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Pool

POOL on Nasdaq. Pool sells pool supplies and equipment to pool builders and service companies. Market value $5.8bn.

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.

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
5.2%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $5.20 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
12.2×fair

You pay 12.2 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
25.6%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 26 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 97 of 100. Price score: 95 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$159.35 a share, at its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $157.40 to $310.99.

Dividend: 3.2% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.3
0.4
0.8
0.6
0.3
0.3
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$5.3bn$6.2bn$5.5bn$5.3bn$5.3bn
Operating margin
15.7%16.6%13.5%11.6%11.0%
Debt to equity
1.101.120.800.751.01
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)6 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt1.01× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 6.1% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 7% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $1.8 billion last quarter, about the same as a year ago.
  • Profit: $188 million, down 3% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 11 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, about the same as a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $301 million, down from $434 million.
  • 3% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $1.3 billion more than cash, up from $1.1 billion a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in 3 of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$1.4bn
December 2024$987m
March 2025$1.1bn
June 2025$1.8bn
September 2025$1.5bn
December 2025$982m
March 2026$1.1bn
June 2026$1.8bn
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$126m
December 2024$37m
March 2025$54m
June 2025$194m
September 2025$127m
December 2025$32m
March 2026$53m
June 2026$188m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

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

Who owns it

9 long-term investors we follow own it, up from 7 last quarter. 614 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

In the last 12 months, 5 insiders bought $8m of shares on the open market. 3 sold $2m.

  • PEREZ DE LA MESA MANUEL J
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    13 May 2026
    Shares
    10,000
    Price
    $175.95
    Value
    $2m
  • WHALEN DAVID G
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    8 May 2026
    Shares
    525
    Price
    $190.44
    Value
    $99,981
  • PEREZ DE LA MESA MANUEL J
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    7 May 2026
    Shares
    10,000
    Price
    $190.00
    Value
    $2m
  • STOKELY JOHN E
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    7 May 2026
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $193.07
    Value
    $193,070
  • Hope James D
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    7 May 2026
    Shares
    464
    Price
    $194.42
    Value
    $90,211
  • NEIL JENNIFER M
    Sr VP, Sec & Chief Legal Off
    Sold
    Date
    24 March 2026
    Shares
    508
    Price
    $203.60
    Value
    $103,429
  • PEREZ DE LA MESA MANUEL J
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    13 March 2026
    Shares
    5,000
    Price
    $205.00
    Value
    $1m
  • PEREZ DE LA MESA MANUEL J
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    2 March 2026
    Shares
    5,000
    Price
    $218.00
    Value
    $1m
  • Hope James D
    Director
    Bought
    Date
    25 February 2026
    Shares
    1,405
    Price
    $213.64
    Value
    $300,164
  • HART MELANIE M
    Senior VP CFO and Treasurer
    Sold
    Date
    24 February 2026
    Shares
    2,750
    Price
    $220.00
    Value
    $605,000

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 26 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 29 Jul 2026 and 7 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.