FAST stock sentiment todayFastenal Company
Sentiment verdict
Gossip first, financials second — NEUTRAL at 75% confidence.
Last updated · cached analysis, refreshes periodically
FAST
Fastenal CompanyA premium-valuation defensive play facing cyclical industrial headwinds and stagnant top-line growth.
Pick a name and you can add your own 1-, 3- and 6-month price calls — no account needed. The needle above shows where the crowd sits. Calls lock 48 hours after you make them, so every scorecard stays honest.
You'll show up on boards and The Floor under this name. Add an email later to keep your history.
No account needed. You can add an email later to keep your calls.
Already have an account? Sign in
See exactly how analyst targets, gossip sentiment and momentum are weighted into this 6-month forecast.
Sign in to go Pro →Full model breakdown (analyst / gossip / momentum weights) is a Pro feature. Modelled for FAST. Not financial advice.
Price · last 12 months
Gossip
Media mentions are currently drowned out by broader tech volatility and 'fast' keyword noise; however, institutional support remains stable with recent position increases by major retirement systems.
- ·Institutional accumulation by Virginia Retirement Systems
- ·Macro sensitivity to industrial production indices
- ·Collateral sentiment from general manufacturing sector slowdown
Financial
Fastenal maintains an industry-leading balance sheet with high ROIC and best-in-class margins, though recent organic growth has slowed due to soft manufacturing demand.
- ·Operating Margin: ~20% (Industry Leading)
- ·P/E Ratio: ~25x (Premium to historical average)
- ·Dividend Yield: ~2.9%
- ·ROIC: >30%
Conviction
Whose money is actually in the stock — insider open-market trades and the patience of the institutional holder base.
Mixed conviction — no decisive signal from insiders or the holder base.
- ·Insiders sold a net $2.5M on the open market in the last 120 days.
Pro shows every named insider trade in the window (buyer, title, size, price, and whether it was a pre-scheduled 10b5-1 sale) plus the full holder register split into patient capital and fast money.
Unlock with Pro →Source: SEC EDGAR Form 4 + 13F holder register. Option exercises, grants, gifts and tax withholding are excluded — only open-market purchases and sales count. Not financial advice.
Risks
- ·Exposure to cyclical downturns in the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI)
- ·Slowdown in onsite vending machine installations
- ·Valuation compression if interest rates stay higher for longer
Peer temperature
How direct competitors stack up against FAST right now.
- HOTGWWW.W. Grainger, Inc.
HOTTER — capturing higher market share in the digital MRO space with superior price realization and recent earnings beats.
See full analysis → - COLDMSMMSC Industrial Direct Co.
COLDER — struggling with significant gross margin compression and higher exposure to the sluggish heavy machinery sector.
See full analysis → - NEUTRALDHRDanaher Corporation
NEUTRAL — offers similar quality bias but has pivoted toward life sciences, decoupling it from the core industrial hardware cycle Fastenal faces.
See full analysis →
- FAST+4.8%
- GWW+9.1%
- MSM-2.2%
- DHR+4.8%
Analyst price target
Consensus average of 11 analysts · median 52.00
Source: StockAnalysis.com · updated 2026-10-29
Recent headlines
- CNBC'Fast Money' traders react to Intel's Q3 results, stock continues to move lower in extended trading
- Fast CompanyTech stocks down: Intel, Reddit, and Amazon are getting hammered. Has the AI reckoning arrived?
- The EconomistChina’s stock markets are the great global exception
- Yahoo! Finance CanadaFast-paced Momentum Stock DMC Global (BOOM) Is Still Trading at a Bargain
- MarketBeatFastenal Company $FAST Stock Position Lifted by VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al
- BloombergJapanese Stocks Signal Confidence Over Faster BOJ ETF Sales
AI-generated analysis for informational purposes only. Not financial advice.