Principal Financial Group, Inc.

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. trades at $114, in a confirmed uptrend and 25 weeks into that stage. That is +20.8% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 100% of a 52-week range of $77 to $114. On relative strength it has been ahead of the S&P 500 on a trailing-13-week view for 9 straight weeks.

Today the stock is in a confirmed uptrend — week 25 of stage 2. At $114 it trades +20.8% versus its 200-day average and sits at 100% of its 52-week range ($77–$114).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 10.1 years the stock moved +174% while the S&P 500 moved +248% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock has been ahead for 9 straight weeks — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

→ The trend is one thing; the bill is another. Are you paying up for it? Next: the P/BV sits at the 84th percentile of its own range.

Valuation For a bank we price the book, not the earnings: P/BV is what the market pays for each $1 of the bank's net worth. A bank below 1× book is priced below the value of what it owns, net of what it owes.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. trades at 2.0× P/BV, at the pricey end of its own range (84th percentile). Its long-run median P/BV is 1.7×, measured across 5.1 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/BV of 2.0× is at the pricey end of its own range (84th percentile), against a long-run median of 1.7× measured over 5.1 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

The honest context for that discount: a bank earning about 13% on its equity is worth less per dollar of book, and the market has priced that in rather than overlooked it. The discount closes only if the returns themselves improve.

🚨 Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year book value grew while the price moved +40.8% — the price ran ahead of the book, pushing the multiple up its own range.

The price move, decomposed: over 5y, of the +12.9%/yr price move, ~−1.9%/yr came from book-value growth and ~+14.8 pp from the multiple (expanding). The split is the honest approximate (price return minus book-value growth); it makes the rally itself visible instead of hiding it behind the percentile.

Put together: the multiple is full against its own past, so the story rests on the book-value line underneath it, not the multiple.

→ Cheap or dear rides on the earnings. Are they actually growing? Next: the fundamental stage — where the business sits in its arc, and how growth has compounded.

Stage: Mixed Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

Principal Financial Group, Inc. reads as mixed on its fundamental arc. Mixed — no clean majority across the growth curves, ROE holding at 13.5% — the per-curve reads carry the story. The read is built from 12 quarters across 4 curves, on full evidence.

Why it matters: when the curves disagree, the per-curve reads above matter more than any single verdict.

→ The stage names the trajectory. Next: the revenue line that produces it, quarter by quarter.

4-Factor Sector Score

51.5/100 — rank 8 of 29 in Asset Management · 76% evidence confidence

Principal Financial Group, Inc. scores 51.5 out of 100 against the 29 companies it is compared with in Asset Management, ranking 8. Balanced evidence: keep at normal research priority and require another comparable period before raising conviction.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 19.3 + 8.8 + 8.6 + 14.8 = 51.5. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if ROA rolls over or gross NPA rises while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Revenue For a bank, revenue is everything the franchise earns — interest on the loan book plus fees from its businesses.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. reported $3.5 B of income in the Mar 26 quarter, −4.6% year on year. Over 4 years it has compounded at 2.3% a year. The last full year, FY25, came in at $15.6 B. The last four reported quarters add to $15.5 B.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. reported $3.5 B of income in the Mar 26 quarter, −4.6% year on year. Over 4 years it has compounded at 2.3% a year. The last full year, FY25, came in at $15.6 B. The last four reported quarters add to $15.5 B.

FY25 revenue came in at $15.6 B (−3.1% on the year), capping 4 years at 2.3% compound. The latest quarter (Mar 26) printed $3.5 B, −4.6% year on year.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged −0.2% growth against the decade's 2.3% — the current year is running slower than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew −2.0% over the last 4 quarters against +1.9%/yr over the last 8 — rolling over; TTM profit +41.6% vs +9.7%/yr — accelerating.

→ Revenue slipped — did the net margin hold as it scaled? Next: 11.6% this quarter (+10.0 pp YoY).

Net margin Net margin — what the bank keeps of every $100 of revenue after every cost, provision and tax. With big fee businesses in the mix, it is the cleanest margin we can read for this bank.

Principal Financial Group, Inc.'s net margin is 11.6% in the Mar 26 quarter, +10.0 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 4.9% to 27.4%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

Principal Financial Group, Inc.'s net margin is 11.6% in the Mar 26 quarter, +10.0 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 4.9% to 27.4%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

The latest quarter's net margin is 11.6%, +10.0 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 4.9%–27.4%.

Why: the numbers show the net margin move clearly, but the cost lines behind it sit below what we hold — so we state the move without inventing its driver.

→ The net margin held — did that reach the bottom line? Next: profit +583.3% in the latest quarter.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. earned $0.4 B of net profit in the Mar 26 quarter, +583.3% year on year. Full-year FY25 profit was $1.3 B. The 4-year compound rate is −8.0%. That is 11.6% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned $0.1 B. 2 of the last 12 reported quarters were loss-making.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. earned $0.4 B of net profit in the Mar 26 quarter, +583.3% year on year. Full-year FY25 profit was $1.3 B. The 4-year compound rate is −8.0%. That is 11.6% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned $0.1 B. 2 of the last 12 reported quarters were loss-making.

Mar 26 profit was $0.4 B, +583.3% year on year. On the full year, FY25 printed $1.3 B (−21.3%), and the 4-year compound rate is −8.0%.

Why profit moved: revenue contributed −4.6% and the margin +10.0 pp — the quarter was margin-led: most of the profit growth came from keeping more of each sale.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit +187.2% vs revenue −0.2%. Profit is growing faster than sales — fixed costs are being spread over a bigger base, and each extra dollar of revenue drops more to the bottom line.

→ Profit is up — how clean is the loan book behind it? Next: we hold no quarterly loan-book numbers — the section says so plainly.

Asset quality — the ladder Gross NPA is the slice of the loan book where repayments have stopped. Net NPA is what remains after the money already set aside against those loans. Falling is healing; rising is damage arriving.

Loan-book quality history is not available for Principal Financial Group, Inc., so this section names the gap rather than estimating a ratio. No gross or net non-performing-asset series is filed in a form this page can read, and none is inferred from the profit line. The income, margin and return sections above carry the evidence this business does report.

We do not hold quarterly loan-book quality numbers for this bank, so this section states that plainly rather than working around it.

Why: loan-book quality is the engine room of a bank, and its drivers — slippages, recoveries, provisioning — sit below what we hold for this name; the sections around it carry the reads we can stand behind.

→ Behind the profits — is the book itself still growing? Next: revenue grew −3.1% in FY25.

The loan book We read the loan book through revenue — when the book and the businesses grow, revenue grows with them. It is a rough proxy, and we say so: rate moves and fee swings can shift it a few points in any one year.

Principal Financial Group, Inc.'s revenue grew −3.1% in FY25 to $15.6 B, so the book is flat. The latest quarter ran −4.6% year on year. The net margin on that income is 11.6%, +10.0 percentage points against a year ago. Interest income is a proxy for the book; rate moves can shift it a few points in any one year.

FY25 revenue was $15.6 B, −3.1% on the year, and the latest quarter ran −4.6% year on year. The net margin on that revenue is 11.6% this quarter (+10.0 pp YoY) — growth with a widening margin on it.

The synthesis: a lender compounds when the book grows while the margin holds and the loan book stays clean — with quarterly loan-quality numbers missing here, revenue growth and margin are the two we watch.

→ Does all of this actually earn its keep on equity? Next: ROE is 13%.

Returns on equity and assets Two numbers rate a bank: ROE — what it earns on shareholder money — and ROA — what it earns on everything it deploys. ROE above ~13–15% earns its keep; below that, growth builds book slowly.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. earns a return on equity of 11% in FY25. Its trough over the ladder below was 6% in FY23. On the asset side every $100 of the balance sheet earned about $0.36, which is the return before leverage is applied.

FY25 ROE came in at 11%, recovered from a FY23 trough of 6%. On assets, the latest reading is about 0.36% — every $100 the bank deploys earns roughly $0.36 a year. That return is below the bar a bank must clear to compound book value quickly — which is also the honest reason the stock trades where it does.

Why ROE moved: profit compounded −8.0% a year over 4 years while the equity base grew more slowly — earnings recovering faster than book value builds is what lifts ROE off a trough.

→ Who owns this bank, and are they adding or leaving? Next: short interest is 4.0% of the float.

Dividend A dividend is cash paid out per share. Dividend per share is the declared amount for the period; the trailing twelve-month total is the four most recent quarters added together.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. paid $3.13 per share over the last four reported quarters, up 6.7% on a year ago. The most recent declaration was $0.80 for Mar 26. Against the current price of $114 that is a trailing yield of 2.74%, measured on dividends already paid rather than on a forecast.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. paid $3.13 per share over the last four reported quarters, up 6.7% on a year ago. The most recent declaration was $0.80 for Mar 26. Against the current price of $114 that is a trailing yield of 2.74%, measured on dividends already paid rather than on a forecast.

Principal Financial Group, Inc. paid $3.13 per share across the last four reported quarters, most recently $0.80 for Mar 26. That is up 6.7% against the same quarter a year earlier. Against the current price of $114 the trailing twelve months work out to 2.74% — trailing dividends measured against today's price, not a forward estimate.

→ A payout is cash leaving the business. Next: what the balance sheet looks like behind it.

Debt

For a bank, borrowings are raw material, not a warning sign — solvency is read through the returns and the loan book. A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits, so the debt-to-equity lens that works everywhere else misleads on a lender and is not applied here.

A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits; a bank’s borrowings are its inventory — money taken in to be lent out. The debt lens that works everywhere else misleads here, so this page does not apply it. The solvency questions for a bank — is the loan book sound, is the equity earning — are read through the loan-book and returns sections above.

→ Who owns this, and are they adding or leaving? Next: short interest is 4.0% of the float.

Ownership There is no quarter-by-quarter holder register to read here, so we read the crowd through short interest — the slice of tradable shares currently sold short, positioned for a fall.

4.0% of Principal Financial Group, Inc.'s tradable float is currently sold short — some money is positioned against it. At typical trading volumes those positions would take about 5.8 days to buy back. There is no quarter-by-quarter holder register to read for this filer, so the crowd is read through short interest instead.

The latest reading: 4.0% of the float is sold short, and at typical trading volumes it would take about 5.8 days to buy those positions back. Some money is positioned against it. This is a single point-in-time reading — we do not yet hold its history, so we show no trend chart.

Why it sits there: who is doing the shorting, and why, does not travel with the number — the level is shown without inventing its story.

→ One last check: does the safety math agree? Next: the balance-sheet safety line.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

Principal Financial Group, Inc.: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre. The Z-score was built for manufacturers and is not applied to banks and lenders, so solvency here is read from the capital and asset-quality lines instead.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre.

Frequently asked questions