Centene (CNC)
Forward P/E is 13.23x against a peer median of 21.43x, a ratio of 0.62x — well below the 0.90 fair-band floor — with trailing P/E 23.40x and PEG 0.35. Latest-quarter revenue grew 0.5% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), well below the group pace. Value-trap check: revenue is growing, not shrinking, and the group median growth is positive, so the discount stands, with very slow growth as the main caution. Delivered demand check: the Health care payers, services & facilities group's median growth was 6.2% year over year — demand steady, while this company grew only 0.5%.
What would change this label: Move to FAIRLY PRICED if the forward P/E rises above about 19.3x (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates, or if revenue growth falls below 0% year over year for two quarters. Move further from fair value if the forward P/E falls below about 11.5x while revenue growth returns above 6% year over year.
Centene provides health insurance cover for people on government programmes such as Medicaid. Its shares cost far less than similar companies — about 13 times expected earnings against about 21 times for peers — though its sales are barely growing. That gap makes the shares look undervalued, with slow growth as the main warning.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Centene returned +11.96% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Centene: -74.1% (2022-08-15 to 2025-08-06). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 13.23x against a peer median of 21.43x, a ratio of 0.62x — well below the 0.90 fair-band floor — with trailing P/E 23.40x and PEG 0.35. Latest-quarter revenue grew 0.5% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), well below the group pace. Value-trap check: revenue is growing, not shrinking, and the group median growth is positive, so the discount stands, with very slow growth as the main caution. Delivered demand check: the Health care payers, services & facilities group's median growth was 6.2% year over year — demand steady, while this company grew only 0.5%. The company’s forward P/E is 13.2× against a peer median of 21.4×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Health care payers, services & facilities group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 6.2% year over year (SEC filings) — demand steady. This company grew only 0.5%, well below that pace. Latest-quarter sales growth was +0.5% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Centene (CNC) | $69.06 | 13.2× | 23.4× |
| LH | — | 19.2× | 30.2× |
| DGX | — | 21.4× | 24.8× |
| HUM | — | 33.9× | 39.7× |
| VEEV | — | 32.9× | 52.1× |
| SOLV | — | 12.2× | 10.1× |
| Peer median | 21.4× |
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 Sep 2026 2026-09-30 | $45.1B | 7.3% | $-71M | -0.14 | $-3.9B |
| Q/E Jun 2026 2026-06-30 | $44.4B | 10.4% | $1.1B | 2.19 | $3.4B |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $44.7B | 12.7% | $1.5B | 3.11 | $4.2B |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $44.7B | 5.7% | $-1.1B | — | $224M |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $44.9B | 7.5% | $-6.6B | -13.50 | $1.1B |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $42.5B | 7.1% | $-253M | -0.51 | $1.6B |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $42.5B | 12.4% | $1.3B | 2.63 | $1.4B |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $36.3B | 10.5% | $283M | — | $-741M |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $36.9B | 10.9% | $713M | 1.36 | $-1.1B |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $36.0B | 12.6% | $1.1B | 2.16 | $2.0B |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $36.3B | 13.0% | $1.2B | 2.16 | $-607M |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $35.3B | 10.6% | $45M | — | $-6M |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 25-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) | CENTENE CORP |
| Chief executive | Sarah London (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centene_Corporation) |
| Sector | Health Care — Managed Health Care — provides government-sponsored health insurance cover, mainly Medicaid and marketplace policies |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $69.06 |
| Market value (market cap) | $34.0B — share price times shares outstanding of 495,068,000 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $178.9B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $1.5B |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | $3.9B |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Sep 2026 (of 25 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +11.96% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -74.1% (2022-08-15 to 2025-08-06) |
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.
- 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.
- 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/CIK0001071739.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/CIK0001071739.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/CNC/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.