HSYHershey Company (The)
Is it safe?
Nothing alarming, nothing pristine: insiders quiet, comfortable debt (A), and typical volatility.
Insiders were net sellers (-$110.8M, 90 days to Oct 8, 2026), selling is often routine.
Investment-grade balance sheet. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Moderate price swings, typical volatility. Worst drawdown -45% · now 31% below its 52-week high.
Where this answer is blind. Altman sits structurally low for utilities and pipelines; Beneish runs high for fast growers, since sales growth alone lifts it; banks and REITs are excluded.
Can HSY take a bad year?
Hershey Company (The) carries $4.82B of net debt at 1.79× EBITDA: a load its earnings can carry.
Net debt · as at Q2 2026 · under two and a half years of EBITDA, comfortable
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 1.79×
Net debt / EBITDA · 1.82× a year ago · the load is coming down
- Interest cover
- 9.51×
Interest cover · operating profit covers the interest bill several times over
- Annualised volatility
- 28%
Annualised volatility · about as steady as the market itself
Details›
- Total debtQ2 2026
- $5.61B
- Cash and short-term investments
- $791M
- Net debt
- $4.82B
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $2.69B
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- $2.16B
- Debt / equity
- 1.23×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 2.08×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 28%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −45%
- Below its 52-week high
- 31%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.
Consumer Defensive
Ranks #24 of 131 by RyuScore