Credit Rating Giant Loses $1.6 Billion in Market Value in Just One Day

Equifax Inc. (EFX) shares plunged 5.11% on the New York Stock Exchange on the 20th, closing at $208.35—a one-day wipeout of roughly $1.2 billion in market capitalization (about 1.6 trillion Korean won).

While the S&P 500 and Dow Jones each declined by around 2%, Equifax’s steeper sell-off underscored waning investor confidence compared with its peers.

In recent sessions, major brokerages—including Wells Fargo, Oppenheimer and Morgan Stanley—have all trimmed their price targets on Equifax, arguing that the pace of margin improvement has fallen short of expectations.

At the same time, Equifax secured 27 new patents in the second half of 2025 and is pushing ahead with its AI- and cloud-based EFX.AI strategy. The company plans to invest approximately $3 billion (around 4 trillion won) in security and technology as it seeks to sustain its growth narrative.

Equifax is one of the U.S. “Big Three” consumer credit bureaus, delivering personal and corporate credit data and analytics to financial institutions, businesses and governments around the world.

After the massive 2017 data breach that exposed sensitive information on about 148 million people, Equifax resolved regulatory risks with settlements totaling up to $700 million (roughly 1 trillion won) and has since significantly ramped up its security spending.