National Grid plc

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.

National Grid plc trades at $79.9, building a base and 3 weeks into that stage. That is −3.4% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 41% of a 52-week range of $70 to $94. On relative strength it is currently behind the S&P 500 on a trailing-13-week view (15 weeks and counting).

Today the stock is building a base — week 3 of stage 1. At $79.9 it trades −3.4% versus its 200-day average and sits at 41% of its 52-week range ($70–$94).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 10.1 years the stock moved +0% while the S&P 500 moved +263% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock is currently behind (15 weeks and counting; last ahead the week of 2026-04-24) — 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.

Valuation P/E is the price of $1 of annual profit: how many dollars the market pays for each dollar the company earns in a year.

National Grid plc trades at 18.6× P/E, against too little history to rank. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/E of 18.6× is against too little history to rank. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year annual EPS moved +6.2% against a +11.2% price move — the price outran earnings, pushing the multiple UP its own range.

The price move, decomposed: over 5y, of the +4.1%/yr price move, ~+8.9%/yr came from earnings growth and ~−4.8 pp from the multiple (compressing). The split is the honest approximate (price return minus earnings growth); it makes the rally itself visible instead of hiding it behind the percentile.

Put together: the multiple is unremarkable against its own past, so the story rests on the earnings line underneath it, not the multiple.

Stage: Deteriorating 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).

National Grid plc reads as deteriorating on its fundamental arc. Deteriorating — revenue and EPS growth are shrinking (revenue growth −13.1% latest against +44.4% at its 12-quarter best), ROCE holding at 11.2%. The read is built from 12 quarters across 4 curves, on full evidence.

🚨 Why it matters: falling curves mean every cheap-looking ratio below needs a discount for direction.

4-Factor Sector Score

45.1/100 — rank 29 of 29 in Utilities - Regulated Electric · 44% evidence confidence · provisional, ranked below fully-evidenced peers

National Grid plc scores 45.1 out of 100 against the 29 companies it is compared with in Utilities - Regulated Electric, ranking 29. Fill the missing evidence before acting; the ranking is deliberately pulled toward neutral.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 17.7 + 14.4 + 10.8 + 2.2 = 45.1. 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 profit growth turns negative or margin improvement reverses while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Revenue Revenue is the top line: everything the company billed its customers in the period.

National Grid plc reported $10.6 B of revenue in the Mar 26 quarter, +1.9% year on year. Over 4 years it has compounded at −1.0% a year. The last full year, FY26, came in at $17.7 B. The last four reported quarters add to $36.1 B.

FY26 revenue came in at $17.7 B (−3.8% on the year), capping 4 years at −1.0% compound. The latest quarter (Mar 26) printed $10.6 B, +1.9% year on year.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged −6.0% growth against the decade's −1.0% — the current year is running slower than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew −13.1% over the last 4 quarters against +6.0%/yr over the last 8 — rolling over; TTM profit +23.3% vs +32.0%/yr — rolling over.

Operating margin Operating margin is what is left of every $100 of sales after running the business, before interest and tax. It is the cleanest read on pricing power and cost control.

National Grid plc's operating margin is 36.7% in the Mar 26 quarter, +1.9 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. That is the widest this company has ever printed on a full-year basis. Across the last four quarters the operating margin has moved +14.8 percentage points. Across 5 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 22.5% to 30.7%.

The latest quarter's operating margin is 36.7%, +1.9 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 22.5%–30.7%, and FY26's 30.7% is the top of that band — a record year.

Why the margin moved: operating margin went +14.8 pp year on year while gross margin went +0.0 pp — the gain came mostly below the gross line: operating leverage, with costs spread over a bigger revenue base.

Worth repeating from the valuation section: cheap against its own history on record margins is not the same thing as cheap — a record margin flatters every ratio built on top of it.

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

National Grid plc earned $2.6 B of net profit in the Mar 26 quarter, +16.4% year on year. It is the 3rd consecutive quarter of growth. Full-year FY26 profit was $3.2 B. The 4-year compound rate is 10.4%. That is 24.8% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned $1.1 B.

Mar 26 profit was $2.6 B, +16.4% year on year — the 3rd consecutive quarter of growth. On the full year, FY26 printed $3.2 B (+14.5%), and the 4-year compound rate is 10.4%.

Why profit moved: revenue contributed +1.9% and the margin +1.9 pp — the quarter was revenue-led, with the margin roughly flat.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit +18.9% vs revenue −6.0%. 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.

Cash flow — the router The P&L says what was earned; the cash-flow statement says what actually arrived. Operating cash flow (CFO) against profit is the cleanest lie detector in the accounts.

Over the last 3 fiscal years 260% of National Grid plc's reported profit arrived as operating cash — the cash follows the profit. In FY26 that was $7.8 B of operating cash against $3.2 B of profit. After $10.0 B of capital spending, $−2.2 B was left as free cash.

FY26: operating cash of $7.8 B against reported profit of $3.2 B, leaving free cash of $−2.2 B after $10.0 B of capital spending. Across the last 3 fiscal years the conversion rate is 260% of profit.

Cash-flow readings here are annual — that is the resolution our series carries, so this section moves once a year.

Why: conversion is measured cleanly, but the working-capital day-counts behind it sit below what we hold — the move is shown without inventing its driver.

Router verdict: the visible cash user is investment — the next section checks what the spending is buying.

Where the cash goes Working capital is the cash tied up between paying suppliers and getting paid: debtor days (customers owe), inventory days (stock waits), and the cash conversion cycle (the whole loop, in days of sales).

National Grid plc does not report the debtor, inventory and payable day-counts a cash cycle is built from, so this section reads the investment side instead. Capital spending ran $26.0 B over the last 3 years. Averaged over those years that is 49.0% of FY26 revenue a year.

Working-capital day-counts are not in our numbers for this stock, so this section reads the investment side — where the cash is being put to work.

On the investment side: capital spending of $26.0 B over the last 3 fiscal years.

The synthesis: the cash is going into capacity, not disappearing into the cycle — the question becomes whether the new capacity earns.

Return on equity Return on equity (ROE) is the profit the business earns on its shareholders’ money. With the full capital-employed split not in our numbers, ROE is the cleanest long ladder we can draw here.

National Grid plc earns a ROE of 8% in FY26. That is up from a trough of 7% in FY24. Return on invested capital clears the cost of that capital by −1.6 percentage points, so growth here is not yet paying for the capital it uses. The wiring behind it is 18.3% net margin on 0.16× asset turns.

FY26 ROE is 8%, recovered from a FY24 trough of 7% — the full ladder below shows the fall and the climb, undoctored.

🚨 Why the return is what it is — the wiring (FY26): 18.3% net margin × 0.16× asset turns × 2.75× balance-sheet leverage ≈ 8.1% on equity. Margin is doing the heavy lifting; leverage is a meaningful part of the equation.

The capstone test — ROIC − WACC: 3.7% − 5.3% = a −1.6 pp spread. The 5.3% is an estimate of this company's own cost of capital — read the sign and the size of the spread, not the decimals. Negative — growth at these returns destroys value until the returns recover.

Dividend

National Grid plc pays no dividend. Across the last 12 reported quarters it has declared no dividend per share, so there is no payout history to chart and no yield to quote. Companies at this stage typically reinvest earnings rather than distribute them, which makes the cash-flow and reinvestment sections the place that cash shows up.

National Grid plc does not currently pay a dividend. Across the last 12 reported quarters the company has declared no dividend per share, so there is no payout history to chart and no yield to quote. Companies at this stage typically reinvest earnings instead of distributing them.

Debt Debt-to-equity says how much of the business is funded by borrowings; interest cover says how many times operating profit pays the interest bill. Low and high, respectively, is the safe corner.

Debt-to-equity is 1.21 at the latest reading — carrying real leverage; a full borrowings history is not in our numbers.

We hold only the latest reading here: a debt-to-equity of 1.21 — a level of leverage that amplifies both the returns above and the risk. A year-by-year borrowings ladder is not in our numbers for this stock, so we say that rather than draw a chart we cannot support.

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.

No ownership or positioning reading is held for National Grid plc, so this section names the gap rather than filling it. At typical trading volumes those positions would take about 0.7 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.

We hold no ownership or positioning reading for this stock, so this section says that plainly.

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.

National Grid plc: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one. It is a distance-to-distress estimate from the balance sheet, not a forecast of failure. The debt, cash-flow and return sections above carry the balance-sheet evidence this page does hold, and each of them states its own reporting date.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one.

Frequently asked questions