Northern Trust (NTRS)
Forward P/E is 13.56x against a peer median of 10.24x, a ratio of 1.32x — above the 1.15x fair-range edge — with trailing P/E 13.45x and PEG 0.83. Latest-quarter revenue grew 35.0% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), far above the cluster median, and the PEG of 0.83 is at or below 1.5, so the growth exception applies: the premium is paid for by delivered growth, and the label is FAIRLY PRICED rather than overvalued. Delivered demand check: the Asset management & custody banks group's median growth was 14.3% — demand rising, and Northern Trust is growing far faster than that pace.
What would change this label: Move to UNDERVALUED if the forward P/E compresses to about 9.22x or below (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates with revenue growth holding above 14.3% year over year. Move to OVERVALUED if revenue growth falls to 14.3% year over year or below while the forward P/E stays above about 11.78x (1.15x the peer median), because the growth exception would no longer apply.
Northern Trust, a custody and wealth management bank, trades at about 13.5 times expected earnings — more than similar companies at about 10 times — but its sales grew about 35%, far faster than the group. The higher price is matched by that growth, so the shares look fairly priced. If growth slows to the group pace, the verdict would change.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Northern Trust returned +107.54% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Northern Trust: -52.8% (2022-01-14 to 2023-10-25). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 13.56x against a peer median of 10.24x, a ratio of 1.32x — above the 1.15x fair-range edge — with trailing P/E 13.45x and PEG 0.83. Latest-quarter revenue grew 35.0% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), far above the cluster median, and the PEG of 0.83 is at or below 1.5, so the growth exception applies: the premium is paid for by delivered growth, and the label is FAIRLY PRICED rather than overvalued. Delivered demand check: the Asset management & custody banks group's median growth was 14.3% — demand rising, and Northern Trust is growing far faster than that pace. The company’s forward P/E is 13.6× against a peer median of 10.2×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Asset management & custody banks group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 14.3% year over year (SEC filings) — demand rising. Latest-quarter sales growth was +35.0% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Trust (NTRS) | $171.42 | 13.6× | 13.4× |
| TROW | $103.68 | 10.2× | 10.4× |
| AMP | $488.77 | 10.0× | 11.8× |
| BEN | $31.31 | 10.2× | 21.3× |
| STT | $172.86 | 11.5× | 14.1× |
| IVZ | $28.45 | 9.1× | — |
| Peer median | 10.2× |
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 | $2.7B | — | $792M | — | $-90M |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $2.2B | — | $526M | 2.71 | $-329M |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $2.1B | — | $466M | — | $356M |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $2.0B | — | $458M | 2.29 | $509M |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $2.0B | — | $421M | 2.13 | $1.9B |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $1.9B | — | $392M | 1.90 | $2.7B |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $2.0B | — | $455M | — | $-2.7B |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $2.0B | — | $465M | 2.22 | $585M |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $2.7B | — | $896M | 4.34 | $3.0B |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $1.6B | — | $215M | 0.96 | $-1.5B |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $1.5B | — | $113M | — | $2.7B |
| Q/E Sep 2023 2023-09-30 | $1.7B | — | $328M | 1.49 | $66M |
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) | NORTHERN TRUST CORP |
| Chief executive | Michael G. O'Grady (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Trust) |
| Sector | Financials — Asset Management & Custody Banks — provides custody, asset servicing and wealth management for institutions and clients |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $171.42 |
| Market value (market cap) | $31.2B — share price times shares outstanding of 182,955,653 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $9.1B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $2.2B |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | $445M |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Jun 2026 (of 24 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +107.54% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -52.8% (2022-01-14 to 2023-10-25) |
What we could not verify
- Revenue construction: this filer tags no single total-revenue concept in EDGAR company facts, so quarterly revenue is the sum of two tagged components — net interest income (InterestIncomeExpenseNet) plus noninterest income (NoninterestIncome) — the same total-net-revenue presentation the bank itself reports. Where a component is untagged for a quarter-end, the concept-chain value is used instead.
- 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.
- Data-pack revenue is constructed as net interest income plus noninterest income (both EDGAR-tagged; no single total-revenue concept is tagged), so the revenue growth figure rests on that constructed total.
- 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/CIK0000073124.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/CIK0000073124.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/NTRS/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.