Air Products (APD)
Forward P/E is 21.55x against a peer median of 24.68x, a ratio of 0.87x — below the fair range — with trailing P/E not available (shown as n/a) and PEG 2.22. Latest-quarter revenue grew 4.6% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR); revenue is still growing, not shrinking, and the cluster median is positive, so the value-trap check does not move the label to fairly priced. Delivered demand check: the chemicals & industrial gases group's median growth was 9.3% year over year — demand steady, though this company is growing more slowly than that pace.
What would change this label: Move to FAIRLY PRICED if the forward P/E rises to about 22.2x or above (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates, entering the fair band, or if revenue growth falls below 0% year over year for two quarters. Move to OVERVALUED if the forward P/E rises above about 28.4x (1.15x the peer median) without revenue growth rising above the cluster median of 9.3%.
Air Products sells industrial gases that factories and refiners use every day. Its shares trade at about 22 times expected earnings, a little below similar companies at about 25 times, while its sales grew about 5%. On the peer comparison the shares look undervalued, though the growth is slow for the price.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Air Products returned +1.45% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Air Products: -33.8% (2022-12-13 to 2024-02-07). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 21.55x against a peer median of 24.68x, a ratio of 0.87x — below the fair range — with trailing P/E not available (shown as n/a) and PEG 2.22. Latest-quarter revenue grew 4.6% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR); revenue is still growing, not shrinking, and the cluster median is positive, so the value-trap check does not move the label to fairly priced. Delivered demand check: the chemicals & industrial gases group's median growth was 9.3% year over year — demand steady, though this company is growing more slowly than that pace. The company’s forward P/E is 21.6× against a peer median of 24.7×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the chemicals & industrial gases group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 9.3% year over year (SEC filings) — demand steady. This company grew 4.6%, more slowly than the group median. Latest-quarter sales growth was +4.6% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air Products (APD) | $307.45 | 21.6× | — |
| SHW | $320.12 | 24.7× | 29.5× |
| ECL | $292.09 | 32.7× | 39.7× |
| PPG | $119.68 | 14.0× | 17.1× |
| DOW | $34.09 | 16.3× | — |
| IFF | $90.54 | 26.2× | 83.7× |
| Peer median | 24.7× |
Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.
Sales, profit and cash
This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.
Free cash flow = cash from operations minus spending on plant and equipment, both from the company’s SEC cash-flow statement. Gaps are quarters where that spending line is not separately tagged in the filings — shown as gaps, never estimated.
| Quarter | Sales | Gross margin | Net income | EPS (GAAP, diluted) | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Jun 2026 2026-06-30 | $3.2B | — | $-1.4B | -6.47 | $310M |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $3.2B | — | $710M | 3.19 | $-4M |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $3.1B | — | $678M | 3.04 | $-350M |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $3.2B | — | $5M | — | — |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $3.0B | — | $714M | 3.20 | $-640M |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $2.9B | — | $-1.7B | -7.77 | $-1.6B |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $2.9B | — | $617M | 2.77 | $-1.3B |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $3.2B | — | $1.9B | — | — |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $3.0B | — | $697M | 3.13 | $-345M |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $2.9B | — | $572M | 2.57 | $-868M |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $3.0B | — | $609M | 2.73 | $-819M |
| Q/E Sep 2023 2023-09-30 | $3.2B | — | $693M | — | — |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 24-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.
Earnings: getting better or worse?
Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.
Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Key facts
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Company (legal name in filings) | Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. |
| Chief executive | Eduardo Menezes (source: https://www.airproducts.com/company/news-center/2026/10/1026-air-products-appoints-kurt-lefevere-and-francesco-maione-as-group-presidents) |
| Sector | Materials — Industrial Gases — sells industrial gases such as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen to factories, refiners and hospitals |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $307.45 |
| Market value (market cap) | $68.4B — share price times shares outstanding of 222,685,530 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $12.6B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $-47M |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | — |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Jun 2026 (of 24 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +1.45% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -33.8% (2022-12-13 to 2024-02-07) |
What we could not verify
- Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
- Free cash flow is absent for one or more quarters: either the filer does not separately tag PP&E purchases in its EDGAR cash-flow facts (common for banks), or — for a successor registrant's newest quarter — the cash-flow lines are year-to-date without the prior-quarter rung needed to difference them. Affected quarters are null in the data, never estimated.
- Own-history P/E range not yet compiled for this company in the Phase 1 batch run; the label rests on peer-median, growth and PEG evidence.
- Trailing P/E was shown as n/a on the statistics page, so no trailing P/E evidence is available for this label.
- Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.
The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name.
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000002969.json - SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares.
https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000002969.json - Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates.
https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/APD/historical?assetclass=stocks - Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.
Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.