FICO Just Stopped Giving Guidance as It Rewrites Mortgage Pricing
FICO beat on earnings, then went quiet on the one number that drives them. With a $0.99 rival now sharing the same pricing grid, investors must value a mortgage business whose prices only FICO can see.
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Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO | FICO Price Prediction) beat estimates for its fiscal fourth quarter on November 4, 2026. It then gave investors no revenue or earnings forecast for fiscal 2027. The only forward number it offered was a 26% operating tax rate for the new fiscal year.
The stock closed at $701.03, down 3.22%, for a market value of $15.14 billion. In after-hours trading, the stock fell to $655.00, down 6.57%, leaving shares about 62.3% below their 52-week high of $1,858.91.
Most of FICO’s recent growth came from charging more for each mortgage score. FICO is now pulling that pricing out of public view just as a much cheaper rival gains ground.
A year ago, FICO guided fiscal 2026 revenue to $2.35 billion and non-GAAP EPS to $38.17, then beat both. With no guidance this time, you have to value a price that nobody outside FICO can see.
What FICO Committed To and What It Kept Private
The release says FICO is moving to tailored mortgage pricing, set customer by customer, and isn’t providing fiscal 2027 guidance at this time. CEO Will Lansing said agreements are still being finalized and guidance will likely come once more pricing is settled. CFO Steve Weber said FICO won’t provide guidance for only half the company.
Lenders that join the Preferred Program, priced at $10 wholesale when it was announced in October, get no 2027 wholesale price increase on the FICO Score. They also get a package that includes FICO Score 10T. In 2026, the price was $10 per score, or a $4.95 royalty plus a $33 fee per funded loan.
Lansing would not say whether the average score price is rising, falling, or staying flat. Trade press, citing unnamed sources, reported a January 31 deadline for clients to choose a pricing path.
Price Drove the Fourth-Quarter Beat
Revenue rose 27% to $657.0 million, above the $651.7 million estimate, and non-GAAP EPS of $11.10 beat the $10.69 estimate. GAAP EPS of $8.12 took a $65 million antitrust settlement accrual and a $27 million restructuring charge, partly offset by a $48 million gain on an investment sale.
Mortgage originations revenue rose 72% even though volumes fell by high single digits, and mortgage made up 58% of Scores revenue. Nearly all of that growth came from price, which is exactly the part of the business now under pressure.
Cheaper Competition Joins the Same Grid
On September 28, the housing finance regulator (the FHFA) said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would use a single pricing table. VantageScore was added to FICO’s. FICO fell 26.52% the next day to $617.87, and in October it said it would cut about 15% of its workforce.
TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) is keeping VantageScore at $0.99 through December 2028. Lansing argued that Vantage is priced too low for the risk it carries and said FICO has seen no significant volume loss so far.
Fiscal 2026 non-GAAP EPS rose 44% to $42.99, helped by $3.05 billion of buybacks. FICO stopped repurchasing shares in the fourth quarter. It used $284.3 million of free cash flow to pay down its term loan, which left leverage at 3.29 times net debt to EBITDA. Lansing expects the pause to last one or two quarters.
What Investors Need to Watch at FICO Now
FICO’s outlook is now much harder to judge. FICO’s earnings depend on mortgage score pricing. The company stopped revealing that pricing just as a $0.99 competitor was added to the same pricing table. A strong quarter doesn’t tell you much when future pricing is private and buybacks, the biggest driver of per-share gains, are on hold.
TransUnion offers a useful comparison. It closed at $82.13, co-founded VantageScore, and kept its 2026 adjusted EPS guidance of $4.81 to $4.88. Its mortgage revenue also includes FICO royalties, so it gets paid whichever score lenders choose.
The test comes after FICO’s January 1 pricing date. If FICO brings back fiscal 2027 guidance along with Preferred Program adoption figures, the picture should become much clearer. If the stock closes below $586.05 before then, the market likely expects FICO to lose share.
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Omor Ibne Ehsan is a writer at 24/7 Wall St. He is a self-taught investor with a focus on growth, cyclical, and dividend equities that have strong fundamentals, value, and long-term potential. He also has an interest in high-risk, high-reward investments such as penny stocks.
