One-glance verdict
Within fair range
$251.34 our estimate vs market $247.08
Wall Street consensus: $246.73 (-1.8% lower than our fair-value estimate)
2% below our estimate
Fundamentals snapshot
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated
DGX · NYQ · Healthcare · Diagnostics & Research
Current price
$247.08
52-week range
$171.18 - $248.65
Market cap
$27.27B
Balance sheet
Watch
5.62x Adequate
Net debt $5.78B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
3 Risks
3 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 4.8% last year.
- Reward Returns 14.6% on equity, ahead of 60% of its peers.
- Risk Net debt grew 40.1% over 3 years.
- Risk Stock trades 35.5% above its 5-year average P/E.
What this company does
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated
Quest Diagnostics is one of the largest medical testing companies, performing everything from routine blood work for your doctor to specialized genetic screenings and workplace drug tests. The company primarily earns money by processing a huge volume of these essential tests, which are consistently in demand as a fundamental part of healthcare. This creates a steady stream of revenue (the total money a company brings in from sales) from customers like hospitals, insurance companies, and employers.
How the company got here
Quest Diagnostics began in 1967 as a small pathology lab in a New York apartment called Metropolitan Pathology Laboratory. After being acquired by Corning Glass Works in 1982 and growing through many acquisitions, it was spun off as an independent, publicly traded company in 1996, taking on the name we know today. This long history of buying smaller labs helped it grow into one of the largest clinical laboratory networks in the United States. The company has been a key player in developing new and innovative diagnostic tests for various diseases, including cancer, infectious diseases, and women's health.
What it actually does
Think of Quest Diagnostics as a massive library of medical tests. Doctors, hospitals, and even individuals can order tests to get information about their health. You might go to a Quest patient service center to have your blood drawn for a routine check-up, or your doctor might send a sample to a Quest lab to test for a specific condition. They analyze samples like blood and urine to provide data that helps in diagnosing diseases, monitoring health, and making treatment decisions. The company serves about one in three adults and half of the physicians and hospitals in the U.S. each year.
Diagnostic Information Services
This is the company's main business, making up the vast majority of its revenue (the total money it brings in from sales). It involves performing a huge range of tests on samples like blood, urine, and tissue to help doctors diagnose and treat patients. This includes everything from routine cholesterol checks to complex genetic testing for cancer. Hospitals and physicians are the primary customers, paying Quest for these testing services to get insights into their patients' health.
Diagnostic Solutions
This is a much smaller part of the company that provides related services beyond direct patient testing. It includes services for life insurance companies, like performing medical exams and tests to assess risk. It also offers healthcare information technology solutions to help doctors and hospitals manage lab data. Another part of this segment is conducting testing for clinical trials, which are research studies to see if a new drug or treatment is effective.
What management is betting on now
The company is focused on growing by making its services more accessible and developing more advanced tests. This includes expanding its direct-to-consumer business, where people can order their own tests online through a service called questhealth.com. They are also investing heavily in advanced diagnostics, such as blood tests for early detection of diseases like Alzheimer's. Another key strategy is forming partnerships with hospitals to help them manage their own laboratories more efficiently and investing in technology like artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their operations.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q3
$250.00M
FY2024 Q4
$341.00M
FY2025 Q1
$197.00M
FY2025 Q2
$436.00M
FY2025 Q3
$419.00M
FY2025 Q4
$307.00M
FY2026 Q1
$164.00M
FY2026 Q2
$459.00M
Revenue
$3.04B
Net income
$320.00M
Diluted EPS
2.84
Operating cash flow
$597.00M
Free cash flow
$459.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.90B
Net income
$252.00M
Diluted EPS
2.24
Operating cash flow
$278.00M
Free cash flow
$164.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.81B
Net income
$245.00M
Diluted EPS
2.18
Operating cash flow
$465.00M
Free cash flow
$307.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.82B
Net income
$245.00M
Diluted EPS
2.16
Operating cash flow
$563.00M
Free cash flow
$419.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.76B
Net income
$282.00M
Diluted EPS
2.47
Operating cash flow
$544.00M
Free cash flow
$436.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.65B
Net income
$220.00M
Diluted EPS
1.94
Operating cash flow
$314.00M
Free cash flow
$197.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.62B
Net income
$222.00M
Diluted EPS
1.95
Operating cash flow
$464.00M
Free cash flow
$341.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.49B
Net income
$226.00M
Diluted EPS
1.99
Operating cash flow
$356.00M
Free cash flow
$250.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $251.34 vs current price $247.08
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $246.73 (-1.8% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $251.34 a share — about 1.7% away from today's price of $247.08, so the stock currently looks fairly priced.
Is it drowning in debt?
Watch
Net debt $5.8B. Interest coverage 5.6x.
Net debt
$5.78B
Interest coverage
5.62x
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated's profit covers its interest bill about 5.6 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Watch
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
DGX
BASELINE
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated
Total debt $6.40B Interest coverage 5.62x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $6.82B Interest coverage 6.77x +20% vs DGX Carries about 1.2x more debt cushion than DGX.
Total debt $16.25B Interest coverage 3.14x -44% vs DGX Carries about 1.8x less debt cushion than DGX.
Total debt $3.03B Interest coverage 3.75x -33% vs DGX Carries about 1.5x less debt cushion than DGX.
Total debt $1.37B Interest coverage 4.46x -21% vs DGX Carries about 1.3x less debt cushion than DGX.
What you should know
The case for and against DGX
3 Rewards
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 4.8% last year.
-
Returns 14.6% on equity, ahead of 60% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 40.1% over 3 years.
-
Stock trades 35.5% above its 5-year average P/E.
-
Insider ownership is only 0.4% (peer median: 0.8%).
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
26.26x
Forward P/E
20.49x
P/B
3.62x
P/S
2.36x
EV/EBITDA
14.75x
PEG ratio
1.84x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
33.2%
Operating margin
15.2%
Net margin
9.2%
ROE
14.6%
ROA
6.4%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.81x
Current ratio
1.59x
Quick ratio
1.28x
Total debt
$6.40B
Total cash
$626.00M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$11.56B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
0.6%
EPS TTM
9.41
EPS 5Y CAGR
3.2%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$1.90B
Free CF TTM
$1.36B
FCF margin
11.8%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
1.4%
Payout ratio
26.1%
Last ex-div date
2026-10-06