Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) printed a Q2 FY2026 quarter that, on every line item a buy-side analyst watches, came in ahead of the consensus setup that the buy-side had carried into the print. Revenue of $1.835 billion grew 10.0% reported and 6.3% core (i.e. revenue growth stripped of acquisitions made in the past twelve months and stripped of foreign-exchange moves), with non-GAAP operating margin of 26.4% expanding 130 basis points year-over-year. The company raised the full-year FY2026 revenue guide by 30 basis points at the midpoint and lifted the non-GAAP EPS guide by $0.08, and the stock has since pushed back through $148 to a 52-week high set in late November 2025 of $157.20.
The 26.4% non-GAAP operating margin is the single most important number in this report. That figure is up from 25.1% in Q2 FY2025 and up from 24.4% in Q2 FY2024, and it is the third consecutive quarter of non-GAAP margin expansion. Operating leverage (i.e. the company generated $0.13 of incremental operating income on each incremental dollar of revenue, calculated as the 130 basis points of margin expansion applied to the $1.835 billion revenue base) at this revenue scale is the difference between Agilent being a compounder and Agilent being a cyclical-instrument vendor.
The thesis is straightforward: Agilent is a three-segment scientific-instruments platform with a CrossLab services arm that produces 32.0% segment operating margins, a Liquid Chromatography / Mass Spec franchise that is the share leader in pharma analytical workflows, and a contract development and manufacturing business (BIOVECTRA) that is the only meaningful overhang on gross margin in fiscal 2026. The falsifiable test is FY2026 non-GAAP operating margin: management is guiding to roughly 85 basis points of expansion at the midpoint of the 4.5%-6.0% core revenue range, and the print on November 24, 2026 (Q4 FY2026 release) will tell us whether the margin trajectory has staying power or whether the tariff and BIOVECTRA gross-margin drag reasserts itself.
The 52-week high reference price is $157.20 on November 25, 2025, the 52-week low is $110.24 on March 27, 2026, and the reference price for this report is the 8/14/2026 close of $148.53.