Buying Graham Holdings Company stock (GHC) is basically like buying a ticket to a high-stakes, multi-industry buffet where the menu changes every few years. Most people still associate the name Graham with the Washington Post, but that’s ancient history. Today, the company is a massive, sprawling conglomerate that owns everything from educational giants to car dealerships and high-tech manufacturing firms.
It’s weird. It’s diversified. And honestly, it’s one of those stocks that makes you realize how much "boring" businesses can actually make you.
As of January 2026, Graham Holdings is trading around $1,149 per share. If you’re looking for a penny stock or a meme coin, keep moving. This is a heavyweight. With a market cap hovering around $5.02 billion, it’s a mid-cap player with a blue-chip soul. But what actually moves the needle for GHC? Let's get into the weeds of what’s happening right now with their financials, their weirdly successful healthcare pivot, and why the "Buffett-style" capital allocation is still the secret sauce.
The Kaplan Engine and the New Healthcare Pivot
For a long time, Kaplan was the tail that wagged the dog. It’s still huge, making up about 35% of total revenue. But the vibe is shifting. While Kaplan remains a powerhouse in international education and professional testing, the real excitement lately has been in the Healthcare segment.
In late 2025, CEO Timothy O’Shaughnessy noted that the healthcare division saw revenue jump 36%. That is massive for a company of this size. They’ve gone all-in on home health and hospice care, which, let’s be real, is where the money is as the population ages. While their media group—the TV stations—suffers from the usual "it’s not an election year" slump in ad revenue, the healthcare and manufacturing arms are picking up the slack.
Manufacturing isn't just "making stuff" here either. Through their subsidiary Hoover, they recently snagged Arconic Architectural Products. They are digging into specialized niches where they have pricing power.
Graham Holdings Company Stock: The Numbers You Actually Care About
Let's look at the cold, hard data from the most recent reports.
- P/E Ratio: Currently sitting around 6.9x to 18x depending on if you're looking at trailing or normalized earnings. Either way, it’s significantly cheaper than the broader S&P 500 average.
- Dividend: They pay out about $6.89 per share annually. It’s not a huge yield—roughly 0.6%—but they’ve raised it for seven years straight.
- Cash Flow: This is the metric the Grahams care about. In Q3 2025, adjusted operating cash flow was around $310 million.
People often get hung up on the stock price being over $1,000. Don't. The share count is tiny—only about 4.36 million shares outstanding. That’s why the price looks "expensive." In reality, the valuation is quite reasonable when you look at the $4.9 billion in annual revenue they’re pulling in.
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What Most People Get Wrong About GHC
There’s a common misconception that Graham Holdings is a dying media company. It's not.
In fact, they’ve been aggressively shedding "lifestyle" brands. They sold off Well+Good and Livestrong to Ziff Davis in 2025. They basically killed their "World of Good Brands" segment because it wasn't performing. This is a management team that doesn't have emotional attachments to businesses that don't make money.
They also recently priced a $500 million private offering of senior notes in late 2025. Why? To keep the war chest full. They are looking for the next acquisition. Whether that's another specialized manufacturer or more healthcare facilities, they are in "buy" mode while the market is volatile.
The Analyst Perspective
Wall Street is surprisingly quiet on GHC. Only a handful of analysts even cover it.
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Those who do, like the folks at Weiss Ratings, have been leaning toward a "Buy" recently. The stock recently crossed its 50-day moving average of $1,094, which technical traders usually see as a green light. But the real value here isn't a quick trade. It’s the fact that you’re betting on the Graham family and O’Shaughnessy to out-allocate everyone else.
The Risk Factors (The "Kinda" Scary Stuff)
Is it all sunshine? No.
First, there’s the automotive segment. Buying car dealerships seemed like a great idea a few years ago, but that market is getting hit by interest rates and shifting consumer habits. Revenue there has been "mixed," which is corporate-speak for "not great."
Second, the manufacturing side is exposed to trade policy. In their 2026 outlook, management admitted that tariffs could hit them for anywhere between $2 million and $5 million. Not a death blow, but it's a headwind.
Lastly, the lack of liquidity. Because there are so few shares, if a big institution decides to dump their stake, the price can swing wildly. You've got to be okay with seeing 2-3% moves on zero news just because one guy in Greenwich decided to rebalance his portfolio.
Actionable Insights for Investors
If you’re looking at Graham Holdings Company stock, you aren't buying a "sector." You’re buying a management team.
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- Monitor the Healthcare Margins: If the 36% growth starts to stall, the stock might lose its current momentum.
- Watch the Buybacks: The board authorized a buyback of 500,000 shares. When a company with only 4 million shares starts buying them back, it exerts huge upward pressure on the price.
- Check the P/E Relative to Peers: If GHC stays under a 10x P/E while companies like Grand Canyon Education (LOPE) or Bright Horizons (BFAM) trade at double that, there is a clear valuation gap.
The best way to play GHC is to treat it like a mini-Berkshire. You buy it, you ignore the weird price fluctuations in the short term, and you wait for them to acquire something else that generates cash. It's a "set it and forget it" play for people who like diversified exposure without the tech-heavy volatility of the NASDAQ.
Keep an eye on the upcoming February 24, 2026, earnings call. That’s when we’ll see if the manufacturing backlog—currently at record highs for some of their smaller subsidiaries—is actually converting into bottom-line profit. If the earnings per share (EPS) beats the $167 mark some models are predicting, we could see the stock test its 52-week high of $1,200 very quickly.