FDS Gains From Partnerships, Shareholder-Friendly Policies & Liquidity

FactSet Research Systems Inc. FDS reported impressive results for second-quarter fiscal 2026. FDS’s earnings per share of $4.46 beat the consensus mark by 2.1% and increased 4.2% from the year-ago quarter. Revenues of $611 million beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a slight margin and rose 7.1% from the year-ago quarter.

How Is FDS Faring?

FactSet has been engaged for more than 40 years in delivering extensive data, vital analytics and flexible technology to global financial professionals and benefits from a growing customer base and strong global presence.

In fiscal 2025, organic revenues improved 5.4% year over year to $2.3 billion. The company added 779 clients, taking the total number to 20,943. The company’s organic Annual Subscription Value (ASV) increased 5.7% year over year to $2.4 billion.

FactSet has an impressive record of rewarding its shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. During fiscal 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021, the company repurchased shares worth $300.4 million, $235.2 million, $176.7 million, 199.6 million and $264.7 million, respectively.

FactSet paid out dividends of $160 million, $150.7 million, $138.6 million, 110.4 million and $117.9 million in fiscal 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. Actions, as such, not only instill investors’ confidence but also positively impact the bottom line.

FactSet and Irwin partnered to integrate Irwin's investor relations CRM with FactSet's Workstation, thus creating a unified solution for IR professionals. Meanwhile, FDS collaborated with LightPoint, offering hedge funds an integrated front-to-back solution, enhancing trade workflows.

FactSet collaborated with Coin Metrics, integrating digital assets data into its solutions and empowering financial professionals to monitor digital assets, analyze portfolios and stay informed about market trends. Ancora successfully incorporated the joint solution, lowering technology ownership costs and enabling scalable operations.

FactSet’s second-quarter fiscal 2026 current ratio (a measure of liquidity) stood at 1.43, higher than the industry's average of 1.03. A current ratio of more than 1 suggests that the company will be able to pay off short-term debt easily.

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Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

FactSet has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present.

Other top-ranked stocks from the broader Zacks Business Services sector are UL Solutions Inc. ULS and ESCO Technologies ESE. Both these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

UL Solutions has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 12.2%. ULS delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 15.2%, on average.

ESCO Technologies has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 19.8%. ESE delivered an earnings surprise of 24.2% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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