Share count
696Mpeak FY2016
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AXP, American Express Company
Capital Markets & Asset Management financial
American Express is a payments and premium lifestyle brand that both issues cards and runs the network they ride on, so it stands on both sides of a transaction rather than renting someone else's rails. It aims its cards at affluent people and businesses and earns from several places at once: a discount fee charged to the merchants who accept the card, annual card fees, and interest on balances cardmembers carry. It is also a bank holding company, so its lending is supervised and examined like a bank's.
American Express Company and its principal operating subsidiary, American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.
Our Integrated Payments Platform and Technology Through our card-issuing, merchant-acquiring and card network businesses, we are able to connect participants and provide differentiated value across the commerce path.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$72.2B
+9.5% YoY · 15% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $74.2B 5-yr avg $58.8B
Revenue $10.5B +9.3% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $3.0B yr-ago $2.6B
Net margin 28.1% yr-ago 26.7%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- The business turns on a loop: a premium brand draws spenders worth more to merchants, which is what lets it charge merchants more, which funds the rewards that keep the spenders. The tests are whether that loop holds — whether affluent cardmembers stay and spend rather than carry a rival's card, and whether merchants keep accepting a card that costs them more than the others — and pricing power lives or dies there. The filing names the pressure points itself: intense competition in the premium tier and a scramble for the cobrand relationships that route large spending volume, so losing a partner or a slice of the discount fee can move a lot at once. The bad case is plain for a lender to the cardholding public — in a downturn, spending falls and credit losses climb together — and the figures for margins, returns and the debt load are in the record below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on equity has run high across the record (median 30%, above 12% in 10 of 10 years). It runs at a 74% efficiency ratio, on the heavy side. A bank that earns above its cost of equity through the cycle compounds book value; whether this one did it by underwriting discipline or by reaching for risk is what the 10-K, and the worst years in the record, will tell you.
Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $35.4B | $36.9B | $40.3B | $43.6B | $36.1B | $42.4B | $52.9B | $60.5B | $65.9B | $72.2B | $74.2B | RevenueRevenue |
| $5.8B | $6.5B | $7.7B | $8.6B | $8.0B | $7.8B | $9.9B | $13.1B | $15.5B | $17.4B | $17.9B | Net interest incomeNet int. |
| $29.7B | $30.4B | $32.7B | $34.9B | $28.1B | $34.6B | $43.0B | $47.4B | $50.4B | $54.9B | $56.3B | Noninterest incomeFee inc. |
| $2.0B | $2.8B | $3.4B | $3.6B | — | — | — | — | — | — | $5.9B | Credit-loss provisionProvision |
| $5.4B | $2.7B | $6.9B | $6.8B | $3.1B | $8.1B | $7.5B | $8.4B | $10.1B | $10.8B | $11.2B | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 33% | — | 15% | 20% | 27% | 25% | 22% | 20% | 21% | 21% | 21% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| 3.4% | 1.5% | 3.7% | 3.4% | 1.6% | 4.3% | 3.3% | 3.2% | 3.7% | 3.6% | 3.6% | Return on assetsROA |
| 26% | 15% | 31% | 29% | 14% | 36% | 30% | 30% | 33% | 32% | 33% | Return on equityROE |
| 20% | 8% | 25% | 23% | 7% | 30% | 24% | 24% | 27% | 26% | 26% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| 32% | 19% | 37% | 35% | 17% | 44% | 36% | 35% | 39% | 38% | 39% | Return on tangible equityROTCE |
| 72% | 72% | 72% | 72% | 75% | 78% | 78% | 74% | 73% | 74% | 74% | Efficiency ratioEffic. |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $159.0B | $181.0B | $189.0B | $198.0B | $191.0B | $189.0B | $228.4B | $261.1B | $271.5B | $300.1B | $308.9B | Total assetsAssets |
| $53.0B | $64.5B | $70.0B | $73.3B | $86.9B | $84.4B | $110.2B | $129.1B | $139.4B | $152.5B | $157.9B | DepositsDeposits |
| $2.9B | $3.0B | $3.1B | $3.3B | $3.9B | $3.8B | $3.8B | $3.9B | $4.2B | $4.9B | $4.9B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $20.5B | $18.3B | $22.3B | $23.1B | $23.0B | $22.2B | $24.7B | $28.1B | $30.3B | $33.5B | $34.0B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 935M | 886M | 859M | 830M | 806M | 790M | 752M | 736M | 713M | 696M | 686M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $5.75 | $3.10 | $8.06 | $8.14 | $3.89 | $10.20 | $9.99 | $11.38 | $14.21 | $15.56 | $16.36 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $1.29 | $1.41 | $1.54 | $1.71 | $1.83 | $1.83 | $2.08 | $2.42 | $2.80 | $3.26 | $3.42 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $21.95 | $20.61 | $25.95 | $27.80 | $28.52 | $28.07 | $32.86 | $38.12 | $42.45 | $48.09 | $49.56 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| $17.89 | $16.20 | $22.05 | $23.48 | $23.41 | $23.00 | $27.63 | $32.76 | $36.40 | $40.97 | $42.32 | Tangible book / shareTBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +11.8%/yr | +18.3%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +13.4%/yr | +36.2%/yr |
| EPS | +11.7%/yr | +32.0%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +10.9%/yr | +12.3%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +10.1%/yr | +13.7%/yr |
| Book value / share | +9.1%/yr | +11.0%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$72.2Blow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Return on equity 32%Very high (≥17%)Net income $10.8B ÷ equity $33.5BIndustry peers: median 5%
What this means
The bank's north star, what it earns on shareholders' capital. Cost of equity is roughly 10%, so a return durably above that builds value and below it destroys it. One year is noisy; the durability across a full credit cycle is what counts.
- Very high (≥18%)Net income ÷ (equity − goodwill $4.9B − intangibles $90M)Industry peers: median 13%
What this means
The cleaner return, stripping out the goodwill paid for past acquisitions. This is the number a buyer of the whole bank actually earns on the hard capital.
- Efficiency ratio 74%AverageNoninterest expense $53.2B ÷ (net interest income + fees)Industry peers: median 39%
What this means
The share of revenue eaten by running costs; lower is better, and below about 60% marks a genuinely efficient operation. A low ratio held for years is the operational side of a moat.
Is it sound?
- Capital (equity / assets) 11.2%Well capitalizedEquity $33.5B ÷ assets $300.1B
What this means
A plain-English leverage read: how much of the balance sheet is the owners' own money. This is a rough proxy; the regulatory figure is the CET1 ratio, which is risk-weighted and reported in the filing. The point is the same, how much loss the bank can absorb before depositors are at risk.
- Deposit funding 51%Mostly deposit-fundedDeposits $152.5B ÷ assets $300.1B
What this means
Low-cost, sticky deposits are a bank's real moat, the cheap raw material it lends out at a spread. A bank funded mostly by deposits earns more durably than one that rents its money in the wholesale market.
- Credit cost (provision / NII) 21%ElevatedProvision for credit losses $3.6B ÷ net interest income $17.4B
What this means
What the bank set aside this year against loans going bad, as a share of its lending income. This swings hard with the cycle, low in good years and spiking in recessions, so read it across the record, not in one year. Disciplined underwriting shows up as low, stable provisions through a downturn.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.
“Competitors may also use AI technologies more effectively than us or partner with companies that do so, which may increase the attractiveness and availability of their products and services and allow them to offer greater value propositions and realize greater operational efficiencies.…”
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Squeri | $25.5M | $49.9M | $13.1B |
| 2022 | Mr. Squeri | $48.0M | $42.9M | $19.2B |
| 2023 | Mr. Squeri | $35.7M | $62.3M | $17.0B |
| 2024 | Mr. Squeri | $37.2M | $122.5M | $12.1B |
| 2025 | Mr. Squeri | $46.2M | $95.4M | $16.7B |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- CEO pay ratio814:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
- Stock-based compensation$551M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 19% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Income taxes, Credit & receivables, Acquisitions as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management
The same industry, side by side on the bank lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | ROE | ROTCE | Efficiency | NII / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AXPAmerican Express Company | $72.2B | 30% | 35% | 73% | 4.3% |
| DFSDiscover Financial Services | $17.9B | 25% | 26% | 39% | 8.6% |
| BKKTBakkt Inc. | $2.3B | -146% | -252% | — | 0.5% |
| GDOTGreen DOT Corp | $2.0B | 5% | 13% | — | -0.1% |
| UPSTUpstart | $1.0B | -7% | -8% | — | 0.0% |
| SOFISoFi Technologies | $3.6B | -6% | -9% | 85% | 3.6% |
| SYFSynchrony Financial | $19.0B | 21% | 25% | 27% | 15.5% |
| OMFOneMain Holdings Inc. | $4.9B | 23% | 48% | 39% | 15.3% |
| Group median | — | 13% | 19% | 39% | 3.9% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookA bank is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what American Express Company’s record justifies.
$
The assumptions
Tangible book / share, delivered13%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). A bank earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for a bank.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / tangible book—
Justified by the return—
Normalized return on tangible equity35%
Price / book—
Earnings yield—
P/E (3-yr avg ’23–’25)—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Tangible book $29.0B on 682M shares, a 35% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the bank keeps earning that return; a credit cycle, a rate shock or a bad acquisition changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "American Express Company (AXP), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/AXP, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← AXON its page in the Manual AXS →
Industry order: ← AXG the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter BAM →