Carter’s Inc (CRI)
🔔 Watch stock
symbol.quality_heading
The business works in principle, but one material question is open. As long as it stays open, our findings do not carry a quality verdict.
Yellow here stands for an open operating question, not for a risk to the substance. The substance is documented: $653.6 million of cash and $1,027.3 million of equity as of July 4, 2026, an undrawn $750 million credit facility, covenants met, no going-concern warning, no goodwill impairment, $202.3 million of cash from operations in the half year, and undisputed market leadership in baby apparel. What is open is earning power itself: operating income has fallen four years running, the only real profit engine — U.S. Wholesale — lost 19.2 percent of segment operating income in the half year, 92 percent of the quarterly profit came from a one-time effect, and the most important burden, trade policy, lies outside the company's control. On top of that comes the third chief executive in twenty-six months with no published medium-term targets. Whether the stock is cheap at a price-earnings ratio of roughly 7 reported and roughly 12 adjusted belongs to the price question and does not drive this assessment. Red would require cash, equity or interest cover to turn; green would require adjusted earnings to rise again with the tariff burden demonstrably offset.
symbol.quality_note
In the second quarter of 2026 Carter's reported diluted earnings of $2.87 per share, against $0.01 a year earlier. The quarterly report explains the jump itself: $127.7 million of refunded import duties, which the company then removes again in its own reconciliation. Adjusted, $0.26 and a 2.9 percent operating margin remain instead of 22.7 percent — while first-half segment income falls and new tariffs took effect on July 24, 2026. Not investment advice — just the exercise of taking a headline apart until only the business is left.
Read the analysis
Stock Watch
This analysis is as of August 3, 2026. Stock Watch will tell you what's changed at CRI since then.
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Trading Day
Key levels of the most recently completed trading day — not a live quote.
52-Week Range
Current price 38.60 $ — 72% of the range above the low.
Lowest and highest closing price over the last 52 weeks. The marker shows where the current price sits within that range: close to the high speaks for strength, close to the low for weakness.
Basics
Performance
Technical Indicators
Calculated from the price history · as of 08/03/2026
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Dividend
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
–Not yet rated — we only show a category once an SEC-backed file with at least two cited passages is available. How the Rating Is Built
Highlighted are things our editorial team noticed: green = stands out as strong, red = deserves a closer look. No single metric is a verdict on its own — always read it in context.
Analysts & Price Target
The price target sits 10.5% above the current price.
- Consensus
- Buy
- Analyst Ratings
- 6
Combined picture of the price targets and recommendations of every analyst covering the stock. Price targets are expectations for the next 12 months, not promises — and they often follow the price rather than predict it.
Estimates by Fiscal Year
| Fiscal Year | EPS Estimate ($) | EPS Range ($) | Revenue Estimate ($M) | Expected Growth | Analysts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12/31/2026 | 3.14 | 3.10 – 3.18 | 2,994 | -9.5% | 4 |
| 12/31/2027 | 3.63 | 3.25 – 4.13 | 3,032 | 15.5% | 7 |
Average of the analyst estimates for the coming fiscal years. The range shows how far the most optimistic and the most cautious estimate sit apart — the wider it is, the less certain the expectation.
Revenue & Profit
Cash Flow
Balance Sheet
Margins
Per Share
Click the chart or tab into it, then use ← and → to step through the periods.
None of the selected stocks reports this metric. Pick another metric or switch between annual and quarterly.
· Total · per year
These companies report in different currencies — switch on “Indexed” or pick a margin for a fair comparison.
The figures could not be loaded right now.
Source: fundamental data
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | 1.74 | -41.10 | 860 | 0.20 | 7.20 | 288 | 271 |
| 2025: Q1 | 0.44 | -58.50 | 630 | -4.80 | 2.50 | -49 | -59 |
| 2025: Q2 | 0.01 | -98.40 | 585 | 3.70 | 0.10 | 40 | 24 |
| 2025: Q3 | 0.33 | -80.20 | 758 | -0.10 | 1.50 | -128 | -144 |
| 2025: Q4 | 1.81 | 4.00 | 926 | 7.60 | 6.90 | 259 | 248 |
| 2026: Q1 | 0.40 | -8.10 | 681 | 8.10 | 2.10 | 6 | -1 |
| 2026: Q2 | 2.87 | 28,600.00 | 616 | 5.20 | 17.10 | 196 | 190 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Annual Figures
| Fiscal Year | Revenue ($M) | EBIT ($M) | Net Income ($M) | EPS ($) | Operating Cash Flow ($M) | Equity ($M) | Total Assets ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 3,199 | 427 | 258 | 5.12 | 369 | 788 | 1,947 |
| 2017 | 3,400 | 420 | 303 | 6.29 | 330 | 857 | 2,068 |
| 2018 | 3,462 | 391 | 282 | 6.05 | 356 | 869 | 2,059 |
| 2019 | 3,519 | 372 | 264 | 5.90 | 387 | 880 | 2,753 |
| 2020 | 3,024 | 190 | 110 | 2.53 | 588 | 938 | 3,393 |
| 2021 | 3,486 | 497 | 340 | 7.90 | 268 | 950 | 3,188 |
| 2022 | 3,213 | 379 | 250 | 6.44 | 88 | 796 | 2,440 |
| 2023 | 2,946 | 323 | 233 | 6.35 | 529 | 845 | 2,379 |
| 2024 | 2,844 | 255 | 186 | 5.22 | 299 | 855 | 2,433 |
| 2025 | 2,898 | 144 | 92 | 2.59 | 122 | 925 | 2,565 |
Fiscal years from the audited annual reports, oldest first. EBIT is the operating profit before interest and taxes; total assets are everything the company owns.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
Of the $139.8 million of reported operating income in the second quarter of 2026, $127.7 million came from a one-time tariff refund. Adjusted, $18.1 million and a 2.9 percent margin remain instead of 22.7 percent, and $0.26 per share instead of $2.87. Remaining open refund claims stood at only roughly $2 million as of July 4, 2026.
In the first half of 2026 net sales rose 6.7 percent to $1,296.6 million, yet segment operating income fell 2.7 percent to $89.4 million — and 19.2 percent to $66.5 million in U.S. Wholesale. Adjusted earnings per share fell from $0.83 to $0.65. GAAP operating income has fallen from $379.2 million (2022) to $143.9 million (2025).
As of July 4, 2026, $653.6 million of cash and $1,027.3 million of equity stood against a single bond of $575.0 million principal — cash exceeds financial debt. The $750 million credit facility was undrawn, $568.6 million available, covenants met. No going-concern warning, no goodwill impairment. Cash from operations for the half year was $202.3 million. On top of that sit $616.9 million of lease liabilities from store leases.
Incremental tariff costs hit cost of goods sold by roughly $78 million in the first half of 2026; roughly $18 million was still in inventory on July 4, 2026. Since July 24, 2026, new tariffs of 10 to 12.5 percent apply to imports from roughly 60 countries, and Carter's sources practically all of its goods from Asia — roughly 60 percent of the fabric still came from China in 2025.
Carter's remains the clear market leader with roughly 21 percent of baby apparel for ages zero to two (December 2025) and operates 1,042 company-operated stores (04.07.2026). The share collapses as customers age, however: roughly 8 percent among toddlers aged three to four, roughly 2 percent among five- to ten-year-olds. Across all age groups the Carter's brands reach roughly 9 percent. The company itself names declining birth rates as a market condition.
Three chief executives in twenty-six months: Douglas Palladini started April 3, 2025 and departed effective April 28, 2026; Sharon Price John took over on June 15, 2026. Transition costs were $4.7 million in the second quarter of 2026. The dividend was cut 69 percent to $0.25 from the second quarter of 2025; there have been no repurchases since.
Carter's is the headline trap in its purest form: the second quarter of 2026 delivered $2.87 per share against $0.01 a year earlier — adjusted for the $127.7 million tariff refund, $0.26 and an operating margin of 2.9 percent instead of 22.7 percent remain, and the company works it out that way itself. Behind it stands a market-leading supplier of baby apparel with a healthy balance sheet ($653.6 million of cash, $1,027.3 million of equity) and a growing own-retail business — and at the same time an operating income that has fallen from $379.2 million to $143.9 million since 2022, a wholesale segment whose half-year profit is down 19.2 percent, and a company outlook that calls for falling adjusted earnings per share in 2026. Not investment advice.
- Carter's came onto the research list through the SEC filing calendar: on July 31, 2026 the quarterly report (10-Q) for the period ended July 4, 2026 and the earnings release as Exhibit 99.1 to a current report (8-K) arrived on the same day. The company's 2026 outlook appears exclusively in Exhibit 99.1, not in the quarterly report.
- Data basis: annual figures as of January 3, 2026 from the annual report (10-K) for 2025, interim figures as of July 4, 2026 from the quarterly report (10-Q), outlook and quarterly metrics as of July 31, 2026, market capitalisation, short interest and analyst consensus as of August 3, 2026. Market capitalisation is deliberately used only as an order of magnitude: the share count of 36,711,185 (as of July 24, 2026) comes from the cover page of the quarterly report, while the only price documented in a mandatory filing is the closing price of June 27, 2025 from the cover page of the annual report and is therefore more than a year old.
- Not to be confused: Carter's, Inc. (NYSE: CRI, children's apparel, CIK 0001060822) is a different company from Carter Bankshares, Inc. (Nasdaq: CARE), a regional bank in Virginia. Both trade under the Carter name but have nothing to do with each other.
- On the fiscal year: Carter's reports in 52- or 53-week years ending on the Saturday closest to December 31. Fiscal 2025 ended on January 3, 2026 and had 53 weeks — roughly $37 million of the $54.3 million sales increase came from that extra week. Comparisons between 2025 and 2026 are therefore not adjusted without further work.
About the Company
Carter's, Inc. befasst sich gemeinsam mit ihren Tochtergesellschaften mit Design, Beschaffung und Vermarktung von Markenkinderbekleidung in den USA und international.
| Employees | 15,400 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Atlanta, GA |
| Address | Phipps Tower, 30326 Atlanta, United States |
| Phone | 678 791 1000 |
| Website | carters.com |
| IPO Date | 24. Oct 2003 |
| ISIN | US1462291097 |
| Stock Split | 2:1 on 06/07/2006 |
Management
| Name | Title | Birth Year |
|---|---|---|
| Richard F. Westenberger CPA | CFO & COO | 1969 |
| Karen G. Smith | Chief Supply Chain Officer | 1968 |
| Allison M. Peterson | Chief Retail & Digital Officer | 1976 |
| Emily D. Evert | Chief Strategy Officer | 1988 |
| Sharon Price John | President, CEO & Director | 1964 |
| Antonio D. Robinson | Chief Administrative & Compliance Officer and Secretary | 1972 |
| Thomas C. Robillard Jr. | Vice President of Investor Relations | – |
| Lindsay Rider | Senior Director of Public Affairs | – |
| Julie A. D'Emilio | Chief Sales Officer | 1967 |
| Sarah J. Crockett | Chief Marketing Officer | 1983 |
Executives per the latest required filings; titles kept in their original language. Source: fundamental data.
Chart
Interactive price chart (TradingView).
Data as of: July 31, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.