CLX

Business profile & competitive position

The Clorox Company operates in the Consumer Defensive sector, specifically the Household & Personal Products industry. Its business is the manufacture and sale of everyday staples: cleaning and disinfecting products, trash bags, water-filtration products, charcoal, salad dressings, and personal-care items. While the Clorox bleach brand is the flagship, the portfolio also includes Glad, Brita, Kingsford, Hidden Valley, Burt's Bees, and the GOJO/Purell hand-hygiene business that has become a more prominent revenue contributor.

A net margin of 8.7% is moderate for a large consumer staples operator. It suggests the company converts sales into profit, but not at the generous rates often associated with premium-brand household peers that enjoy stronger pricing power. ROE registers at -1893.5%, an extreme negative figure that usually signals a balance-sheet artifact rather than an operational loss rate. It can occur when shareholder equity is very low or negative due to accumulated buybacks, goodwill impairments, or other accounting adjustments. Because of that, ROE is not a clean lens for judging Clorox's competitive moat here. The more telling defensive characteristic is the stock's beta of 0.53, which indicates materially below-market volatility and fits the staples profile of holding up in turbulent periods.

Financial posture

Clorox currently carries a market capitalization of $12.7 billion and trades at a P/E ratio of 21.8. That multiple sits in a middle range for the household-products segment, neither deep-value nor aggressively growth-priced. The 8.7% net margin underlines the same story: a profitable but not spectacularly high-margin business. The most unusual figure in the posture is the -1893.5% ROE, which reinforces the point that any equity-based valuation metric should be treated with caution until the underlying equity position is understood.

The stock's recent technical snapshot shows a price of $105.15, an RSI of 64.3, and a 50-day EMA of $97.90. The RSI near 64.3 means the stock has moved toward the upper end of its recent range, and the price sits clearly above the 50-day EMA. Combined with the 0.53 beta, the picture is of a low-volatility defensive name that has recently rallied.

Macro & geopolitical exposure

As a Household & Personal Products company, Clorox is exposed to the macro forces that shape the staples industry. Input costs are central: the business relies on resins, chemicals, pulp-based packaging, and agricultural commodities. When those input prices rise, margins compress unless the company can pass them through via pricing. Inflation and the resulting cost-of-living pressure also matter, because consumers may trade down to private-label alternatives when household budgets tighten.

Regulation is another persistent factor. Cleaning, disinfectant, and personal-care products face oversight from agencies such as the EPA and CPSC in the U.S., as well as consumer-product regulators abroad, around safety labeling, ingredient disclosure, and environmental claims. Supply-chain disruption, whether from geopolitical conflict, port congestion, or trade policy, can affect both ingredient sourcing and finished-goods distribution. Currency translation also moves results for any international revenue. Finally, demand for disinfectant and cleaning products can be lumpy, influenced by public-health concerns that prompt pantry-loading one year and normalization the next.

Recent developments

Clorox's most recent news cluster centers on its fiscal fourth-quarter results reported August 4, 2026. On that date, Zacks.com noted that "Clorox Q4 Earnings & Sales Top Estimates as GOJO Supports Sales," indicating that the hand-hygiene acquisition helped drive the top line. The same source reported that "CLX Q4 Earnings Call Flags Inflation as Share Recovery Builds," so while results exceeded expectations, management still highlighted cost pressures and a continuing effort to rebuild market share. Benzinga.com added on August 4 that analysts raised their forecasts following the better-than-expected quarter. Two days later, on August 6, 2026, Zacks.com published "NWL vs. CLX: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?," framing Clorox in a side-by-side valuation comparison with Newell Brands.

Earnings behavior & post-earnings drift

Clorox has delivered earnings beats in 6 of the last 8 reported quarters, a 75% beat rate, with an average earnings surprise of 9.4%. Beating that frequently might suggest the company has been conservative with guidance or that operational results have regularly exceeded the market's real expectation.

Yet the post-earnings price drift has been mildly negative. Across the same eight quarters, the average 5-day move after earnings was -0.98%, classified as a downward drift. The individual quarters illustrate how uneven that drift can be. For the most recent report on August 3, 2026, EPS came in at $1.66 versus a $1.64 estimate, a 1.2% surprise, and the stock rose 6.52% the next day while flatlining at 0% over the following five days. The prior quarter, April 30, 2026, showed a stronger 5.8% beat ($1.64 vs. $1.55) but was followed by a 9.67% drop the next day and a 4.49% decline over five days. On February 3, 2026, Clorox actually missed by 2.8% ($1.39 vs. $1.43) and still gained 2.43% the next day and 5.63% over the following five days. The November 3, 2025 quarter delivered a 3.9% beat ($0.85 vs. $0.818), produced a modest 1.17% next-day gain, but then drifted 4.08% lower over the next five sessions.

The next scheduled report is November 3, 2026 after the close, with the consensus EPS estimate at $1.07.

For a deeper dive into how institutional research houses currently view Clorox, readers should examine the full institutional verdict rather than relying on headline figures alone.