Should You Buy Fair Isaac Stock Now Or Wait?
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Shares of Fair Isaac (FICO) have lost 56.8% over the past year, trailing the 13.7% return of the S&P 500. Even with an 8.4% gain over the past month, the stock still sits 60.8% below its December 2025 high. Buying at this price means believing the company behind the FICO Score can maintain its profits while changing how it prices mortgage scores. Has the fall made Fair Isaac stock cheap, or is it too early to step in?
Fair Isaac’s Low P/E Comes With Near-Peak Margins
On earnings, Fair Isaac was priced lower at the end of September than at any quarter end since the start of fiscal 2017. Its price-to-earnings ratio then was 15.2, against a high of 92.8 in September 2024. The shares have risen since that September 30 close, and the ratio now stands at 18.6, below the S&P 500’s 21.8.
Fair Isaac earned those profits on wider margins than it did a year before. The company generated a 51.0% operating margin over the twelve months to September 2026, up from 47.0% a year earlier. Only one previous quarter end since fiscal 2017 came in higher, in June 2026. The Scores business, which sells the FICO Score to lenders, grew faster than the broader company. Management said on the November 4 call that fiscal 2026 Scores revenue reached $1.652 billion, up 41%. The stock is therefore priced low against its own history, but on margins near their peak, and whether that is cheap depends on whether Fair Isaac keeps those margins.
What Does Fair Isaac’s Price Appear To Assume?
The current stock price appears to assume that Fair Isaac’s recent gains from score pricing will slow. Revenue from scores sold to businesses rose 39% in the September quarter, mainly on a higher price per mortgage score, while mortgage volumes fell. Management is now shifting lenders to custom pricing, and lenders that enroll in its FICO Preferred Program receive no 2027 increase in the wholesale price of the mortgage score.
Management also stopped giving a forecast. The company is not providing fiscal 2027 guidance, management said, because it is still finalizing its pricing programs and the outcome of the mortgage market’s troubles is uncertain. This decision leaves the analysts’ consensus as the nearest figure. Analysts expect revenue of about $619 million for the October-to-December quarter, below the $657 million Fair Isaac reported for the September quarter.
How Has Fair Isaac Stock Moved After Its Reports?
Fair Isaac stock has moved both ways after its recent reports: it fell 18.2% in the two trading days after its July 2026 report, and rose 6.8% after its November 2025 report. Both moves came before its latest report, on November 4. The stock rose 0.5% over the same two-day span after that report.Fair Isaac is expected to report next in January 2027, on the October-to-December quarter, the first of its fiscal 2027.
A buyer now also takes on market risk. During the 2022 inflation shock, the deepest of four recent market shocks for this stock, Fair Isaac fell 23.0%. That decline was close to the S&P 500’s 24.0% drop, as tracked by the SPY fund.
In the January report, revenue against the analysts’ consensus is one figure to watch. The other is whether management provides the fiscal 2027 guidance it withheld in November.
Does This Mean You Should Act On FICO?
Betting on a single stock is always risky, whichever way you lean. The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and has returned 105% since its September 2020 launch.
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