What happened
Graco Inc shares fell 15.3% on 22 October 2026, closing at $69.28 against a previous close of $81.81. Reports pointed to margin pressure in those results as the trigger, but Graco has not issued a statement confirming why its stock moved as it did.
One news report tied the decline to concern over profitability in the quarter. A separate report covering the same session offered no company statement to explain the move. Transcripts of the earnings call were also made available, but none of that material amounts to Graco itself addressing the price reaction.
How large the move was
A fall of 15.3% is roughly 9.6 times Graco’s typical daily move over the past year, which has run at 1.6%. The last session with a decline at least this large was 24 October 2019, according to our data.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Share price | $69.28 |
| Previous close | $81.81 |
| Session move | −15.3% |
| Multiple of typical daily move | 9.6x |
| S&P 500 same session | −1.2% |
| Volume vs 30-day average | 3.6x |
Market and sector context
The S&P 500 (SPY) fell 1.2% in the same session, a far smaller decline than Graco’s. Among other covered pumps and pumping-equipment companies, the median move that day was 0.0%, so the decline looks specific to Graco rather than a sector-wide reaction.
What the numbers show
The margin-compression narrative in the reports lines up with figures in Graco’s own filed results. Free cash flow margin over the trailing twelve months stands at 26.0%, having fallen 2.5 percentage points from a year earlier. Operating margin over the same period is 26.8%, down a smaller 0.4 percentage points year on year.
What it means for value
Our DCF model’s base case assumes stage-one growth of 5.4%, matching the trailing revenue growth rate above. If the past year’s fall in free cash flow margin persists, model value would fall 8.9%, and each additional percentage point of lower FCF margin would cut model value by 3.8%. A one-percentage-point rise in the discount rate would lower model value by 14.7%. Our base-case value per share is $64.00. These are model values under stated assumptions, not a comparison with the share price.