Pool Corporation (POOL) Income Statement

The growth signature is inconsistent rather than directional: 2025 opened at -4.4% and 2024 ran negative in three of four quarters, while 2026 has posted 6.2%, 2.2% and 3.7% sequentially, so the recent run-rate looks more like a comp-driven normalization than a re-acceleration. Because the swing between quarters is far larger than the swing between years, single-period comparisons appear unreliable for extrapolating installed-base demand, and investors should weight the trailing four-quarter aggregate rather than the latest print.

The margin band has been narrow but has softened at the edges: the 30.0-30.1% prints of 2024Q2, 2025Q2 and 2025Q4 have not been matched in 2026, which implies the pricing pass-through that supported margins during the chemical inflation cycle is largely exhausted. Against peers, POOL's 29.0% gross margin sits below SiteOne's 34.8% and Installed Building Products' 34.0% and only level with Builders FirstSource, so the distribution model cannot be underwritten on gross margin alone; the investment case depends on converting a thinner gross line through overhead efficiency, which the operating leverage data increasingly questions.

The same pattern appears in 2026Q2, where gross profit grew 1.0% but SG&A rose 4.0% and operating income contracted 1.8%, indicating overhead is now scaling ahead of the gross line rather than behind it. SG&A as a share of revenue has drifted from roughly 16.4% in 2024Q4 to about 17.6% in 2026Q3, which may reflect capacity added during the 2020-2022 demand surge being carried into a slower volume environment; if sales centers remain open while revenue grows at 2-4%, operating margin appears capped near the low double digits rather than the 15% seen in seasonal peaks.