A Bullish Price Surprise Says FactSet Research Stock Is Turning the Corner. How to Play FDS Here.

The beleaguered financial services software stock hasn't been a winner for several years now, down 26% over the past five years.

Oracle Stock Crashes to a 52-Week Low. Here's Why It Might Be Time to Buy.

Costco vs. Walmart: 1 Dividend-Paying Retail Giant Stands Above the Other

Stop Missing Market Moves: Get the FREE Barchart Brief – your midday dose of stock movers, trending sectors, and actionable trade ideas, delivered right to your inbox. Sign Up Now!

If you've followed FactSet in the past year, you're likely aware that it's caught in the downdraft caused by investor fears about AI and what it will do to SaaS (software as a service) business models and pricing power.

Not popular with analysts, FDS stock has hit new 52-week lows on 45 occasions in the past 12 months. However, despite investor malaise, the Barchart Technical Opinion is a 40% Buy in the near term.

Always a glass-half-full investor, I believe that FDS's Latest bullish price surprise indicates that the tide might be beginning to turn for the company's stock.

My most recent commentary about FactSet was in February when I covered four stocks hitting new 52-week highs and lows. FactSet was one of the two hitting new 52-week lows; the other was direct competitor Thomson Reuters (TRI), one of Canada's largest businesses.

At the time, FDS had hit its 49th new 52-week low of the past 12 months at $185. I reckoned that veteran money manager Ron Baron adding 1.07 million FDS shares to Baron Capital's existing stake in Q4 2025 -- bringing its stake to 7.7% -- suggested it was a beaten-down stock worth investors' consideration. I concluded, "With a 2.3% yield, you get paid to wait for investors to come back around. They always do."

FDS is up 36% over the past five months. A rare example of "Once Bitten, Twice Shy," in a good way.

Clearly, FDS stock is less cheap than it was in February, but it's still down 13% in 2026 and 43% over the past year. It's got a shot at maintaining its momentum in the second half to get into positive territory heading into 2027.

I wish I could ask Ron Baron. Baron Capital increased its holdings in FDS by 30% in Q1 2026, to 3.77 million shares, accounting for 2.4% of Baron's $36.91 billion in 13F assets. FactSet is Baron Capital's 9th-largest holding among 327 holdings.

While I can't ask the man personally, he did say quite a bit about FactSet in a December 2025 CNBC interview.

He was especially encouraged by the company's new CEO, Sanoke Viswanathan, who had been hired three months earlier. Baron invested in FactSet because he wanted an investment similar to Bloomberg, but since it was private, he decided it was a good alternative. He even compared Viswanathan to Jamie Dimon. That's high praise.

Viswanathan spent 15 years at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) before taking the top job at FactSet, including 12 years overseas in the UK. Before that, he spent 11 years at McKinsey & Co. Viswanathan took the top job after learning he wouldn't be in line to replace Dimon as JPMorgan's CEO. JPMorgan's loss is FactSet's gain.

"If you have a company that is this really cool company with great opportunities like a Bloomberg, but young and up and coming, and have guy like this, a killer guy like this ... think about putting Jamie Dimon at 51 or 52 in charge of this company. That's what just happened," Baron said in December.

As I said in February, FactSet's free cash flow (FCF) yield was 7.8%, approaching value territory. Today, given the appreciation in its stock, it's 6.7%. I consider anything between 4% and 8% to be fair value. Translation: If you buy FDS stock now, you won't be overpaying.