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Fair Isaac Jumps 47% in a Year: How Should You Play the Stock?

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Fair Isaac Corporation’s (FICO - Free Report) shares jumped 47.5% in the trailing 12 months, outperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s appreciation of 27% and the Zacks Computers - IT Services industry’s growth of 8.7%.

FICO’s positive share price movement has been driven by the growing adoption of FICO Scores and the strong demand for its advanced analytics platform across various industries. This strong market presence has fueled significant revenue growth in the Scores segment, which increased 19% in fiscal 2024 from 2023.

Fair Isaac’s success in attracting and retaining a growing domestic and international clientele has broadened its revenue base and diversified its market reach. These factors, combined with its strong operational performance and financial stability, have driven a significant upward trend in its stock price.

FICO Rides on Platform Innovation & Key Partnerships

The FICO Platform provides advanced decision tools that help organizations make faster, smarter decisions, handle growing data needs and drive business growth.

FICO Score 10 and 10T are gaining significant traction in non-conforming mortgages and will soon be implemented for conforming mortgages, following the Federal Housing Finance Agency's timeline. This boosts the company's position in the mortgage market.

Fair Isaac introduced the FICO Score Mortgage Simulator to enhance decision-making for mortgage professionals, offering benefits to both lenders and consumers by providing access to more loan options and better interest rates.

Recently, FICO and Mortgage Capital Trading (MCT) partnered to integrate FICO Score 10 T into the MCT Marketplace. This collaboration improves lending decisions, reduces default risks and offers better loan terms. The integration is set to be completed by mid-2025, making the score available to all MCT users.

Fair Isaac has secured two important platform partnerships with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and iSON Xperiences. These partnerships will utilize the FICO platform to develop industry-specific solutions for real-time decision-making, driving strong growth for the platform business.

FICO has been acknowledged as a market leader in decision-making, with IDC recognizing it as a leader in the global Decision Intelligence platform market. This accolade highlights FICO's dedication to innovation, facilitating real-time, transparent decision-making at scale.

Fair Isaac Suffers From Strong Competition

In the Scores segment, FICO faces competition from both external suppliers and in-house analytics, including major consumer reporting agencies, VantageScore and international competitors like CRIF Ratings. Additional competition comes from direct-to-consumer services such as Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, Experian and TransUnion, many of which are also FICO's partners.

Fair Isaac faces strong competition across various software segments. In banking fraud, its competitors include Nice Actimize, Experian (EXPGY - Free Report) and International Business Machines (IBM - Free Report) .

In customer origination, FICO competes with Experian, Equifax and others. For customer management, its main rivals are Experian and SAS. In marketing services, FICO competes with Adobe (ADBE - Free Report) , Salesforce and others. In the decision-platform market, key competitors include Pegasystems, IBM and SAS.

FICO Offers Positive FY25 Guidance

For fiscal 2025, Fair Isaac anticipates $1.98 billion in revenues, implying a 15% year-over-year increase. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2025 revenues is pegged at $2.01 billion, suggesting a 16.75% increase from the prior-year quarter’s actual.

Non-GAAP earnings for fiscal 2025 are expected to be $28.58 per share. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is pegged at $29.62 per share, down 0.6% over the past 30 days. This indicates a 24.77% year-over-year increase.

Over the trailing four quarters, the company’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate once and missed in the remaining three, with an average surprise of 0.67%.

Find the latest EPS estimates and surprises on Zacks Earnings Calendar.

Zacks Rank

Fair Isaac currently carries Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), suggesting that it may be wise to wait for a more favorable entry point in the stock. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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