What Is Going On With Bristol Myers Squibb Stock?

Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) stock trades at 12.9 times earnings, compared with 22.7 for the median S&P 500 company. That is a low price for a drugmaker that widened its profit margin over the past year, even after the stock returned 41.6% in that time. So are buyers missing a bargain, or do they see something the latest figures do not?

On Its Latest Year, Bristol Myers Squibb Looks Cheap

Measured against its latest twelve months, Bristol Myers Squibb looks like a business on sale. The company kept 28.1% of its revenue as operating profit over the four quarters ended June 30, 2026, compared with 18.5% for the median S&P 500 company. That margin was 7.3 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

Sales are still growing. Revenue rose 5.7% in fiscal Q2 2026 from a year earlier, and management said on the July 30 call that Eliquis, the company’s blood thinner and biggest seller, grew 21% in that quarter.

Cash generation adds to the case: free cash flow over the latest twelve months equals 9.5% of the stock’s market value. A $10,000 holding at today’s price would also collect about $420 a year in dividends.

Bristol Myers Squibb’s Margin Is Near A Ten-Year High

The current price appears to assume that Bristol Myers Squibb’s latest year is close to a peak. Operating margin averaged 21.4% over the three twelve-month periods ended June 30 of 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the latest margin was higher than at 37 of the 40 quarter ends since fiscal Q3 2016. Net profit has swung even harder: the company lost $6.54 billion over the four quarters ended June 30, 2024, and earned $9.28 billion over the latest four quarters.

Overall sales grow slowly. Revenue rose 3.1% over the latest twelve months, compared with 8.3% for the median S&P 500 company. In fiscal Q2 2026, management said Eliquis growth nearly offset declines from generic entry across the company’s other older drugs. Revlimid sales fell to $2.95 billion in fiscal 2025, down from $5.77 billion a year earlier.

Eliquis is itself one of those older drugs, accounting for 30.0% of fiscal 2025 revenue. A buyer at this price therefore gets a margin near its ten-year high, while sales of the older drugs lean largely on one medicine, Eliquis.

Can Newer Drugs Replace Bristol Myers Squibb’s Older Ones?

Management says sales of newer drugs are making up for the fall in older ones. Revenue from growing medicines such as Camzyos and Reblozyl rose 14% in fiscal Q2 2026, and management said those medicines now bring in nearly 60% of the total.

Management raised its fiscal 2026 revenue forecast to a midpoint of $49.5 billion, up from $46.8 billion in the April release, and now expects a smaller fall in the older drugs. It also raised its operating expense forecast to $16.5 billion from $16.3 billion, so the higher sales forecast comes with higher spending.

Looking beyond fiscal 2026, management expects its atrial fibrillation study of milvexian, designed to show less bleeding than Eliquis, to read out in the first quarter of 2027. A buyer at this price is not mainly betting that the market has mispriced a steady business, but that Bristol Myers Squibb’s newer medicines replace the sales its older drugs lose. Revenue from the growing drugs and full-year revenue against management’s guide are the figures to watch in the next report, expected on or around October 29, 2026.

How To Act On BMY?

Not necessarily on Bristol Myers Squibb alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. Here are two companies from Bristol Myers Squibb’s own industry that have beaten it. Over the five years to October 2026, Johnson & Johnson stock rose 78% and Merck stock rose 111%, while Bristol Myers Squibb stock rose 26%.

Finding companies like these takes comparison across industries and sectors, and that is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does. It holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and, since its inception in September 2020, has returned more than 105%, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap and Russell 2000. See how we find the leaders.

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