Diageo (DGE) Stock Price, Fundamentals & Analysis

What DGE does

Diageo (DGE) is a global producer, marketer, and distributor of alcoholic beverages. It operates across North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa, and its portfolio includes beer, scotch, gin, vodka, rum, liqueur, raki, wine, cachaça, tequila, brandy, and Chinese white spirit, as well as ready-to-drink and non-alcoholic beverages. Among its best-known brands are Johnnie Walker, Don Julio, Guinness, Crown Royal, Smirnoff, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Buchanan's, Casamigos, Shui Jing Fang, and McDowell's. The company, formerly known as Guinness plc, changed its name to Diageo plc in February 1998 and was incorporated in 1886. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is part of the FTSE 100.

Key numbers explained

• 16.42 GBP is the latest listed price for DGE on the London Stock Exchange.
• The trailing P/E ratio of 28.3 shows how much investors pay per pound of the company's last twelve months' earnings; a higher number can reflect expectations of future growth or a premium for stability.
• The forward P/E ratio of 12.2 uses expected future earnings and is often compared with the trailing P/E to see whether the market's outlook differs from recent results.
• 2.71% is the dividend yield, which measures the annual dividend as a percentage of the current share price; it is a common way to compare income returns across stocks.
• 107% of earnings paid out as dividends means the company returns more than it earns in the trailing period, often funded from reserves or cash flow.
• 0.32 is the beta, a measure of how much the share price tends to move relative to the broader market; a beta below 1 suggests lower sensitivity to market swings.
• 8.8% is the profit margin, showing what portion of revenue becomes net profit; 27% is the operating margin, which reflects profitability from core operations before interest and taxes.
• 15% is the return on equity, indicating how effectively the company generates profit from shareholders' capital.

What to watch

• DGE operates in the Consumer Defensive sector, where demand tends to be relatively stable, but consumer spending shifts, currency movements, and regulatory changes around alcohol can still affect results.
• Revenue growth of -1.7% year over year and a price change of -7.1% over the last 52 weeks are recent trends that investors may track alongside brand performance and pricing actions.
• The company's debt-to-equity ratio of 171.3% is a measure of financial leverage; how this interacts with interest rates and cash flow is a factor for any capital-intensive business.
• The next earnings release is scheduled for 6 aug. 2026, and the ex-dividend date is 15 oct. 2026, both of which are key dates for income-focused investors.
• As a large-cap UK consumer stock, DGE is often compared with peers such as Coca-Cola HBC (CCH), Unilever (ULVR), Reckitt (RKT), British American Tobacco (BATS), Associated British Foods (ABF), Sainsbury's (SBRY), and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP).