Capital One (COF)
Forward P/E is 8.92x against a peer median of 13.46x, a ratio of 0.66x — well below the 0.90–1.15 fairly priced band — with trailing P/E 12.09x and PEG 0.83. Latest-quarter revenue grew 26.9% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), far above the cluster median. Delivered demand check: the Payments & consumer finance group's median growth was 9.3% year over year — demand rising, and Capital One grew much faster than that median. Value-trap check: revenue is growing strongly and the cluster median is positive, so the UNDERVALUED label stands.
What would change this label: Move to FAIRLY PRICED if the forward P/E rises to about 12.11x or above (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates, or if revenue growth falls below 0% year over year while the multiple stays below the peer median. The label would strengthen, staying UNDERVALUED, if revenue growth stays far above the 9.3% cluster median while the forward P/E stays below about 12.11x.
Capital One, a card lender and bank, trades at about 9 times next year's expected earnings against about 13 times for similar finance companies. Its sales grew 26.9%, much faster than its peers. Paying well below the peer price for much faster growth makes the shares look undervalued.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Capital One returned +196.65% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Capital One: -51.8% (2021-08-13 to 2023-05-04). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 8.92x against a peer median of 13.46x, a ratio of 0.66x — well below the 0.90–1.15 fairly priced band — with trailing P/E 12.09x and PEG 0.83. Latest-quarter revenue grew 26.9% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), far above the cluster median. Delivered demand check: the Payments & consumer finance group's median growth was 9.3% year over year — demand rising, and Capital One grew much faster than that median. Value-trap check: revenue is growing strongly and the cluster median is positive, so the UNDERVALUED label stands. The company’s forward P/E is 8.9× against a peer median of 13.5×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Payments & consumer finance group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 9.3% year over year (SEC filings) — demand rising. Latest-quarter sales growth was +26.9% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capital One (COF) | $204.22 | 8.9× | 12.1× |
| PYPL | $55.91 | 9.6× | 10.6× |
| XYZ | $75.15 | 16.4× | 127.7× |
| AXP | $315.99 | 16.2× | 17.8× |
| CPAY | $395.00 | 13.5× | 24.1× |
| FISV | $47.49 | 6.5× | 9.1× |
| Peer median | 13.5× |
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 | $15.8B | — | $3.0B | 4.73 | $8.1B |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $15.2B | — | $2.2B | 3.34 | $5.5B |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $15.6B | — | $2.1B | — | $7.4B |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $15.4B | — | $3.2B | 4.83 | $8.8B |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $12.5B | — | $-4.3B | -8.58 | $5.7B |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $10.0B | — | $1.4B | 3.45 | $4.3B |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $10.2B | — | $1.1B | — | $2.1B |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $10.0B | — | $1.8B | 4.41 | $6.1B |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $9.5B | — | $597M | 1.38 | $6.0B |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $9.4B | — | $1.3B | 3.13 | $2.8B |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $9.5B | — | $706M | — | $6.8B |
| Q/E Sep 2023 2023-09-30 | $9.4B | — | $1.8B | 4.45 | $6.9B |
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) | CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORP |
| Chief executive | Richard D. Fairbank (source: https://www.capitalone.com/about/corporate-information/our-company/) |
| Sector | Financials — Consumer Finance — issues credit cards and provides consumer and business banking and lending |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $204.22 |
| Market value (market cap) | $124.8B — share price times shares outstanding of 613,484,836 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $62.0B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $10.5B |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | $29.7B |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Jun 2026 (of 24 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +196.65% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -51.8% (2021-08-13 to 2023-05-04) |
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/CIK0000927628.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/CIK0000927628.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/COF/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.