Abbott Laboratories (ABT) Stock Price & How to Invest

Abbott Laboratories is a global healthcare company headquartered in North Chicago, Illinois, that discovers, develops, manufactures, and sells health care products in more than 160 countries through four segments: Medical Devices, Diagnostic Products, Nutritional Products, and Established Pharmaceutical Products. Medical Devices, the largest segment at roughly $21.4 billion in 2025 revenue, includes the FreeStyle Libre family of continuous glucose monitors, structural heart products (Navitor, TriClip), electrophysiology systems (AVEIR leadless pacemaker, Volt pulsed field ablation, TactiFlex Duo), vascular devices, and heart-failure technologies (CardioMEMS). Diagnostics contributed roughly $8.9 billion in 2025 before the Exact Sciences deal, Nutrition roughly $8.5 billion (anchored by Similac infant formula and Ensure adult nutrition), and Established Pharmaceuticals roughly $5.5 billion in branded generics sold primarily in emerging markets.

Founded in 1888 by Dr. Wallace Calvin Abbott in Chicago, the company has spent more than a century reshaping itself through major transactions, including the 2017 acquisitions of Alere and St. Jude Medical that built its current devices leadership, the 2020 COVID-19 rapid-test windfall that swelled its diagnostics footprint, and the approximately $21 billion acquisition of Exact Sciences completed on March 23, 2026 to expand into cancer diagnostics. Cancer Diagnostics sales reached $919 million in Q2 2026, and in September 2026 Abbott launched the SimpleScreen CRC blood test alongside Cologuard Plus. Robert Ford, a company veteran, has served as chairman and chief executive officer since 2020 and has presided over the post-COVID pivot back to organic device and diagnostics growth. Abbott employs roughly 122,000 colleagues worldwide after the Exact Sciences deal and is a member of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, having raised its annual dividend for more than 53 consecutive years; in September 2026 it declared its 411th consecutive quarterly dividend. The shares closed at $104.44 on October 16, 2026, a market cap of about $182 billion.

The most acute near-term risk is infant formula litigation: juries have delivered verdicts including a $53 million compensatory award in late March 2026 and a separately upheld $495 million verdict, with hundreds of additional NEC-related cases pending, and a securities class action filed in 2026 adds a parallel legal exposure track targeting alleged investor misstatements. Abbott has started to narrow this exposure, reaching agreements in August 2026 to resolve a portion of the preterm-formula litigation and an agreement with the Department of Justice in September 2026 on claims tied to the 2022 recall, but the remaining liability is still open-ended. Integration of the approximately $21 billion Exact Sciences acquisition introduces execution risk, amortization and elevated SGA costs: GAAP EPS was only $0.53 in Q2 2026 against adjusted EPS of $1.31, and the trailing GAAP P/E is about 34x even though the forward multiple is about 17x. Organic growth also slowed to 4.8% in Q2 2026 on a comparable basis, below the full-year 6.5-7.5% guide. Foreign exchange swings move reported international revenue by several percentage points, and any meaningful dollar strengthening would pressure reported results disproportionately given Abbott's broad non-US exposure. Competitive disruption in continuous glucose monitoring from DexCom and emerging players, along with pricing pressure from government payers and the Inflation Reduction Act, represent structural long-term headwinds.

26 analysts publish price targets on ABT, averaging $120.72 against a $104.89 price as of October 2026, or +15.1%. The published targets run from $103.00 to $135.00, a narrow spread, and the ratings split 24 buy, 4 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there have been 6 raises and 1 cut among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full ABT forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on Abbott Laboratories. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. FreeStyle Libre: A Platform, Not Just a Product. FreeStyle Libre exceeded $7.5 billion in 2025 annual sales and grew roughly 19-20% organically in H1 2025, making it the dominant revenue engine within Medical Devices. The most optimistic published target, $135.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. The most acute near-term risk is infant formula litigation: juries have delivered verdicts including a $53 million compensatory award in late March 2026 and a separately upheld $495 million verdict, with hundreds of additional NEC-related cases pending, and a securities class action filed in 2026 adds a parallel legal exposure track targeting alleged investor misstatements. The most pessimistic target, $103.00, is roughly what ABT is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on ABT, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

No. Abbott Laboratories (ABT) has not split its stock in the last 10 years. That is a statement about the window we check rather than about the company’s entire history, so an older split is possible. It also matters less than it once did: fractional shares mean a high price per share no longer keeps smaller investors out, which removed most of the practical reason to split.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Abbott Laboratories's investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$46.6 billion (Q2 2026 sales $12.59 billion, +13% reported, +4.8% comparable)
• Revenue (FY 2025): ~$44.3 billion (+5.7% YoY)
• Net Income (TTM): ~$5.4 billion (GAAP EPS ~$3.10)
• Net Profit Margin (TTM): ~11.7%
• Adjusted EPS Guidance (FY 2026): $5.45 to $5.60 (raised in July from $5.38 to $5.58)
• P/E Ratio (trailing GAAP / forward): ~34x / ~17x
• Dividend (Annualized): $2.52 per share (~2.4% yield)
• Market Cap: ~$182 billion
• Cancer Diagnostics sales (Q2 2026): $919 million, +13.3% comparable

ABT's trailing GAAP P/E of about 34x is inflated by acquisition amortization and one-time costs from the Exact Sciences deal; on forward earnings the stock trades near 17x, well below its own 5-year and 10-year historical averages, after a roughly 16% decline in 2026. Revenue growth has remained positive, and the raised adjusted EPS guidance of $5.45-$5.60 implies a forward adjusted P/E of about 19x at the October 16 price of $104.44, below the average analyst target of about $121. Q3 2026 results are due October 21, with company guidance of $1.38-$1.46 adjusted EPS and consensus near $1.41 on about $13.0 billion of sales.

If you want ABT exposure as part of a larger bundle rather than directly, these ETFs hold it meaningfully. Weights are approximate and refresh quarterly.

These are the investment theses ABT naturally fits into. Each links to a full theme guide listing every other stock that belongs and the ETFs commonly used as a passive proxy.

Other names that sit close to ABT: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get ABT exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it (XLV, VHT), which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so ABT sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where ABT fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

Abbott Laboratories today is best understood as a medical-devices-led compounder that generated ~$46.6 billion in trailing-twelve-month revenue (as of Q2 2026) and has grown sales roughly 6-7% per year on a comparable basis, with the FreeStyle Libre franchise and a broadening cardiovascular lineup as the core growth drivers. If you believe that structural tailwinds in diabetes management, cardiovascular intervention, and cancer diagnostics (accelerated by the approximately $21 billion acquisition of Exact Sciences, which added $919 million of sales in Q2 2026 alone) will sustain mid-to-high single-digit organic growth, the question becomes sizing and overlap with other large-cap healthcare holdings, not timing; the risk is that infant formula NEC litigation, which has already produced verdicts in the hundreds of millions of dollars and is only partly settled, alongside integration execution risk from Exact Sciences, could weigh on capital allocation, sentiment, and management bandwidth for years. At about 17x forward earnings in October 2026, the stock is priced well below its own history, and Q3 results arrive on October 21.

Whether ABT is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is ABT a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the ABT stock forecast.

For income investors, whether ABT pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does ABT pay a dividend? And to weigh ABT against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: ABT vs JNJ and ABT vs ABBV.