I'll research FICO before writing the preview. Let me gather recent earnings transcripts, filings, news, and stock price data in parallel.The stock has been extraordinarily volatile — from ~$1650 in January to ~$920 in April, now ~$1336. Let me dig into the most recent earnings and the news driving this.Let me get the latest news and context on the FHFA/VantageScore situation heading into the print.I now have what I need. Here's the preview.

FICO (Fair Isaac Corp.) — Fiscal Q3 2026 Earnings Preview

Report date: Wednesday, July 29, 2026 (after close) | Quarter ended June 30, 2026

The one-sentence setup

FICO enters this print as a "great business, contested narrative" story: the core Scores engine is compounding at extraordinary rates on mortgage price hikes, but the stock has been cut roughly in half from its highs because investors fear the FHFA-driven arrival of VantageScore 4.0 (and the still-pending FICO Score 10T rollout) will erode FICO's mortgage-scoring monopoly. This quarter is less about the headline beat — which is likely — and more about what management says on competition, pricing, and the Direct License Program (DLP) timeline.

1. Why the stock chart looks like a rollercoaster

FICO's 2026 has been dominated by regulatory headline risk, not fundamentals:

Shares peaked near ~$2,218 in late 2025, then de-rated hard through Q1–Q2 as the FHFA/FHA opened the conforming mortgage market to VantageScore 4.0.
The stock bottomed around $922 on April 10, 2026, then rebounded to the $1,200–$1,340 range. It closed $1,336 on July 28 — up sharply (~+4.4%) the day before earnings, and up two straight sessions ($1,281 → $1,336) into the print, suggesting positioning is leaning constructive.
Net: roughly -19% YTD and ~-40% off the high, but ~+45% off the April trough.

The multiple compression tells the story. Bears point out the stock fell from ~40x forward earnings at its high to the low-20s x — a re-rating driven almost entirely by the VantageScore/AI-disruption narrative rather than by any actual revenue miss.

Implication: expectations for the numbers are healthy, but sentiment on the thesis is fragile. The reaction will hinge on the qualitative competitive update.

2. What the Street expects for Q3

Revenue consensus: ~$679M (≈ +27% YoY vs. the ~$536M year-ago quarter).
Non-GAAP EPS consensus: ~$12.02–$12.05.
FICO has beaten EPS in each of the last four quarters by consensus tallies, so a beat is close to the base case.

Full-year FY26 guidance (raised at Q2): | Metric | FY26 Guide | |---|---| | Revenue | $2.45B (+23% YoY) | | GAAP net income | $825M | | GAAP EPS | $35.60 | | Non-GAAP net income | $946M | | Non-GAAP EPS | $40.45 |

FICO has raised guidance every quarter this year (revenue went from $2.35B → $2.45B at Q2). The market will treat another raise as the baseline; a mere reiteration could be read as caution, especially given a seasonally strong purchase-mortgage quarter (calendar Apr–Jun).

3. The engine: how strong was mortgage again?

Last quarter (Q2 FY26) was a blowout in Scores, and it sets a high bar: - Scores revenue +60% YoY to $475M; B2B +72%; mortgage originations revenue +127% YoY. - Mortgage was 72% of B2B and 63% of total Scores revenue — extreme concentration. - The growth was mostly price (the 2026 wholesale royalty step-up) plus better-than-expected volume, aided by a dip in rates. Management explicitly said it guides mortgage volume conservatively and does not assume any share loss.

What to watch in Q3: 1. Mortgage volume trend into the spring/summer buying season — did the rate-driven uptick persist? Bureaus (TransUnion) have flagged mortgage as a recovery story. 2. Auto decelerated last quarter (+13%, tough comps, mix shift to lower-priced tiers); card/personal loan was +6%. Watch for any consumer softening — management noted some subprime softness offset by prime/super-prime. 3. Whether the big price-driven YoY growth rate is starting to lap (2026 vs. 2025 pricing base).

4. The whole ballgame: the VantageScore / FICO 10T competitive update

This is the section that moves the stock. Key facts and the live debate:

The regulatory backdrop (2026 timeline): - April 2026: FHFA revised Fannie/Freddie selling policies to allow current use of VantageScore 4.0 and future use of FICO 10T; FHA (HUD Sec. Turner) also permitted both for FHA-insured underwriting. - The GSEs began accepting VantageScore 4.0 mortgages via a limited rollout to ~21 approved lenders. - July 1, 2026 (the big one): Fannie and Freddie published historical loan-level data for FICO Score 10T (covering ~April 2013–Sept 2025, 12+ years) plus additional VantageScore 4.0 data (only back to ~April 2023). This is exactly the "10T data over the summer" management pointed to — it dropped mid-way through this fiscal quarter, so this call is the first management commentary since the data went public.

FICO's aggressive pricing counter-move: - FICO slashed the FICO 10T performance-model price from $4.95 + $33 funding fee to $0.99 + $65 funding fee — deliberately putting the upfront score at parity with VantageScore's $0.99 to encourage 10T adoption and blunt price-competition arguments. Management insists the two pricing models are roughly revenue-neutral to FICO.

Management's framing (bull case they'll repeat): - CEO Will Lansing argues FICO is competitive on price and superior on predictiveness; he pegged paid VantageScore share at roughly ~2% and said "nobody is paying for VantageScores" (bureaus bundle them free). - Securitization market "not ready" for VantageScore — fewer than ~20 VantageScore-backed mortgages securitized (<0.1%). - The 12-years-vs-2-years data disparity is FICO's core argument: VantageScore data doesn't span a full credit cycle, so investors should demand a premium for unknown default/prepayment risk.

What investors need answered on the call: 1. DLP go-live timing. Last quarter, 3 of the top 5 resellers were signed (in talks with the other 2), but FICO is still awaiting FHFA sign-off on resellers calculating the score. Any concrete date is a positive catalyst; continued "we're close" ambiguity is a mild negative. 2. Early read on the July 1 10T data — has third-party analysis begun validating 10T's predictiveness, and does management sound more/less confident? 3. "Gaming" / dual-pull risk. In a two-score world, lenders may pull both scores and submit the more favorable one. Management concedes this is technically share loss but not volume loss (it expands the market). Watch for any change in tone here. 4. Selling-guide details / LLPA grids — the mechanics of how GSEs prevent gaming remain unpublished; management has "heard nothing."

5. Software: the quieter, mixed-signal segment

Software revenue +7% to $217M last quarter — solid but overshadowed by Scores.
Platform ARR +49% to $349M (mid-30s% ex-migrations); non-platform ARR -8% and shrinking.
Platform net revenue retention 136% vs. non-platform 90%; blended 109%.
ACV bookings were soft at $28M in the quarter, though trailing-12-month bookings were +36%; management guided 2H bookings > 1H.

Watch: whether platform growth is still decelerating as easy migrations lap, non-platform runoff pace, and the 2H bookings ramp management promised. Note guidance already flags lower point-in-time (license) revenue through FY26 — so a soft on-prem quarter shouldn't surprise.

6. Capital return & balance sheet

FICO is leaning hard into buybacks at depressed prices: $605M repurchased in Q2 (largest-ever dollar quarter, avg ~$1,251) plus $170M more post-quarter at ~$1,040. A fresh $1.5B authorization is in place.
CEO called current levels an "opportunistic" time to buy — expect the Q3 buyback figure to be large, and it's a genuine signal of management's conviction that the sell-off is overdone.
Leverage: total debt ~$3.64B (5.5% avg rate) against modest cash (~$219–272M) and a stockholders' deficit (a function of years of aggressive buybacks, not distress). FCF is robust (~$867M trailing-4-quarter).

7. Bottom line — how to frame the reaction

Numbers: A beat-and-raise is the most likely outcome; the mortgage price tailwind is still in effect and the quarter is seasonally strong. That alone probably isn't enough to move the stock much given how often FICO beats.
The swing factors are qualitative:
✅ Bullish triggers: a firm DLP go-live date + FHFA reseller approval; encouraging third-party/GSE-data validation of 10T's predictiveness; another guidance raise; a very large buyback; continued zero measurable VantageScore paid share.
⚠️ Bearish triggers: signs that early-adopter lenders are actually running VantageScore in volume; commentary conceding dual-pull "share leakage"; DLP slipping further; any softening in mortgage volume; only reiterating (not raising) guidance.
Valuation context: at ~$1,336 and low-20s x forward EPS, a lot of competitive pessimism is already priced in versus the historical 40x. That asymmetry — cheap multiple, dominant franchise, but a real (if slow-moving) regulatory overhang — is the crux of the debate going in.

In short: the P&L should look great again, but this print is a referendum on whether the VantageScore threat is real or a ~2%-share sideshow. Focus your attention on the competition Q&A, the DLP timeline, and whether guidance goes up a fourth straight time.

Sources: FICO fiscal Q2 2026 earnings call transcript and press release; FHFA/Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Credit Score Models Initiative disclosures; National Mortgage News/American Banker (July 1, 2026 GSE 10T data release); Zacks/TradingView consensus estimates; and historical FICO share-price data. Consensus figures and analyst commentary are point-in-time and may shift before the report.

Want me to pull the exact Street EPS/revenue distribution, model out the mortgage price-vs-volume split, or track the after-hours reaction once results hit?