ECL
Ecolab Inc.Basic MaterialsSpecialty ChemicalsIncome
$250.16 · 15min delay
β 0.93A high-quality large-cap income stock trading at a premium valuation. Frameworks sharply disagree on it.
52-wk low $248.7552-wk high $309.27
Mkt Cap
$70.40B
P/E
—
PEG
2.32
P/B
7.22
Dividend
1.16%
ROE
22.4%
About the business
Ecolab Inc. provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Global Water, Global Institutional & Specialty, Global Pest Elimination, and Global Life Sciences. The Global Water segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, primary metals and mining, power generation, global refining, petrochemical, pulp and paper industries. The Global Institutional & Specialty segment provides cleaning and sanitizing products to the foodservice, healthcare, hospitality, lodging, government, education and retail industries. The Global Pest Elimination segment provides pest elimination services to detect, prevent, and eliminate pests comprising rodents and insects in full-service and quick-service restaurants, food and beverage processors, hotels, grocery operations, and other commercial segments, including education, life sciences, and healthcare. The Global Life Sciences segment provides cleaning and contamination control solutions to pharmaceutical and personal care manufacturers. It offers its products under the Ecolab, Kay, Purolite, and Bioquell brand names. The company sells its products through field sales and corporate account personnel, distributors, and dealers. Ecolab Inc. was founded in 1923 and is headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Who would buy ECL?
Consensus 15/100 · Mixed · Investors are split.
1 5 9
Endorses
· 1 framework- AQR / Asness· Quality Factor86/100
ROE > 20% 22.4% clears "> 20.0%".
Rejects
· 3 frameworks- Peter Lynch· Lynch GARP0/100
PEG < 1 (growth at a discount) is 2.32× — fails "< 1.00×".
- Charlie Munger
Insider activity · Mixed
Open-market buying concentrated in one insider
Strength 35/100
Buying is limited to a single filer (MACLENNAN DAVID W, $206K). Single-insider buys are worth noting but carry less weight than broad-based conviction — they can reflect an outlier view rather than a shared read inside the C-suite. Over the 6M window, insiders are net buyers by 87,547 shares.
- Buying concentrated in one filer — lower conviction signal.
In Prism's context
Insider activity is inconclusive here. The stock's case should lean on the framework verdict (Fails criteria, score 15/100) and the archetype read (Income).
| Insider | Role | Type | Date | Shares | Avg price | Value | Own |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COOK GREGORY B | Officer | Transaction | May 4, 2026 | 8,396 | — | — | Direct |
| MACLENNAN DAVID W | Director | Open-market buy | May 4, 2026 | 800 | $256.91 | $206K | Direct |
| NOWELL LIONEL L III | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| ALTHOFF JUDSON | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| GROSS MARION K | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| DOUKERIS MICHEL | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| MCKIBBEN TRACY B. | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| VAUTRINOT SUZANNE M. | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| WHALEN JULIE PATENAUDE | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| LARSON MICHAEL J | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| BALLARD SHARI L | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 275 | $131.81 | $36K | Direct |
| GREEN ERIC MARK | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 289 | $138.40 | $40K | Direct |
| ZILLMER JOHN J | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| REICH VICTORIA J | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 137 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| MACLENNAN DAVID W | Director | Award / grant | Mar 31, 2026 | 186 | $68.88 | $13K | Direct |
| LARSON MICHAEL J | Director | Option exercise | Mar 27, 2026 | 2,300 | $115.07 | $265K | Direct |
| COOK GREGORY B | Officer | Open-market sell | Feb 26, 2026 | 3,519 | $304.25 | $1.07M | Direct |
| COOK GREGORY B | Officer | Option exercise | Feb 26, 2026 | 3,800 | $137.09 | $521K | Direct |
| KING MARGEAUX | Officer | Transaction | Feb 25, 2026 | 1,662 | — | — | Direct |
| MCKIBBEN TRACY B. | Director | Open-market sell | Feb 25, 2026 | 1,265 | $308.66 | $390K | Direct |
| MCKIBBEN TRACY B. | Director | Option exercise | Feb 25, 2026 | 2,300 | $115.07 | $265K | Direct |
| KIRKLAND SCOTT D. | Chief Financial Officer | Stock Gift at price 0.00 per share. | Feb 24, 2026 | 404 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| BECK CHRISTOPHE | Chief Executive Officer | Open-market sell | Feb 24, 2026 | 20,000 | $307.37 | $6.15M | Direct |
| BECK CHRISTOPHE | Chief Executive Officer | Option exercise | Feb 24, 2026 | 23,833 | $117.73 | $2.81M | Direct |
| KIRKLAND SCOTT D. | Chief Financial Officer | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 9,740 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| DE BOO ALEXANDER A | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 2,371 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| BRADWAY JENNIFER J | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 1,948 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| ALFANO NICHOLAS J | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 2,202 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| COOK GREGORY B | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 3,388 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| BOONE JANDEEN M | General Counsel | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 593 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| HLILA ALEXANDRA M A | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 508 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| BECK CHRISTOPHE | Chief Executive Officer | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 25,408 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| BROWN DARRELL R | President | Award / grant | Feb 18, 2026 | 8,469 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| ALFANO NICHOLAS J | Officer | Open-market sell | Feb 17, 2026 | 9,501 | $303.58 | $2.88M | Direct |
| ALFANO NICHOLAS J | Officer | Option exercise | Feb 17, 2026 | 9,501 | $137.09 | $1.30M | Direct |
| BRADWAY JENNIFER J | Officer | Open-market sell | Feb 13, 2026 | 613 | $302.01 | $185K | Direct |
| BRADWAY JENNIFER J | Officer | Option exercise | Feb 13, 2026 | 950 | $137.09 | $130K | Direct |
| ZILLMER JOHN J | Director | Option exercise | Feb 13, 2026 | 2,300 | $115.07 | $265K | Direct |
| REICH VICTORIA J | Director | Open-market sell | Feb 13, 2026 | 1,000 | $301.08 | $301K | Direct |
| REICH VICTORIA J | Director | Option exercise | Feb 13, 2026 | 1,000 | $115.08 | $115K | Direct |
Showing 40 of 50 matching transactions.
Insider activity from Yahoo Finance (quoteSummary: insiderTransactions + netSharePurchaseActivity). Cached 6 hours. · Insiders hold 0.2% of shares outstanding.
Net 6M: +87,547 sh
Price history
—
Loading…
Drag across the chart to select a custom period — all analysis below refocuses to that window.
What this means: Price near 52-week lows confirms what most frameworks are already flagging: the market is discounting deteriorating fundamentals.
What would ECL do to your portfolio?
Add Ecolab Inc. at a hypothetical weight and Prism recalculates your whole book:
Risk metrics
Sharpe, Sortino, volatility, max drawdown, beta — before and after.
Sector concentration
How much this shifts your top sector weight and overall diversification.
Archetype tilt
Whether this leans your book more toward Quality, Value, Growth, Deep Value, Income, or Momentum.
ECL is currently tagged:IncomeFails criteria (15/100)
Portfolio analytics are part of the member experience.
Sign in to run this simulationProbabilistic recommendation· rec-v1.0.0-2026-04
Ecolab Inc. · ECL
ECL: 43% estimated probability of outperforming over the next 12M window. 1 of 6 signal families negative (medium confidence). Strongest support: ROE 22%. Main risk to monitor: 136% above fair value.
Outperform prob.
43%
vs S&P 500 · 12M
Expected return
-4.9% → +19.1%
mid +7.1% / yr
Downside (p20)
-13.1%
stress -26.3%
Data quality
95/100
Excellent
Prism Score
Probabilistic research output, not financial advice. Prism recommendations are based on available data, historical relationships, and model assumptions. They do not guarantee future returns. Conduct independent due diligence before any investment decision.
Backtested and similar-setup statistics may be affected by survivorship bias, look-ahead bias, overfitting, transaction costs, liquidity constraints, and data limitations. Probability estimates are anchored heuristics — not validated forecasts — until the walk-forward backtest pipeline is in place.
Prism Score
Composite 43/100. Strongest contribution from quality; weakest from valuation. Risk patterns shaved 2 points off the composite.
Composite
43
/ 100
Deep valueval.
38/ 100
P/B 7.22× · FCF yield 2.3%
Margin of safetyval.
0/ 100
136% above fair value
Bull · base · bear scenarios
Three plausible paths over a 5-year horizon.
Indicative only. Probabilities are model-implied weights for stress-testing — not forecasts.
Bull
~25%$137.71
-11.3% / yr (5y)
Operating leverage kicks in or a new product line scales — margins inflect higher, growth steps up by 200–400 bps, and the multiple re-rates as the durability becomes obvious to a wider audience.
Drivers
- • Margin expands by 200–400 bps from 17%
- • Top-line accelerates 300–500 bps above current
- • Multiple re-rates one full turn higher
Base
~55%$105.93
-15.8% / yr (5y)
Business continues to compound at recent rates — 17% operating margin holds, 10% top-line growth persists, capital allocation stays disciplined. Multiple stays roughly where it is.
Global value comparison
Ecolab Inc. vs sector medians — GCC, MENA, and Global ex-US.
Sector: Basic Materials. MENA-aware investors can sanity-check whether the US name is offering value relative to regional peers.
| Metric | ECL | GCC median | MENA median | Global ex-US |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P/E (TTM) | — | 13.5× | — | 12.5× |
| P/B | 7.22× | 1.90× | — | 1.50× |
| Dividend yield | 1.16% | 3.80% | — | 3.40% |
| ROE | 22.4% |
Earnings reaction explainer
ECL missed materially — -18.0% below consensus.
Reported EPS $1.70 vs $2.07 expected — a material miss. The bar of the next two prints will be lower, but the multiple that was bid up to today's level usually does not survive an unexplained shortfall this size. Trailing operating margin: 16.9%.
- Quality investorsNegative
A material miss is incompatible with a quality-compounder narrative until proven otherwise. Two more prints needed before that label is restored.
- Growth investorsNegative
Multiple compression typically follows. The risk is not the miss itself, it's that consensus needs to re-rate forward estimates lower.
- Value investorsNegative
Even cheap stocks get cheaper after this kind of print — wait for capitulation rather than catching the falling knife.
News & events
Next earnings
Tue, Jul 28 · consensus EPS $2.07 · last actual $1.70
Key Metrics at a Glance
P/E Ratio (TTM)
N/A
PEG Ratio
2.32
P/B Ratio
7.22
EPS Growth
7.8%
Revenue Growth
10.0%
Debt / Equity
0.92
Net Cash / Share
$-31.08
Return on Equity
22.4%
Gross Margin
44.4%
Operating Margin
16.9%
FCF / Share
$5.64
Current Ratio
0.99