GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #71. McCormick beat its earnings estimate on October 1 and analysts cut their targets anyway. The filings describe a register with one tracked superinvestor holding 37,981 shares, a full market that added 40.8 million shares in the second quarter, an insider record in which no officer has ever bought, and a borrow that set its series record on August 31.
The Hype
McCormick is the ninth name on MarketBeat's trending-stocks list, in a week when the stock is digesting a split print. For the fiscal third quarter ended August 31, 2026, reported October 1, McCormick posted net sales of $2.02 billion, up 17.4% from a year earlier, with adjusted earnings of $0.86 per share against a $0.76 consensus — while reported net income fell to $97.6 million, or $0.36 per share, from $225.5 million, or $0.84, a year earlier on special charges, and organic sales growth was just 1.9%. The company reaffirmed its fiscal 2026 outlook, including adjusted earnings of $3.05 to $3.13 per share. Analysts responded by cutting at the edges: TD Cowen lowered its target from $55 to $48 with a hold rating on October 2, Stifel Nicolaus cut from $55 to $48 the same week, and Barclays and UBS also moved to $47 and $48. MarketBeat's consensus stands at a hold with an average target of $55.30. On our daily-close file the stock was flat in the second quarter — $50.44 at March 31, $50.42 at June 30 — then slid to $44.67 by October 2, down 34.4% for the year and just 1.2% above the $44.14 closing low of October 1. The question the filings answer is who was holding the stock while it fell, and who was borrowing it.
The Tape
For McCormick — the seventy-first Filing Tape audit — the tape shows a one-name cohort that trimmed, a full market adding shares into a flat quarter, an insider record with no officer purchase, an empty congressional register, a 5% register led by 13D filings, and a borrow at its series record.
| Lens | As of | What the filings show | Direction vs prior period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superinvestors (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 1 long holder; 37,981 shares; $1,915,002 | Shares -1.56% vs Q1; the one holder cut |
| All institutions (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 951 filers; 237,679,160 shares | Filers +6; shares +20.70% |
| Insiders (Form 4) | Oct 2, 2026 | 2 purchases in the entire parsed record; 22 sales; officer purchases 0 in every window | Last 90 days: 1 purchase, 1 sale |
| Congress | Oct 3, 2026 | No recorded transactions in either chamber | No entry in the combined, House or Senate aggregates |
| 13D/G | Aug 12, 2026 | 7 parsed filings (4 SC 13D-family, 3 SC 13G-family); register maximum 12.9% (Lawrence E. Kurzius) | Largest 13D chain stepped down to 9.9% in August |
| Short interest (FINRA) | Sep 15, 2026 | 15,951,184 shares; 5.94% of shares outstanding | Series record set Aug 31, 2026; +69.0% vs a year ago |
Lens 1 — the superinvestors: one holder, and it trimmed. We track 83 large, mostly long-only managers whose 13F portfolios we collect directly from SEC EDGAR. As of June 30, 2026, 1 held McCormick long: Thomas Russo's Gardner Russo & Quinn, with 37,981 shares worth $1,915,002, a 0.02% portfolio weight — 100.0% of the cohort's position, with no option rows. The label reads decreased: the position fell 1.6% in the quarter, from 38,581 shares at March 31 to 37,981 at June 30, a change of -600 shares (-1.56%) on the pipeline's holdings files, on the same CUSIP basis. No tracked manager exited, and no other tracked manager held the name at either quarter-end. The implied price, $50.42, sits exactly on the June 30 close. 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026; funds have up to 45 days to file, so this picture is complete — and always lagging.
Lens 2 — institutions: six more filers, 40.8 million more shares. At June 30, 2026, 951 institutions reported positions, up 6 from 945 at March 31 (+0.63%), 949 of them long. Reported shares rose 20.70%, from 196,914,586 to 237,679,160 shares — up 40,764,574 shares in a quarter the price ended almost exactly where it started. Reported value rose 26.17% to $11,980,265,329; the aggregate includes option rows, so we headline filer and share counts and label dollars "reported" (see methodology).
Lens 3 — insiders: two purchases in the record, and no officer has ever bought. The parsed Form 4 record holds 236 filings through October 2, 2026. Purchases total 2 transactions — 3,100 shares for $161,187.37, by two buyers — and officer purchases total zero in every window: the 90-day window, the last year and the full record alike. Sales total 22 transactions totalling 611,092 shares and $39,724,718.18, by eight sellers, five of them recorded as officer sales. The last year holds 131 filings with the same two purchases alongside 13 sales — 466,696 shares for $28,333,825.36, by four sellers, one of them an officer sale — and the last 90 days hold 16 filings with one purchase (1,100 shares for $55,227.37, on July 23) and one sale (205,538 shares for $10,829,201.16), neither of them an officer transaction. We assign no motives.
Lens 4 — Congress: no recorded transactions. None of the three congressional aggregates — the combined record (as of October 3, 2026), the House aggregate (October 3, 2026) or the Senate aggregate (October 1, 2026) — carries an entry for this ticker. This audit reports that absence as recorded, rather than as a zero it cannot verify beyond the aggregates.
Lens 5 — the 5% register: seven filings, and the 13Ds are the insiders' own. Our full parse holds exactly 7 SC 13D/G filings — one SC 13D, three SC 13D/A, two SC 13G and one SC 13G/A, with four amendments — 7 reporting-person rows across 5 names as filed, most recently filed August 12, 2026, matching the site aggregate on every headline field. The register's maximum is Lawrence E. Kurzius at 2,259,911 shares (12.9%) as of January 27, 2025, and his chain steps down across three SC 13D/A prints: 11.8% in January 2026, then 1,590,319 shares (9.9%) as of August 10, 2026. Brendan M. Foley prints 790,496 shares (5.1%) in an SC 13D as of February 6, 2026. The passive side prints The Vanguard Group at 0 shares (0.0%) as of March 13, 2026, while Vanguard Capital Management prints 19,099,707 shares (7.53%) and Vanguard Portfolio Management prints 13,895,266 shares (5.47%), both as of March 31, 2026; we report them as filed and do not merge them.
Lens 6 — short interest: 15,951,184 shares, just below a record set two weeks earlier. As of September 15, 2026 — the most recent of 137 FINRA settlements since January 15, 2021 — 15,951,184 shares were sold short, down 0.60% from the prior settlement. That prior settlement, 16,047,875 shares on August 31, 2026, is the series maximum — verified by a maximum query over the whole series — so the borrow set its record at the end of August and the latest reading sits 0.6% below it. The last five settlements read 15,319,432, 13,682,180, 13,254,659, 16,047,875 and 15,951,184: a dip in mid-August, then a step to the record. Against the year-ago 9,437,628 shares the latest is up 69.0%; against the June 30, 2026 settlement of 15,056,602 it is up 5.9%. Against 268,500,000 shares outstanding, it is 5.94% of the share count, at 5.73 days to cover.
The Gap
The narrative describes a spice maker that beat the estimate — $0.86 adjusted against $0.76 expected, sales up 17.4% — while its reported profit fell on special charges, its organic growth printed 1.9%, and analysts cut targets to $47–$48 against a $55.30 consensus and a $44.67 close on October 2. The filings describe a falling stock being accumulated by the broad register, trimmed by the only tracked superinvestor, and borrowed at a record. The full market held 237,679,160 reported shares at June 30, up 40,764,574 shares (+20.70%), as its filer count rose by six to 951. The tracked cohort moved the other way, in miniature: 38,581 shares at March 31 became 37,981 at June 30, down 600 shares, in the hands of a single holder. The 5% register's largest chain belongs not to an outside fund but to a 13D filer whose reported stake stepped down from 12.9% to 9.9% across twenty months. Insiders recorded two purchases in 236 filings — neither by an officer — against 22 sales. Congress records nothing at all. And the borrow stands at 15,951,184 shares — a series record of 16,047,875 having been set on August 31, 69.0% above a year ago and 5.94% of the shares outstanding. One plausible reading is that the second-quarter register absorbed the decline broadly while conviction at the tracked top stayed at one small, trimming holder and the borrow rebuilt to its highest level in the series. The record supports each clause separately; it does not say which register is early.
What Would Change the Picture
Nothing above is a recommendation. It is a record. These filings would change the description:
- 1. The 2026Q3 13Fs (filing window closing mid-November 2026). The cohort held 37,981 shares at June 30, all of it Russo's, after a 1.6% trim in a flat quarter. A second tracked holder appearing — or the one holder exiting — rewrites this lens either way.
- 2. A first officer purchase. The record holds two purchases across 236 filings through October 2, 2026, and zero officer purchases in any window, against 22 sales. One officer purchase breaks the pattern.
- 3. The next step in the largest 13D chain. Kurzius's reported stake has printed 12.9%, 11.8% and 9.9% in succession, most recently on August 12, 2026. A fourth print — in either direction — or a new SC 13D from any other name restarts this lens.
- 4. Whether the borrow holds near its record, or unwinds. Short interest stands at 15,951,184 shares, 0.6% below the August 31, 2026 record of 16,047,875 and 69.0% above a year ago. A reading below the August 14 print of 13,254,659 marks an unwind; a new record extends the build.
- 5. A first recorded congressional transaction, in either chamber. All three aggregates carry no entry for this ticker. One recorded purchase or sale gives this lens its first entry.
Until one of those prints, the record describes a stock held by one of our 83 tracked superinvestors — 37,981 shares, trimmed 1.6% in a flat quarter — whose officers have never recorded a purchase, whose largest 5% chain is stepping down, and whose borrow set its series record at 5.94% of shares outstanding.
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 through October 3, 2026 (Senate October 1); 13D/G through the August 12, 2026 filing; short interest through September 15, 2026; prices end October 2, 2026. Three limits are specific to this name: the congressional aggregates carry no row at all, so Lens 4 reports a recorded absence rather than a verified zero; the full-market by-CUSIP fixture prints the issuer name in a "COM NON VTG" form while the by-ticker file prints the plain issuer name, and this audit follows the CUSIP basis both files share; and the October 1 earnings print postdates every filing lens here except the last days of the Form 4 window, so no lens yet reflects trading on the print.
Related reading: Three of 83: One Holder Is 89.7% of the Superinvestors' Lowe's Stake. Its Insiders Have Bought Once. — Filing Tape #70; Fifteen of 83: One Holder Is 93.2% of the Superinvestors' Bank of America Stake. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share. — Filing Tape #69; Eight of 83: The Superinvestors Cut Citigroup 15.0% While the Price Rose 23.4%. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share. — Filing Tape #68. McCormick's own page: McCormick & Company Inc (MKC) on GetCoattail.
Methodology and data notes
- Superinvestor lens: 83 managers collected directly from SEC EDGAR Form 13F (managers_13f collection), positions as of June 30, 2026; McCormick identified by CUSIP 579780206. One distinct manager holds a long position totalling 37,981 shares; there are no option rows for this name in the collection. The direction count on the collection's labels, across the long rows, is one DECREASED (Thomas Russo - Gardner Russo & Quinn, -1.6%); the collection's exit list contains no McCormick row. Quarter-to-quarter cohort totals (38,581 long shares at March 31; 37,981 long shares at June 30, a change of -600 shares or -1.56%) are from the site pipeline's holdings files on the same CUSIP basis in both quarters, and the pipeline's second-quarter totals match the EDGAR collection exactly on both shares and value (differences of 0 shares and $0). Gardner Russo & Quinn's share of the cohort is 100.0% = 37,981 / 37,981.
- Full-market lens: SEC Form 13F Data Sets full-market aggregation. The primary table is the full13f collection's by-ticker file (holders = distinct filers reporting the CUSIP; 949 reported long positions out of 951 filers). McCormick reports under a single CUSIP, 579780206, and the backfill fixtures' by-CUSIP row matches the by-ticker row exactly on holders, shares, reported value, prior holders and prior value; the fixture prints the issuer name as "MCCORMICK & CO INC COM NON VTG" where the by-ticker file prints "MCCORMICK & CO INC", and the match is on the CUSIP basis both files share. The by-ticker file's entered/exited fields (855 and 849, a net of +6 that matches the change in holder count) are gross flows, so this audit headlines the net change. Reported-value caution: the aggregate value ($11,980,265,329 over 237,679,160 shares) implies $50.41 per share against a June 30, 2026 close of $50.42 in our price file, a gap of -0.0% at rounding — printed here as found. The aggregate sums the VALUE of every information-table row — including put and call option rows — while the share count covers long common-stock rows only, so we headline filer and share counts and label dollar values "reported."
- Insider lens: full-parse Form 4 aggregation (agg_by_ticker), record as of October 2, 2026 (236 filings). Sale and purchase counts are transaction-code counts (S and P) in non-derivative rows; grants and exercises are not counted as purchases, and one filing can contain many transaction rows. Purchase transactions total 2 across the parsed record (3,100 shares, $161,187.37, two buyers) and officer purchase transactions total 0 in the 90-day window, the last year and the full record alike (officerBuyTx 0 and officerBuyValUsd $0 in each); both purchases fall in the last-year window, so the one-year and full-record purchase figures describe the same transactions. Sale transactions total 22 across the record (611,092 shares, $39,724,718.18, eight sellers, five of them recorded as officer sales); the last year holds 13 (466,696 shares, $28,333,825.36, four sellers, one officer sale) alongside the two purchases, and the 90-day window holds one purchase (1,100 shares, $55,227.37) and one sale (205,538 shares, $10,829,201.16), neither an officer transaction. The site's insider aggregate (compiled as of October 14, 2026, 90-day window) matches the full parse's 90-day window exactly on counts and values, including the last purchase date of July 23, 2026. No field of the full-parse aggregate had to be excluded: its purchase totals imply $50.21 per share for the 90-day window and $52.00 for the one-year window and full record, and its sale-value totals imply $52.69, $60.71 and $65.01 per share for the 90-day, one-year and full-record windows, each inside the traded price range of its window on our price file ($44.14 to $56.48 for the 90-day window, $44.14 to $71.65 for the one-year window, and $44.14 to $104.28 across the price file), so all value totals are cited as figures in this article.
- 13D/G lens: full-parse SC 13D/G parsed filings (7 filings matching issuer CIK 63754 on CUSIP 579780206, 7 reporting-person rows across 5 names as filed: one SC 13D filing, three SC 13D/A amendments, two SC 13G filings and one SC 13G/A amendment), filings through August 12, 2026. The site aggregation's by-ticker row for McCormick (7 filings, 4 D-filings, 3 G-filings, 4 amendments, 5 reporters, latest date August 12, 2026, maximum 12.9% and 39,579,819 reported shares) matches the parsed filings on filings, form mix, amendments, latest date, maximum and reported-share total; its reporter count of 5 is the count of distinct reporter names, and the parsed filings hold 7 reporting-person rows because Kurzius reports in three separate filings. The parsed reporting-person rows sum to 39,579,819 shares, but that total sums reporting-person rows across different dates, so it is not used as a stake figure in the article. Lawrence E. Kurzius's rows (2,259,911 shares at 12.9% as of January 27, 2025, filed January 29, 2025, SC 13D/A — the register maximum; 1,944,120 shares at 11.8% as of January 13, 2026, filed January 15, 2026, SC 13D/A; 1,590,319 shares at 9.9% as of August 10, 2026, filed August 12, 2026, SC 13D/A), Brendan M. Foley's row (790,496 shares at 5.1% as of February 6, 2026, filed February 13, 2026, SC 13D), The Vanguard Group's row (0 shares at 0.0% as of March 13, 2026, filed March 27, 2026, SC 13G/A), Vanguard Portfolio Management's row (13,895,266 shares at 5.47% as of March 31, 2026, filed April 29, 2026, SC 13G) and Vanguard Capital Management's row (19,099,707 shares at 7.53% as of March 31, 2026, filed April 30, 2026, SC 13G) are reported as filed, under the names exactly as they appear. The Vanguard-named rows are separate reporting persons as filed and are not merged in this audit. The two SC 13D-family reporters are individuals whose filings are reported here as records, without any statement of their roles or motives beyond what the filings themselves state. The parsed coverage for this issuer holds these 7 filings; a 5% holder that has not filed in the covered window would not appear here.
- Congress lens: Senate PTR archive and House PTR archive as maintained on this site. The combined record (as of October 3, 2026), the House aggregate (as of October 3, 2026) and the Senate aggregate (as of October 1, 2026) each carry no row for this ticker, so this audit reports that no transaction is recorded in these collections; it does not reconstruct individual filers and does not present the absence as a verified market-wide zero beyond the aggregates.
- Short interest lens: FINRA Equity Short Interest files (biweekly settlement dates), collected directly from FINRA's public distribution. The published series covers 137 settlements from January 15, 2021 (5,002,152 shares) to September 15, 2026. The latest reading is 15,951,184 shares on September 15, 2026, down 0.60% from the prior settlement (16,047,875 on August 31, 2026). The series maximum is 16,047,875 shares on August 31, 2026 (verified by a maximum query over the series, not read off the latest row), so the latest reading sits 0.6% below a record set at the prior settlement. The year-ago settlement (September 15, 2025) printed 9,437,628 shares, so the latest reading sits 69.0% above a year ago. The series minimum is 3,781,835 shares on November 30, 2023. The June 30, 2026 settlement printed 15,056,602 shares, so the latest reading sits 5.9% above the 13F snapshot date's borrow. FINRA publishes each settlement about two weeks after the fact, so the October price action is not yet in this series. The share-count ratio (5.94%) uses the fundamentals file's shares-outstanding figure below.
- Fundamentals note: our fundamentals collection carries McCormick's revenue of $6,840,300,000, net income of $789,400,000 and assets of $13,200,400,000, each labelled fiscal 2025 in the file (the company's fiscal year ends November 30). The file is marked ok for this name, with no missing fields: shares outstanding of 268,500,000 (as of November 30, 2025 in the file, sourced in the file to a weighted-average share count) and a file-computed market value of $12,189,900,409.70. The file's price for the name is $45.40 as of October 6, 2026; our daily-close file ends October 2, 2026 at $44.67, and we keep the two files' figures separate rather than blending them.
- Prices: our own daily-close file for McCormick through October 2, 2026 ($44.67 close, -34.4% year to date on that file; 252-session closing high $71.65 on February 12, 2026, so the last close sits 37.7% below it; 252-session closing low $44.14 on October 1, 2026, so the last close sits 1.2% above it; closes of $50.44 at March 31, 2026 and $50.42 at June 30, 2026, a second-quarter change of -0.0%; change from June 30 to October 2 of -11.4%; change from the September 30, 2025 close of $66.91 of -33.2%). The series in our price file begins June 1, 2021 at $88.93 and holds 1,342 rows.
- Market context sources: MarketBeat trending-stocks list (McCormick ranked ninth; checked October 14, 2026); fiscal third-quarter 2026 results for the quarter ended August 31, 2026, reported October 1, 2026 (net sales of $2.02 billion, up 17.4% year over year; adjusted EPS of $0.86 against a $0.76 consensus; reported net income of $97.6 million, or $0.36 per share, against $225.5 million, or $0.84, a year earlier, reflecting special charges; organic sales growth of 1.9%; fiscal 2026 guidance reaffirmed, including adjusted EPS of $3.05 to $3.13), as carried in the company's October 1, 2026 release and cross-checked across MarketBeat and wire-derived reports, checked October 14, 2026; the MarketBeat consensus (hold, average target $55.30) and the post-print target actions it summarises (TD Cowen $55 to $48 with a hold on October 2, 2026; Stifel Nicolaus $55 to $48; Barclays to $47; UBS to $48), as carried by MarketBeat-derived reports in October 2026, checked October 14, 2026. Figures we could not confirm against two sources were left out; the external items above are reported speech from those outlets, not GetCoattail measurements.
- McCormick is in the GetCoattail stock-page universe: McCormick & Company Inc (MKC) stock page. Series data: mkc_lens_data.csv · mkc_short_interest_series.csv. Earlier audits: Lowe's · Bank of America.
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 14, 2026: first publication.