GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #152. McKesson closed at a record on October 20 and set a new 52-week high the next day, with earnings due November 4. The June filings show seven tracked holders whose continuing positions fell 27.8% in the quarter, a full market that added 10.9 million shares, and an insider record with no purchase in it at all.
The Hype
The attention is a price run into an earnings date. McKesson has recently been on Zacks.com's list of the most searched stocks: in the month to October 21, 2026, its shares returned +15.6%, against +0.7% for the Zacks S&P 500 composite, while its Medical – Dental Supplies industry gained 11.7%. Zacks trending note, October 21, 2026 On October 20 the stock closed at $1,030.12, up 1.95% on the day, and the next day it traded as high as $1,030.27 — a new 52-week high — after Mizuho raised its price target from $905 to $1,020, with UBS at $1,200 and Leerink at $1,070 also in the week's revisions. Zacks, October 20, 2026 Defense World, October 21, 2026 The company is slated to report earnings on November 4, 2026, with a consensus estimate of $10.69 a share. Its last reported quarter, on August 5, printed earnings of $9.93 a share against a $9.56 consensus, on revenue of $105.38 billion, up 7.7% year over year, and on October 1 it set fiscal 2027 guidance of $44.20 to $45.00 a share. MarketBeat, October 1, 2026 Our own price file, which ends October 2, tells the path in: the stock fell 12.7% in the second quarter, from $865.36 on March 31 to $755.60 on June 30, then closed at $902.28 on October 2, up 19.4% from June 30. The October prices above are figures published after our file ends. The filings answer who held the stock while it fell.
The Tape
For McKesson, the one hundred and fifty-second Filing Tape audit, the tape shows a seven-manager tracked register whose verified continuing holders cut more than a quarter of their shares in a falling quarter, a full market that added 10.9 million shares, an insider record with zero purchases across its whole span, a thin House-only congressional record, a 5% register with no activist filing, and a borrow 51.4% below its series maximum.
| Lens | As of | What the filings show | Direction vs prior period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superinvestors (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 7 holders of 147 tracked managers hold 920,532 shares; verified continuing holders fell 27.8% | Register total −19.0% (1,136,202 → 920,532 shares), including 1 new holder |
| All institutions (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 2,006 filers; 104,780,903 shares; reported value $77,726,461,932 | Filers −3; shares +11.57%; reported value −1.08% |
| Insiders (Form 4) | Oct 2, 2026 | Last 90 days: 0 purchases, 3 sales of $7,083,439.05; last year: 0 purchases, 18 sales | No purchase in the full record: 0 across 108 filings |
| Congress | Oct 3, 2026 | House aggregate: 1 purchase, 2 sales; Senate aggregate: no row | Member file attributes the 3 transactions to 3 different House members |
| 13D/G | Apr 30, 2026 | 3 parsed filings, all SC 13G family (0 SC 13D); register maximum 7.49% | Latest filing, Apr 30, 2026, prints Vanguard Capital Management at 7.49% as of Mar 31, 2026 |
| Short interest (FINRA) | Sep 15, 2026 | 2,903,573 shares; 3.39 days to cover; 2.49% of the share count | Down 29.5% from the Jun 30, 2026 settlement; 51.4% below the series maximum |
Lens 1 — the superinvestors: seven holders, and the continuing six cut 27.8%. The collection holds 147 managers (144 at June 30; 3 early filers at September 30, none holding this name). The June 30, 2026 common-stock register is 7 distinct managers holding 920,532 shares worth $695,554,041, long only, with no option rows. Winslow Capital Management holds 420,541 shares, 45.7% of the cohort, at a 1.09% weight, labelled INCREASED at +10.8%. Sands Capital Management holds 183,535 shares (19.9%), labelled DECREASED at −8.8%. The register's sharpest move is Stephen Mandel – Lone Pine Capital, labelled DECREASED at −85.3%: the label verifies by two pairing methods (methodology) — Lone Pine held 392,224 shares at March 31, the largest first-quarter position in this register, and held 57,851 at June 30. Every continuing label recomputes exactly under both methods: across the six continuing holders, shares fell from 1,136,202 to 820,852, a verified −27.8%. The seventh holder is new: Kensico Capital Management opened 99,680 shares, and the new label is itself verified by the register arithmetic — the first-quarter total of 1,136,202 shares is fully accounted for by the six continuing holders, with no remainder and no exits, so no first-quarter Kensico row can exist. Including the new position, the register fell 19.0%. The register implies $755.60, the June 30 close exactly. At 0.88% of reported institutional shares, this cohort is a sample, not the register. 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026, published up to 45 days later.
Lens 2 — institutions: three fewer filers, 10.9 million more shares. At June 30, 2026, 2,006 institutions reported positions on the name's single common-stock CUSIP, down 3 from 2,009 at March 31 (−0.15%); 1,999 are long. Reported shares rose 11.57% to 104,780,903 (+10,863,414 shares), while reported value fell 1.08% to $77,726,461,932, labelled "reported" because the aggregate includes option rows (methodology). Flow counts agree (1,551 entered, 1,554 exited, net −3), and the single-CUSIP aggregate matches the by-ticker total on every field. The aggregate implies $741.80 against the $755.60 close, a gap of −1.83%. The combination — shares up 11.57%, value down 1.08% — is the quarter's price fall passing through the aggregate: the close fell 12.7% over the same quarter.
Lens 3 — insiders: no purchase, in any window, in the whole record. The parsed Form 4 record holds 108 filings through October 2, 2026. The last 90 days hold no open-market purchase, against 3 sale-coded rows across 8,875 shares worth $7,083,439.05, by 3 sellers, two of them officer rows. The last year holds no purchase either, against 18 sale-coded rows across 35,470 shares worth $28,270,942.90, by 7 sellers. Across the full record there is still no purchase at all: 0 purchase rows, against 42 sale-coded rows across 151,108 shares worth $106,344,099.97, by 8 sellers, 40 of them officer rows. This is the strongest form of the pattern this series records: not a quiet year, but a blank column. The implied sale prices — $798.13 over 90 days, $797.04 over one year and $703.76 over the full record — each sit inside their close ranges in our price file (methodology).
Lens 4 — Congress: three small House transactions, none in the Senate. The combined and House aggregates (as of October 3, 2026) record 1 purchase and 2 sales, with the most recent purchase dated July 8, 2026, all attributed to the Democratic side; the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) carries no row for this name. The House member file attributes the three transactions to three different members, one each, every one in the $1,001–$15,000 band: Rick Larsen bought (July 8, 2026); Elizabeth Fletcher sold (April 8, 2026); Jonathan Jackson sold (June 15, 2026). The aggregates' member-count field reads 1 while the member file names three; this audit reports counts from the aggregates and attribution from the member file, and flags the difference (methodology).
Lens 5 — the 5% register: passive prints only, and another Vanguard handover. Our full parse holds 3 SC 13D/G filings, all of them in the SC 13G family (1 SC 13G and 2 SC 13G/A amendments); there is no SC 13D. Three reporter names appear, one row each. The register maximum is the latest filing: Vanguard Capital Management, 9,180,981 shares and 7.49%, as of March 31, 2026, filed April 30, 2026. BlackRock printed 9,207,960 shares and 7.3% as of March 31, 2025 — more shares than the maximum row, at a smaller percentage of a larger share count. The middle print is The Vanguard Group at 0 shares and 0.0% as of March 13, 2026: the Vanguard position reappears weeks later under the Vanguard Capital Management reporting name, reported here as printed, without attributing a reason (methodology).
Lens 6 — short interest: down by half from June, still above last year. The latest FINRA settlement, September 15, 2026, records 2,903,573 shares sold short at 3.39 days to cover, 2.49% of the share count in our fundamentals file (methodology). It is up 2.42% from the prior settlement, down 29.5% from the June 30, 2026 settlement (4,117,777 shares) and up 57.3% from the year-ago settlement (1,845,330 shares). The series maximum is old: 5,972,575 shares at February 15, 2022, and the latest reading sits 51.4% below it; the minimum, 1,375,635 shares at April 15, 2024, is an interior settlement, not a boundary. The descent from June was steady before it levelled: 4,117,777 (June 30), 3,878,060 (July 15), 3,613,111 (July 31), 2,419,484 (August 14), 2,835,101 (August 31), 2,903,573 (September 15).
The Gap
The narrative arriving this month is a distributor at a record price: a 52-week high, a round of target raises, guidance set in October and an earnings date on November 4 that the search traffic is already circling. The June tape — still the most recent complete holdings picture — was taken at the bottom of a 12.7% quarterly fall, and it shows the tracked cohort leaning out of that fall, not into it. The six continuing superinvestors cut 27.8% of their shares; the register's largest first-quarter holder cut 85.3%; and even after a new 99,680-share position opened, the cohort's total fell 19.0%. The full market moved the other way on shares — up 11.57% — on an essentially unchanged filer count, which is position-sizing inside existing accounts rather than new accounts arriving. Insiders sold in every window and have never bought at all: 108 filings, zero purchases. The congressional record is three small House transactions, and the borrow has been retreating since June. One plausible reading is that the October story is being carried by price momentum and analyst revisions after the fact, while the filing record from the quarter when the stock was cheapest shows the benchmarked managers reducing, the broad register adding shares quietly, and the people inside the company selling into a record they have never once bought into.
What Would Change the Picture
Nothing above is a recommendation. These filings would change it:
- 1. The 2026Q3 13F season (filing window closing mid-November 2026). The baseline is 7 June holders with 920,532 shares, continuing holders verified at −27.8%. Whether Winslow adds again after the earnings quarter, whether Lone Pine's remaining 57,851 shares go to zero, and whether any of the other 140 tracked managers opens a position would each change this lens.
- 2. A first insider open-market purchase — the first in the entire parsed record — or further sales. The full record to October 2 holds 0 purchases against 42 sale-coded rows. A single purchase filed after October 2 would break a pattern that currently has no exception; more sales would extend it.
- 3. A first Senate row, or House activity beyond the $1,001–$15,000 band. The Senate aggregate carries no row for this name, and the three House transactions are each in the smallest reporting band. Any Senate transaction, or a House transaction in a larger band, would change this lens.
- 4. A first SC 13D, or a 13G print above 7.49%. The register holds no activist filing at all; its maximum is Vanguard Capital Management's passive 7.49%. A 13D from any reporter, or a passive print above 7.49%, would change this lens.
- 5. Short interest above 4,117,777 shares, or below 2,419,484 shares. Above the June 30, 2026 settlement would reverse the summer's unwind; below the August 14, 2026 settlement would extend it to a new recent low.
Methodology and data notes
- As-of & limits: The lenses rest on different clocks, none live: 13F is a June 30, 2026 snapshot published up to 45 days later; Form 4 runs through October 2, 2026; Congress aggregates run through October 3, 2026 (Senate through October 1, 2026); 13D/G through April 30, 2026; short interest through September 15, 2026; the price file ends October 2, 2026. Nine limits are specific to this audit. First, the roster expanded before the recent audits — from 85 managers (83 filing) to 149 (147 filing) — so "of 147" counts are not comparable to earlier pieces' "of 83" figures. Second, this name's common stock carries a single CUSIP (58155Q103), and the full-market by-CUSIP row matches the by-ticker aggregate on every field — holders, long holders, shares, reported value, prior holders and prior reported value — so no CUSIP blending question arises. Third, the tracked register's change labels are verified, not taken on trust: all six continuing holders were verified by two pairing methods — accession-prefix matching and accession identity plus CUSIP-overlap (overlaps of 21 to 97 CUSIPs, each uniquely paired) — with every label recomputing exactly (largest: Lone Pine, −85.3% on 392,224 first-quarter shares). The registers then reconcile exactly: the first-quarter register holds 1,136,202 shares, equal to the verified continuing holders' first-quarter sum, because the sole new holder (Kensico, 99,680 shares) has no first-quarter row and no manager exited; the June 30 register holds 920,532 shares, equal to the June cohort with no remainder, because none of the three September 30 early filers holds this name. Kensico's own filing prefix is shared with other filers (six first-quarter accessions carry it), so its pairing is established by the register reconciliation rather than by prefix alone. Fourth, the full-market aggregate implies $741.80 against the June 30 close of $755.60 (−1.83%): the aggregate is a reported sum that includes option rows, so its implied price need not equal the close; this audit uses filer counts and share counts as this lens's primary measures and reports the value as reported only. Fifth, the insider implied sale prices ($798.13 over 90 days against a $784.23–$924.78 close range; $797.04 over one year against $725.17–$995.69; $703.76 over the full record against $184.89–$995.69) sit inside their ranges. The site's 90-day insider aggregate (dated October 21, 2026, window ending that day) prints 2 sales totalling $367,540.78 against the full parse's 3 sales totalling $7,083,439.05 for the 90 days ending October 2, 2026 — the windows end on different dates, and this audit uses the full parse. Sixth, the Congress aggregates record 1 purchase and 2 sales in the House and no Senate row; the House member file (politicians_members.json, as of October 3, 2026; window: 2026 House PTR filings, transactions dated on or after April 1, 2026) attributes those three transactions to three different members, while the aggregates' member-count field reads 1. Both are reported as collected; the audit does not resolve the field difference. Seventh, the 5% register's cross-date share total of 18,388,941 is an arithmetic sum of three single-reporter rows across different as-of dates, not a current combined stake; each filing in this register carries exactly one reporter row, so no joint-reporting duplication arises. The Vanguard sequence — The Vanguard Group at 0 shares as of March 13, 2026, then Vanguard Capital Management at 9,180,981 shares as of March 31, 2026 — is reported as printed, without attributing a reason. Parsed totals match the aggregates exactly. Eighth, the short-interest series holds one step of 2x or more — 3.391x at February 15, 2022, from 1,761,289 to the series-maximum 5,972,575 shares — and no step falls to one-half or less (the smallest step is 0.646x, at August 31, 2021); no row in the step pair carries a split flag, and our price file records no split for this name. Two rows carry a FINRA revision flag (June 15, 2021; November 15, 2023). The issuer-name field reads "McKesson Corporation" at all 137 settlements, on a single market class (NYSE) throughout. The share count behind the short-interest percentage is 116,590,363 shares outstanding in our fundamentals file (as of July 31, 2026), against which the latest borrow is 2.49%. Ninth, our price file records no split for this name and no single-day close move crosses the thresholds this audit normally treats as split patterns. The company's fundamentals as collected print fiscal 2026 revenue of $403,430,000,000, net income of $4,762,000,000 and assets of $82,323,000,000 (fiscal year ended March 31, 2026); those figures are reported as collected and are not used in any lens above. Every price statement from our own file is mechanical, a date and a close. The October figures in The Hype — the $1,030.12 close, the $1,030.27 intraday high and the analyst targets — are figures published after our price file ends, and are cited as such, not blended into file-based calculations.
- Market context sources: Zacks trending-stock note, October 21, 2026 (McKesson on Zacks.com's most-searched list; shares +15.6% over the past month against +0.7% for the Zacks S&P 500 composite; Medical – Dental Supplies industry +11.7%). Zacks, October 20, 2026 (close of $1,030.12, +1.95%; earnings scheduled November 4, 2026; consensus earnings estimate of $10.69 a share). Defense World, October 21, 2026 (intraday 52-week high of $1,030.27 after Mizuho raised its target from $905 to $1,020; UBS target $1,200; Leerink target $1,070; August 5 quarter: earnings of $9.93 a share against a $9.56 consensus, revenue of $105.38 billion, up 7.7% year over year). MarketBeat, October 1, 2026 (fiscal 2027 earnings guidance of $44.20–$45.00 a share). Figures we could not confirm were left out; the external items above are reported figures from those outlets, not GetCoattail measurements.
- McKesson is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: McKesson (MCK) stock page. Series data: mck_lens_data.csv · mck_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: KeyCorp · Hertz.
Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.
This article describes public filings as of the dates stated. It is not investment advice and makes no recommendation. Filings lag reality: 13F positions are as of June 30, 2026, and later trading is not yet public.
Revision history: v1.0 — October 22, 2026: first publication.