QS Research · Michael Burry's Scion Capital analyst template · 2006
Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BNY)
As of 2026-11-11 · 12/15 boxes filled from SEC filings and market data
Report price $151.14 (close 2026-11-10)
Conclusion: WATCH
Conviction low · base case -9% · downside -24% · upside +27%
BNY is a better business than its trust-bank peers — 16.0% ROE, 2.59x P/B, a 3.98% net buyback yield and a 2026-10-16 raised outlook for 12-13% revenue growth and nearly 500 bps of operating leverage — but the market already pays 16.2x TTM P/E, a premium to STT and NTRS at 13.5x. At the independent 14.8x peer-median anchor, the same $6.29B TTM net income to common is worth $138.08, -9% from $151.14, so there is no margin of safety in the base case. A 10% earnings decline with the multiple compressed to 13.8x gives -23.3%, while only a guidance-driven re-rating to 20.5x gets +26.8%; that is a watch, not a long. The capital return and ROE are real, but the stock has already run +1389.1% in a year and insiders have sold $30.4M with no open-market buys.
Key numbers
- Share price: $151.14
- Market cap: $101.70B
- Latest financial period: FY Dec 2025 to Sep 30, 2026
- Revenue (FY Dec 2025): $20.08B
- P/E (TTM): 16.2x
- Price / book: 2.59x
- Revenue growth (latest fiscal year): +7.8%
The 15 boxes
- ✓ 1. Long-form business notes
BNY is a custody-and-asset-servicing platform: at Dec. 31, 2025 it reported $59.3 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration and $2.2 trillion in AUM, organized into Securities Services, Market and Wealth Services and Investment and Wealth Management. The FY2020 10-K shows a simpler two-segment structure, Investment Services and Investment and Wealth Management, with $41.1 trillion in custody/admin assets. Revenue was $15.81B in FY2020 and $20.08B in FY2025; net income to common was $3.42B in FY2020, $5.31B in FY2025 and $6.29B on a TTM basis to Sep. 30, 2026. Capital return is visible in buybacks ($989.0M FY2020, $3.54B FY2025, $4.07B TTM) and a diluted share count down to 689.38M TTM from 892.51M FY2020.
- ✓ 2. Competitive advantage
BNY has scale and a growing earnings record rather than a proven pricing moat: revenue rose every year from $15.81B (FY2020) to $20.08B (FY2025) and net income to common from $3.42B to $5.31B, with TTM to Sep 2026 net income to common of $6.29B. The 10-K describes competition as intense across custody, corporate trust, clearing, collateral management, cash management, FX, derivatives and investment/wealth management, against banks, brokers, insurers, technology service providers and financial technology firms. No source in this set gives price/book, return on equity or a margin series, so the durability question cannot be settled on returns from these files.
- ✓ 3. 10-Q takeaways
Q3 2026 revenue was $5,676M, +12% YoY, with fee revenue $4,078M (+12%), net interest income $1,423M (+15%), provision $1M, noninterest expense $3,489M (+8%), pre-tax operating margin 38.5% and diluted EPS $2.34 (+24%). Net income to common was $1,608M (+20% YoY) and net income $1,687M (+16%); ROE 16.0% and ROTCE 29.0%. Capital return was $1.4B to common ($436M dividends, $937M repurchases), with CET1 10.9% and Tier 1 leverage 5.7%; AUC/A $63.4T (+10%) and average deposits $311B (+4%).
- ✓ 4. Corporate governance
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 5. Overview of the prior 3 years of 8-K filings
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 6. Other significant filings
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 7. Chronology of significant news and events
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 8. Comparables valuation interpretation
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 9. Insider trading interpretation
Filled; members read this box.
- ○ 10. Earnings-call notes
- ○ 11. Impression of the shareholder letter
- ○ 12. Scuttlebutt overview
- ✓ 13. Valuation and risk/reward summary
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 14. Current price suppression and potential catalysts
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 15. Conclusions
The call above.
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