Investor Alert: The Dip in 3M's Stock Price Is a Great Buying Opportunity

2 hours ago 2

Lee Samaha, The Motley Fool

Mon, January 26, 2026 astatine 7:46 AM CST 4 min read

3M is generating awesome operational improvements nether CEO Bill Brown.
Last twelvemonth was fundamentally a self-help communicative for the institution arsenic its extremity markets weren't robust.
A operation of absorption improvements, valuation, and the anticipation of end-market betterment -- notably successful interest-rate-sensitive areas -- leaves the banal looking undervalued.
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The marketplace wasn't impressed by 3M's (NYSE: MMM) caller fourth-quarter net study and its 2026 guidance. But here's the thing. The disappointing quality came from its macro-economic outlook, alternatively than from its interior execution. On the contrary, CEO Bill Brown's operational restructuring is improving nett margins, productivity, and innovation, and the institution is primed to execute precise good arsenic its extremity markets improve.

Here's wherefore 3M banal is simply a large bargain now.

Investors were underwhelmed by management's guidance for conscionable 3% integrated income maturation successful 2026, and it's worthy noting that 2025 full-year integrated income maturation of conscionable 2.1% came successful astatine the debased extremity of the 2%-3% guidance absorption gave astatine the commencement of the year.

Whichever mode you look astatine it, 3M's extremity markets aren't helping much. Still, management's guidance for 2026 net per stock (EPS) of $8.50 to $8.70 implies net maturation of 5.5% to 7.9%. It's a complaint importantly higher than management's estimation of 1.5% maturation for the planetary concern accumulation scale successful 2026. Also enactment that 3M's estimation for 2025 was 2%, truthful successful its view, planetary concern maturation is slowing successful 2026, but its estimated integrated income maturation complaint is acceptable to amended to 3% successful 2026 from 2.1% successful 2025.

The comparative betterment comes down to Brown's operational restructuring, which has improved on-time in-full transportation rates and plus utilization, reduced losses owed to prime issues, and focused connected caller merchandise introductions (NPI). That past happening is peculiarly important with 169 NPIs successful 2024, increasing by 68% to 284 successful 2025, and forecast to turn by 23% successful 2026 to 350.

Woman holds up merchantability motion and shouts done megaphone.

There are 3 reasons to bargain 3M stock. The archetypal comes down to the NPIs. The main portion of 3M's net maturation successful 2026 is acceptable to travel from what absorption defines arsenic "price/volume" and "net productivity." NPIs are captious to driving net maturation arsenic they thin to bid much pricing powerfulness and tin beryllium differentiated products that interruption retired of the commodity pricing mold. That's thing 3M struggled with nether then-CEO Mike Roman.