United Parcel Service
UPS on NYSE. United Parcel Service sells package delivery and logistics to businesses and people worldwide. Market value $74.2bn.
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 big in our quick check. See what could go wrong below.
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $6.90 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.
You pay 15.1 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.
Each dollar kept in the business earns 21 cents a year. Above 10 is good.
Quality score: 72 of 100. Price score: 93 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$93.11 a share, 14% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $82.00 to $122.41.
Dividend: 6.8% a year
Paid every year for at least 5 years
Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
| Revenue | |||||
| Revenue | $97.3bn | $100.3bn | $91.0bn | $91.1bn | $88.7bn |
| Operating margin | |||||
| Operating margin | 13.2% | 13.0% | 10.0% | 9.3% | 8.9% |
| Debt to equity | |||||
| Debt to equity | 1.57 | 0.99 | 1.29 | 1.27 | 1.49 |
| Shares outstanding | |||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.88bn | 0.88bn | 0.86bn | 0.86bn | 0.85bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
- Financial strength (Piotroski)5 of 7 checks we could run
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- Debt1.49× equity
- Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 0.9% 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: $22.8 billion last quarter, up 8% on a year ago.
- Profit: $604 million, down 53% on a year ago.
- It keeps 7 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, down from 9 cents a year earlier.
- Spare cash over the past 12 months: $5.5 billion, up from $3.5 billion.
- About the same number of shares as a year ago.
- Debt is $19.8 billion more than cash, up from $18.5 billion a year ago.
- Sales grew on a year ago in 1 of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $22.2bn |
| December 2024 | $25.3bn |
| March 2025 | $21.5bn |
| June 2025 | $21.2bn |
| September 2025 | $21.4bn |
| December 2025 | $24.5bn |
| March 2026 | $21.2bn |
| June 2026 | $22.8bn |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $1.5bn |
| December 2024 | $1.7bn |
| March 2025 | $1.2bn |
| June 2025 | $1.3bn |
| September 2025 | $1.3bn |
| December 2025 | $1.8bn |
| March 2026 | $864m |
| June 2026 | $604m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- 27 October 2026
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 17 February 2026
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 4 November 2026
Who owns it
18 long-term investors we follow own it, up from 17 last quarter. 2,135 funds in all.
- Letko BrosseauLetko Brosseau team
- Value
- $39m
- Share of fund
- 0.6%
- Century ManagementArnold Van Den Berg
- Value
- $3m
- Share of fund
- 0.6%
- Hillman Capital ManagementMark Hillman
- Value
- $2m
- Share of fund
- 1.7%
| Fund | Value | Share of that fund | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cullen Capital ManagementJames Cullen | $178m | 1.8% | Added |
| LSV Asset ManagementJosef Lakonishok | $169m | 0.3% | Added |
| Sound Shore ManagementHarry Burn | $86m | 2.7% | Added |
| GMOJeremy Grantham | $48m | 0.1% | Cut |
| Letko BrosseauLetko Brosseau team | $39m | 0.6% | |
| Gotham Asset ManagementJoel Greenblatt | $37m | <0.1% | Added |
| Miller Value PartnersBill Miller IV | $12m | 2.9% | Cut |
| Kiltearn PartnersKiltearn team | $5m | 1.2% | Cut |
| First Manhattan Co.First Manhattan partners | $3m | <0.1% | Cut |
| Century ManagementArnold Van Den Berg | $3m | 0.6% | |
| Fairholme Capital ManagementBruce Berkowitz | $3m | 0.2% | New |
| Hillman Capital ManagementMark Hillman | $2m | 1.7% | |
| Tweedy, BrowneTweedy Browne partners | $2m | 0.1% | Added |
| Auxier Asset ManagementJeff Auxier | $2m | 0.2% | Cut |
| Boyar Asset ManagementMark Boyar | $1m | 0.7% | Cut |
| Mairs & PowerAndy Adams | $1m | <0.1% | Cut |
| Brandes Investment PartnersCharles Brandes | $808,078 | <0.1% | Cut |
| Horizon KineticsMurray Stahl | $479,450 | <0.1% | New |
Sold out this quarter
Largest holders overall
- BlackRock$5.9bnAdded
- Vanguard Capital Management$5.2bn
- State Street$3.6bnAdded
- FMR$3.5bn
- Charles Schwab Investment Management$2.7bnAdded
- Geode Capital Management$1.9bn
- Victory Capital Management$1.5bnAdded
- Vanguard Portfolio Management$1.5bnAdded
- Bank of America$1.2bnAdded
- Morgan Stanley$957mCut
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
2 investors own more than 5%.
- Vanguard Capital ManagementPassive investor7.5%Since 31 March 2026
- BlackRock, Inc.Passive investor6.1%Since 31 March 2025
- The Vanguard GroupPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 13 March 2026
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
Vanguard Capital Management Passive investor | 7.5% | 31 March 2026 | |
BlackRock, Inc. Passive investor | 6.1% | 31 March 2025 | |
The Vanguard Group Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 13 March 2026 |
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. 1 sold $3m.
- Brothers Norman M. JrChief Legal & Compliance OffSold
- Date
- 28 January 2026
- Shares
- 25,014
- Price
- $106.15
- Value
- $3m
| Date | Who | Did | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 January 2026 | Brothers Norman M. Jr Chief Legal & Compliance Off | Sold | 25,014 | $106.15 | $3m |
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 8 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
- Sales have barely grown: 0.9% a year.
Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.
What changed in the risks this year
Companies must list what could hurt them each year. These are the parts that changed since last year’s report.
Failure to attract or retain qualified employees could materially adversely affect us.
In addition, our Network Reconfiguration and Efficiency Reimagined initiatives have led to, and are expected to continue to lead to, consolidations of our facilities and workforce, as well as an end-to-end process redesign. Our inability to continue to retain experienced and motivated employees through the execution of these and other initiatives may also materially adversely affect us.
Read moreA significant cybersecurity incident, increased data protection regulations, or other information technology related risks, could materially adversely affect us.
Could happenIn addition, we are increasing our utilization of artificial intelligence ("AI") to optimize our operations, improve the customer experience and support decision-making. The rapid evolution and increased adoption of AI technologies has and may continue to intensify our cybersecurity risks. AI technologies often require access to large volumes of sensitive data. If our AI systems are compromised through cyberattacks or unauthorized access, it could result in data breaches, a loss of proprietary information, or violations of data protection laws. Additionally, leveraging AI capabilities for our internal functions may introduce additional operational vulnerabilities by producing inaccurate outcomes, recommendations or other suggestions based on flaws in the underlying data, or other unintended results.
Read more
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
Your first deep dive is free.
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.