Munger Mode rating: 3 out of 5 — Hold. Our own rating from the research report below, on business quality first: moat durability and management, with price separating the top three.
We have spent our lives looking for businesses like AMETEK: a collection of small monopolies in unglamorous niches, run by honest operators who redeploy a river of free cash into more small monopolies, decade after decade. This is a genuinely wonderful business — one of perhaps a few dozen in the S&P 500 that earns the label. The trouble is that in August 2026 the market knows it. After a blowout second quarter — record sales, record orders, record backlog, guidance raised — the stock sits at an all-time high, roughly 30 times forward adjusted earnings and 32 times free cash flow, about 22% above its own ten-year median multiple. Meanwhile the company is about to take on roughly $5 billion of new debt to fund its largest acquisition ever, at a full price of about 14 times EBITDA. We admire the business and the people enormously. We would not sell a share if we owned it.
Recent filings analysed: 8-K (2026-08-04), 10-Q (2026-08-04), 8-K (2026-06-12), 8-K (2026-05-26).
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