How to buy Equifax stock | $152.16

Equifax Inc is a consulting services business based in the US. Equifax shares (EFX) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Equifax employs 11,200 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$3.7 billion.

How to buy shares in Equifax

1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for Equifax Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: EFX. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Equifax reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$152.16, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Equifax, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Equifax. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

How has coronavirus impacted Equifax's share price?

Since the stock market crash in March caused by coronavirus, Equifax's share price has had significant negative movement.

Its last market close was USD$152.16, which is 4.62% down on its pre-crash value of USD$159.53 and 47.71% up on the lowest point reached during the March crash when the shares fell as low as USD$103.01.

If you had bought USD$1,000 worth of Equifax shares at the start of February 2020, those shares would have been worth USD$687.35 at the bottom of the March crash, and if you held on to them, then as of the last market close they'd be worth USD$999.69.

Equifax share price

Use our graph to track the performance of EFX stocks over time.

Equifax shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2020-09-21.

Latest market close	USD$152.16
52-week range	USD$103.01 - USD$180.07
50-day moving average	USD$163.8285
200-day moving average	USD$152.3598
Wall St. target price	USD$189.59
PE ratio	64.9633
Dividend yield	USD$1.56 (1%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$2.453

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Is it a good time to buy Equifax stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of Equifax Inc by TradingView

This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.

Equifax price performance over time

Historical closes compared with the last close of $152.16

1 week (2020-09-13)	N/A
1 month (2020-08-20)	N/A
3 months (2020-06-24)	-8.43%
6 months (2020-03-24)	33.87%

1 year (2019-09-20)	N/A
2 years (2018-09-20)	N/A
3 years (2017-09-20)	N/A
5 years (2015-09-20)	N/A

Is Equifax under- or over-valued?

Valuing Equifax stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Equifax's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

Equifax's P/E ratio

Equifax's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 65x. In other words, Equifax shares trade at around 65x recent earnings.

That's relatively high compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The high P/E ratio could mean that investors are optimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're over-valued.

Equifax's PEG ratio

Equifax's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 1.9798. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.

The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Equifax's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

Equifax's EBITDA

Equifax's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$940.4 million.

The EBITDA is a measure of a Equifax's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.

Equifax financials

Revenue TTM	USD$3.7 billion
Operating margin TTM	15.42%
Gross profit TTM	USD$2 billion
Return on assets TTM	4.4%
Return on equity TTM	11.42%
Profit margin	8.03%
Book value	$22.174
Market capitalisation	USD$19 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Equifax shares

There are currently 2.2 million Equifax shares held short by investors – that's known as Equifax's "short interest". This figure is 25.5% up from 1.8 million last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Equifax shares can be evaluated.

Equifax's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Equifax's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Equifax shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Equifax shares traded daily (recently around 621031.11111111). Equifax's SIR currently stands at 3.6. In other words for every 100,000 Equifax shares traded daily on the market, roughly 3600 shares are currently held short.

However Equifax's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Equifax shares, or, against the total number of tradable Equifax shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Equifax's short interest could be expressed as 0.02% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Equifax shares in existence, roughly 20 shares are currently held short) or 0.0208% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Equifax shares, roughly 21 shares are currently held short).

Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Equifax.

Find out more about how you can short Equifax stock.

Equifax's environmental, social and governance track record

Environmental, social and governance (known as ESG) criteria are a set of three factors used to measure the sustainability and social impact of companies like Equifax.

When it comes to ESG scores, lower is better, and lower scores are generally associated with lower risk for would-be investors.

Equifax's total ESG risk score

Total ESG risk: 30.95

Socially conscious investors use ESG scores to screen how an investment aligns with their worldview, and Equifax's overall score of 30.95 (as at 08/01/2020) is nothing to write home about – landing it in it in the 52nd percentile of companies rated in the same sector.

ESG scores are increasingly used to estimate the level of risk a company like Equifax is exposed to within the areas of "environmental" (carbon footprint, resource use etc.), "social" (health and safety, human rights etc.), and "governance" (anti-corruption, tax transparency etc.).

Equifax's environmental score

Environmental score: 4.14/100

Equifax's environmental score of 4.14 puts it squarely in the 6th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that Equifax is a leader in its sector terms of its environmental impact, and exposed to a lower level of risk.

Equifax's social score

Social score: 23.35/100

Equifax's social score of 23.35 puts it squarely in the 6th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that Equifax is a leader in its sector when it comes to taking good care of its workforce and the communities it impacts.

Equifax's governance score

Governance score: 10.46/100

Equifax's governance score puts it squarely in the 6th percentile of companies rated in the same sector. That could suggest that Equifax is a leader in its sector when it comes to responsible management and strategy, and exposed to a lower level of risk.

Equifax's controversy score

Controversy score: 5/5

ESG scores also evaluate any incidences of controversy that a company has been involved in. Equifax scored a 5 out of 5 for controversy – the lowest score possible, reflecting that Equifax's public profile has been damaged by multiple incidents.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) summary

Equifax Inc was last rated for ESG on: 2020-08-01.

Total ESG score	30.95
Total ESG percentile	51.8
Environmental score	4.14
Environmental score percentile	6
Social score	23.35
Social score percentile	6
Governance score	10.46
Governance score percentile	6
Level of controversy	5

Equifax share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 63.67% of net profits

Recently Equifax has paid out, on average, around 63.67% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 1% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Equifax shareholders could enjoy a 1% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Equifax's case, that would currently equate to about $1.56 per share.

Equifax's payout ratio would broadly be considered high, and as such this stock could appeal to those looking to generate an income. Bear in mind however that companies should normally also look to re-invest a decent amount of net profits to ensure future growth.

Equifax's most recent dividend payout was on 15 September 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 24 August 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have Equifax's shares ever split?

Equifax's shares were split on a 2:1 basis on 18 December 1995. So if you had owned 1 share the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 2 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Equifax shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 50% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Equifax shares which in turn could have impacted Equifax's share price.

Equifax share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Equifax's shares have ranged in value from as little as $103.01 up to $180.07. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while Equifax's is 1.1488. This would suggest that Equifax's shares are a little bit more volatile than the average for this exchange and represent, relatively-speaking, a slightly higher risk (but potentially also market-beating returns).

Equifax overview

Equifax Inc. provides information solutions and human resources business process outsourcing services for businesses, governments, and consumers. The company operates through four segments: U.S. Information Solutions (USIS), Workforce Solutions, International, and Global Consumer Solutions. The USIS segment offers consumer and commercial information services, such as credit information and credit scoring, credit modeling and portfolio analytics, locate, fraud detection and prevention, identity verification, and other consulting; mortgage services; financial marketing; and identity management services. The Workforce Solutions segment provides employment, income, and social security number verification services, as well as payroll-based transaction and employment tax management services. The International segment provides information service products, which include consumer and commercial services, such as credit and financial information, and credit scoring and modeling; and credit and other marketing products and services, as well as offers information, technology, and other services to support debt collections and recovery management. The Global Consumer Solutions segment offers credit information, credit monitoring, and identity theft protection products directly to consumers through Internet. The company serves customers in financial service, mortgage, employers, consumer, commercial, telecommunication, retail, automotive, utility, brokerage, healthcare, and insurance industries, as well as state and federal governments. It operates in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Brazil, the Republic of Ireland, Russia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. Equifax Inc. was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of Equifax is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 0.418% of Equifax shares are held by insiders and 99.074% by institutions.

• How many people work for Equifax?

  Latest data suggests 11,200 work at Equifax.

• When does the fiscal year end for Equifax?

  Equifax's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is Equifax based?

  Equifax's address is: 1550 Peachtree Street, NW, Atlanta, GA, United States, 30309

• What is Equifax's ISIN number?

  Equifax's international securities identification number is: US2944291051

• What is Equifax's CUSIP number?

  Equifax's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 294429105