Fastenal (FAST) official guidance

For full year 2026, we continue to expect net capital spending of $310 million-$330 million.

We continue to expect 27,000-29,000 weighted device signings for the full year.

We believe our ongoing tax rate, absent any discrete tax items or broader changes to tax law, will be approximately 24.6%.

Based on current consensus revenue estimates for full year 2026, our expected CapEx range represents approximately 3.5% of sales, reflecting our continued focus on investing to grow the business.

Our estimate for 2026 is 63%-64%, modestly below our original target of 66%.

Patrick BaumannManaging Director at JPMorgan (00:53:37): Oh, thank you for putting me on here. I just wanted to touch on incremental margin expectations for this year now. I think last quarter, in response to a question, Dan suggested that high-20s on incremental margins would be possible this year. Has enough changed to alter your thinking there? I think you still lap the incentive comp headwinds in second quarter, which should be a nice tailwind for the business from a SG&A leverage perspective. I guess I'm just wondering if the price timing dynamics have had enough of an impact to change your thinking on incremental margin expectations for this year. Max TunnicliffCFO at Fastenal (00:54:14): No, Patrick, we don't believe that is the case. There's enough efficiencies, we would say structural, down in the SG&A space. Plus, as Dan said, there are actions that we're taking to mitigate the gross margin headwind that will be in an incremental space that we had expected in the past. Just the short answer to say we confirm our previous statement.

We added a healthy number of new national account contracts in the quarter, keeping us on track for a goal of roughly 250 new signings this year.

Regarding 2026 gross margin, please remember that our fastener expansion project will anniversary after Q1, and so the modest annual gross margin contraction that we've seen historically should be considered in thinking about our 2026 performance.

For 2025, we expect our investment in property and equipment, net of proceeds from sales, to be within a range of $235.0 to $255.0, an increase from $214.1 in 2024.

We believe our ongoing tax rate, absent any discrete tax items or broader changes to tax law, will be approximately 24.5%.

Our goal for weighted FASTBin and FASTVend device signings in 2025 remains between 25,000 to 26,000 MEUs.

We anticipate our gross profit percentage for 2025 will be relatively flat with 2024.

Yes. In the fourth quarter we are expecting that we'll see a drop in our gross margin, which is consistent with quarter four performance historically.

Additional pricing actions will be necessary in the fourth quarter of 2025, with the potential to increase the impact of pricing on like for like parts to be in a range of 3.5%-5.5%, depending on where the tariff litigation ultimately settles and the pace and execution of our actions.