secwatch.observer — SEC 8-K summary
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Issuer:     FASTENAL CO (FAST)
CIK:        0000815556
Form:       8-K
Filed at:   2026-10-14T11:56:01+00:00
Accession:  0000815556-26-000046
Event type: earnings
Sentiment:  positive
Materiality: 0.70
Item codes: 2.02, 9.01
LLM model:  deepseek-v4.1-flash:cloud@v2

Fastenal Q3 2026: daily sales +15.5%, EPS $0.35 (+19.8%), operating margin 21.5%
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- Net sales $2,463.3M, up 15.5% YoY on the same 64 business days; net income $401.6M (+19.7%) and diluted EPS $0.35 vs $0.29.
- Operating margin 21.5% vs 20.7% (up 90 bps) as SG&A fell to 23.3% of sales; gross margin slipped 40 bps to 44.8% on larger-customer mix.
- Contract customer daily sales rose 18.8% and were 76.5% of sales; heavy manufacturing DSR +20.2%; non-residential construction grew for a sixth straight quarter.
- Returned $328.4M to shareholders (dividends $298.2M, buybacks $30.2M), 81.8% of net income; total debt fell to $100.0M from $195.0M.
- 2026 capex guidance held at $310-330M vs $230.6M in 2025; FASTBin/FASTVend signing goal trimmed to 27,000-29,000 MEUs from 28,000-30,000.

Source:
  EDGAR index:    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/815556/000081555626000046/0000815556-26-000046-index.htm
  Primary doc:    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/815556/000081555626000046/fast-20261014.htm
  HTML page:      https://secwatch.observer/filing/0000815556-26-000046

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