One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$77.16 our estimate vs market $59.94
Wall Street consensus: $81.67 (5.8% higher than our fair-value estimate)
22% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
Exponent, Inc.
EXPO · NMS · Industrials · Engineering & Construction
Current price
$59.94
52-week range
$51.91 - $81.95
Market cap
$2.91B
Balance sheet
Healthy
12.87x Strong cushion
Net cash $37.52M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
2 Risks
3 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 3.6% last year.
- Reward Returns 27.9% on equity, ahead of 83% of its peers.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 1.1% (peer median: 2.8%).
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 27.4% to 27.3% over 3 years.
What this company does
Exponent, Inc.
Exponent acts like a team of high-tech detectives, using science and engineering to investigate why things like buildings, planes, or consumer products fail. The company makes money by selling its expert analysis to businesses and lawyers, often for use in lawsuits or to prevent future accidents. This is important because their expertise is highly specialized and critical in complex situations, which gives them a unique position in the market.
How the company got here
Exponent started in 1967 as a small firm called Failure Analysis Associates, founded by Stanford University professors. Its original focus was investigating why things like bridges or machines broke, often for legal or insurance cases. The company grew by adding more and more scientific and engineering experts, expanding beyond just figuring out failures. In 1990, it became a public company, and in 1998, it changed its name to Exponent to show it did much more than just analyze failures.
What it actually does
Think of Exponent as a team of scientific and engineering detectives that companies, the government, and lawyers hire to solve very complex technical problems. They might investigate a plane crash, figure out why a new smartphone battery is overheating, or test if a new medical device is safe. They provide expert analysis both before a product is released to prevent problems (which they call proactive work) and after something goes wrong to understand the cause. Their clients come from a huge range of industries, including technology, healthcare, energy, and consumer products.
Engineering and Other Scientific
This is the company's largest business group, making up the vast majority of its sales. This segment is the core of their original 'failure analysis' work, investigating everything from vehicle accidents and building collapses to consumer product malfunctions. Companies pay them to understand complex engineering problems, often when there are high stakes like a major product recall or a large insurance claim. For example, Samsung hired them to figure out why the Galaxy Note 7 phone batteries were catching fire.
Environmental and Health
This is a smaller but important part of Exponent's business, representing about 15% of its revenue. This group focuses on how chemicals and products affect people and the environment. For instance, a chemical company might hire them to determine if a substance is safe and to help get it approved by government regulators. They also assess the environmental impact of industrial sites or investigate health issues that might be linked to a specific product.
What management is betting on now
Exponent's leadership is focused on growing by tackling the increasing complexity of new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and battery systems. They are helping clients manage the risks of these new products, from ensuring AI systems are safe and unbiased to making sure energy storage for power grids is reliable. The company is also emphasizing more proactive work, helping clients design safer and better products from the start, rather than just being called in after a problem occurs. This strategy relies on their key asset: hiring and keeping highly specialized scientists and engineers who can solve problems that others can't.
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.
FY2025 Q2
$47.19M
FY2025 Q3
$28.00M
FY2025 Q4
$53.45M
FY2026 Q1
$5.52M
FY2026 Q2
$33.95M
FY2026 Q3
$29.98M
FY2026 Q4
$52.90M
FY2027 Q1
$-3.43M
Revenue
$166.30M
Net income
$29.57M
Diluted EPS
0.59
Operating cash flow
$-975.00K
Free cash flow
$-3.43M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$147.43M
Net income
$24.76M
Diluted EPS
0.48
Operating cash flow
$55.58M
Free cash flow
$52.90M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$147.12M
Net income
$28.04M
Diluted EPS
0.55
Operating cash flow
$32.65M
Free cash flow
$29.98M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$141.96M
Net income
$26.55M
Diluted EPS
0.52
Operating cash flow
$36.22M
Free cash flow
$33.95M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$145.51M
Net income
$26.65M
Diluted EPS
0.52
Operating cash flow
$7.27M
Free cash flow
$5.52M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$136.77M
Net income
$23.59M
Diluted EPS
0.45
Operating cash flow
$56.05M
Free cash flow
$53.45M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$136.28M
Net income
$26.04M
Diluted EPS
0.50
Operating cash flow
$29.71M
Free cash flow
$28.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$140.54M
Net income
$29.23M
Diluted EPS
0.57
Operating cash flow
$48.34M
Free cash flow
$47.19M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $77.16 vs current price $59.94
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $81.67 (5.8% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $77.16 a share — about 28.7% above today's price of $59.94, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Healthy
Net cash $37.5M - more cash than debt. Interest coverage 12.9x.
Net debt
$-37.52M
Interest coverage
12.87x
Exponent, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 12.9 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Healthy
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
EXPO
BASELINE
Exponent, Inc.
Total debt $81.04M Interest coverage 12.87x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $1.11B Interest coverage 14.85x +15% vs EXPO Carries about 1.2x more debt cushion than EXPO.
Total debt $1.01B Interest coverage 19.37x +50% vs EXPO Carries about 1.5x more debt cushion than EXPO.
Total debt $889.76M Interest coverage 5.49x -57% vs EXPO Carries about 2.3x less debt cushion than EXPO.
Total debt $1.99B Interest coverage 2.18x -83% vs EXPO Carries about 5.9x less debt cushion than EXPO.
Total debt $69.45M Interest coverage 7.68x -40% vs EXPO Carries about 1.7x less debt cushion than EXPO.
What you should know
The case for and against EXPO
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 3.6% last year.
-
Returns 27.9% on equity, ahead of 83% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
Risks
-
Insider ownership is only 1.1% (peer median: 2.8%).
-
Operating margin compressed from 27.4% to 27.3% over 3 years.
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)
28.01x
Forward P/E
21.72x
P/B
8.61x
P/S
5.28x
EV/EBITDA
22.63x
PEG ratio
2.03x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
35.1%
Operating margin
27.3%
Net margin
19.8%
ROE
27.9%
ROA
10.1%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.24x
Current ratio
2.40x
Quick ratio
2.22x
Total debt
$81.04M
Total cash
$118.55M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$602.81M
Revenue 5Y CAGR
5.7%
EPS TTM
2.14
EPS 5Y CAGR
1.8%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$123.48M
Free CF TTM
$122.34M
FCF margin
20.3%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
2.0%
Payout ratio
56.5%
Last ex-div date
2026-06-05