Elevance Health (ELV)
Forward P/E is 14.65x against a peer median of 14.94x, a ratio of 0.98x — inside the fair range on price alone — with trailing P/E 18.07x and PEG 3.78. Latest-quarter revenue grew only 1.4% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), far below the group pace, so with a PEG above 2 the label moves to OVERVALUED despite the near-median multiple. Delivered demand check: the health care payers, services & facilities group's median growth was 6.2% — demand steady, and Elevance is growing well below that pace.
What would change this label: Move to FAIRLY PRICED if revenue growth rises to about 6% year over year or above for two quarters at an unchanged forward P/E, or if the forward P/E compresses to about 13.4x or below (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates. Move to UNDERVALUED if the forward P/E falls below 13.4x while growth recovers above 6%.
Elevance Health sells health insurance and care services. Its shares trade at roughly the same earnings multiple as similar companies, but its sales grew only 1.4% in the latest quarter, much slower than its peers. You pay a peer-level price without peer-level growth, so the shares look overvalued.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Elevance Health returned +54.35% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Elevance Health: -51.1% (2024-09-03 to 2025-08-01). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 14.65x against a peer median of 14.94x, a ratio of 0.98x — inside the fair range on price alone — with trailing P/E 18.07x and PEG 3.78. Latest-quarter revenue grew only 1.4% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), far below the group pace, so with a PEG above 2 the label moves to OVERVALUED despite the near-median multiple. Delivered demand check: the health care payers, services & facilities group's median growth was 6.2% — demand steady, and Elevance is growing well below that pace. The company’s forward P/E is 14.7× against a peer median of 14.9×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the health care payers, services & facilities group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 6.2% year over year (SEC filings) — demand steady. Elevance, at 1.4% growth, is growing well below that pace. Latest-quarter sales growth was +1.4% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elevance Health (ELV) | $423.55 | 14.7× | 18.1× |
| HCA | $462.45 | 14.9× | 15.3× |
| CI | $299.15 | 9.4× | 12.4× |
| CVS | $91.10 | 11.2× | 23.9× |
| VEEV | $317.96 | 32.9× | 52.1× |
| HUM | $420.00 | 33.9× | 39.7× |
| Peer median | 14.9× |
Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.
Sales, profit and cash
This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.
Free cash flow = cash from operations minus spending on plant and equipment, both from the company’s SEC cash-flow statement. Gaps are quarters where that spending line is not separately tagged in the filings — shown as gaps, never estimated.
| Quarter | Sales | Gross margin | Net income | EPS (GAAP, diluted) | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Sep 2026 2026-09-30 | $51.4B | — | $1.4B | 6.27 | $1.0B |
| Q/E Jun 2026 2026-06-30 | $50.5B | — | $1.5B | 6.71 | $1.6B |
| Q/E Mar 2026 2026-03-31 | $50.2B | — | $1.8B | 8.00 | $4.1B |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $49.7B | — | $547M | — | $-209M |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $50.7B | — | $1.2B | 5.32 | $775M |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $49.8B | — | $1.7B | 7.72 | $1.8B |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $48.9B | — | $2.2B | 9.61 | $821M |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $45.4B | — | $418M | — | $384M |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $45.1B | — | $1.0B | 4.36 | $2.3B |
| Q/E Jun 2024 2024-06-30 | $43.9B | — | $2.3B | 9.85 | $124M |
| Q/E Mar 2024 2024-03-31 | $42.6B | — | $2.2B | 9.59 | $1.7B |
| Q/E Dec 2023 2023-12-31 | $42.6B | — | $856M | — | $-3.3B |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 25-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.
Earnings: getting better or worse?
Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.
Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Key facts
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Company (legal name in filings) | Elevance Health, Inc. |
| Chief executive | Gail K. Boudreaux (source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261020437030/en/Elevance-Health-Reports-Third-Quarter-2026-Results-Raises-Full-Year-Guidance) |
| Sector | Health Care — Managed Health Care — sells health insurance and related care services to individuals, employers and government programmes |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $423.55 |
| Market value (market cap) | $91.1B — share price times shares outstanding of 216,055,891 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $201.8B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $5.1B |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | $6.5B |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Sep 2026 (of 25 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +54.35% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -51.1% (2024-09-03 to 2025-08-01) |
What we could not verify
- Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
- TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
- Own-history P/E range not yet compiled for this company in the Phase 1 batch run; the label rests on peer-median, growth and PEG evidence.
- Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.
The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name.
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0001156039.json - SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares.
https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0001156039.json - Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates.
https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/ELV/historical?assetclass=stocks - Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.
Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.