2m
  • Husted Amy D.
    Exec VP General Counsel & Sec
    Sold
    Date
    15 May 2026
    Shares
    4,000
    Price
    $145.43
    Value
    $581,720
  • DRAGG RONALD A
    Vice President and Controller
    Sold
    Date
    4 May 2026
    Shares
    1,726
    Price
    $145.01
    Value
    $250,287
  • O'Neil Christian G.
    President and COO
    Sold
    Date
    2 March 2026
    Shares
    11,287
    Price
    $132.34
    Value
    $1m
  • Kumar Raj
    Exec VP and CFO
    Sold
    Date
    2 March 2026
    Shares
    3,000
    Price
    $132.70
    Value
    $398,100
  • Grzebinski David W
    CEO, Director
    Sold
    Date
    24 February 2026
    Shares
    34,152
    Price
    $130.05
    Value
    $4m
  • Husted Amy D.
    Exec VP General Counsel & Sec
    Sold
    Date
    20 February 2026
    Shares
    11,667
    Price
    $129.33
    Value
    $2m
  • DAVIS BARRY E
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    19 February 2026
    Shares
    8,480
    Price
    $128.51
    Value
    $1m
  • MILLER SCOTT P
    VP - CIO
    Sold
    Date
    10 February 2026
    Shares
    3,960
    Price
    $120.68
    Value
    $477,893

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 5 Aug 2026 and 4 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.

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.