Sifting through countless of stocks in the Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in Columbia Sportswear Company or Gildan Activewear Inc. because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.

Read on to learn how Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc. compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc.

Columbia Sportswear Company, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the design, development, marketing, and distribution of outdoor, active, and lifestyle products in the United States, Latin America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Canada. It provides apparel, accessories, and equipment for hiking, trail running, snow, fishing, hunting, and outdoor activities. The company also offers footwear products that include hiking boots; trail running shoes; rugged cold weather boots; sandals and shoes for use in water activities; and footwear for lifestyle wear. It serves its products through wholesale distribution channel comprising small independently operated specialty outdoor and sporting goods stores, sporting goods chains, department store chains, internet retailers, and international distributors, as well as through direct-to-consumer distribution channel, including a network of branded, outlet, temporary clearance and employee retail stores, brand-specific e-commerce sites, and shop-in-shop retail locations. It sells its products under the Columbia, Mountain Hardwear, PRANA, and SOREL brands. Columbia Sportswear Company was founded in 1938 and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon.

Gildan Activewear Inc. manufactures and sells various apparel products. The company provides various activewear products, including T-shirts, fleece tops and bottoms, sports shirts, polos, and tank tops under Gildan, Hanes, Gildan Performance, Gildan Hammer, Gildan Softstyle, Gildan Heavy Cotton, Gildan Ultra Cotton, Gildan DryBlend, Gildan HeavyBlend, Comfort Colors, American Apparel, ALLPRO, ComfortWash, BEEFY, Bonds and Champion brands. It also offers hosiery products comprising athletic, dress, casual and workwear socks, liner socks, and socks for therapeutic purposes under Gildan, GoldToe, Signature Gold by GoldToe, GoldToe Edition, Peds, MediPeds, Hanes, and Powersox brands. In addition, the company provides men's and boys' underwear products and ladies' panties under Gildan, Gildan Platinum, Gildan Softstyle, Gildan Performance, BareSoft, Gildan Performance, EZBreeze, Bonds, Berlei, Bras N Things, Polo Ralph Lauren brands. Further, it provides women's lingerie, bras and shapewear under Bali, Playtex, WonderBra, Maidenform, Bonds, Bras N Things, Berle brands. It sells its products to wholesale distributors, screenprinters, and embellishers in North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, as well as to retailers in North America, including mass merchants, department stores, national chains, specialty retailers, craft stores, and online retailers; and manufactures products for lifestyle brand companies. The company was formerly known as Textiles Gildan Inc. and changed its name to Gildan Activewear Inc. in March 1995. Gildan Activewear Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

Latest Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods and Columbia Sportswear Company, Gildan Activewear Inc. Stock News

As of September 1, 2026, Columbia Sportswear Company had a $2.9 billion market capitalization, compared to the Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods median of $2.8 million. Columbia Sportswear Company’s stock is NA in 2026, NA in the previous five trading days and up 1.96% in the past year.

Currently, Columbia Sportswear Company’s price-earnings ratio is 14.6. Columbia Sportswear Company’s trailing 12-month revenue is $3.4 billion with a 6.0% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 1.5%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $4.673 per share for the current fiscal year. Columbia Sportswear Company currently has a 2.1% dividend yield.

Currently, Gildan Activewear Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 41.5. Gildan Activewear Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $4.7 billion with a 1.3% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 72.3%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $4.673 per share for the current fiscal year. Gildan Activewear Inc. currently has a 2.0% dividend yield.

How We Compare Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc. Stock Grades

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc.’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

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Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc. Stock Value Grades

Company	Ticker	Value
Columbia Sportswear Company	COLM	A
Gildan Activewear Inc.	GIL	D

Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection.

Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade derives from a stock’s value score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are a good value and so on.

Columbia Sportswear Company has a Value Score of 84, which is Deep Value. Gildan Activewear Inc. has a Value Score of 28, which is Expensive.

The Value Stock Winner: Columbia Sportswear Company

As you can clearly see from the Value Grade breakdown above, Columbia Sportswear Company is considered to have better value than Gildan Activewear Inc.. For investors who focus solely on a company’s valuation, Columbia Sportswear Company could be a good stock to add to their portfolio. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc. Growth Grades

Company	Ticker	Growth
Columbia Sportswear Company	COLM	C
Gildan Activewear Inc.	GIL	A

The foundation of growth investing is seeking out stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth that is expected to continue into the future.

In order to compute the growth score and assign it a letter grade, the percentile ranks for each of three components‐consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations‐must be determined. These three rank figures are added together, and the sum is ranked against the entire stock universe to arrive at a company’s Growth Score to create an equal distribution of grades.

The companies in the bottom 20% of the stock universe receive Growth Grades of F, considered to be very weak, while those in the top 20% receive A grades, which are considered very strong.

Columbia Sportswear Company has a Growth Score of 60, which is Average. Gildan Activewear Inc. has a Growth Score of 82, which is Very Strong.

The Growth Grade Winner: Gildan Activewear Inc.

As you can clearly see from the Growth Grade breakdown above, Gildan Activewear Inc. has a more attractive growth grade than Columbia Sportswear Company. For investors who focus solely on how a company is growing relative to other companies in the same industry, Gildan Activewear Inc. could be a good stock to add to their portfolio. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc.’s Momentum Grades

Company	Ticker	Momentum
Columbia Sportswear Company	COLM	D
Gildan Activewear Inc.	GIL	D

Momentum grades help to uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming. Momentum is based on the price change of a stock over a specified period relative to all other stocks.

Typically, AAII looks at the weighted relative strength over the trailing four quarters. The weighted four-quarter relative strength rank is the relative price change for each of the past four quarters. The most recent quarterly price change is given a weight of 40% and each of the three previous quarters are given a weighting of 20%.

Columbia Sportswear Company has a Momentum Score of 32, which is Weak. Gildan Activewear Inc. has a Momentum Score of 31, which is Weak.

The Momentum Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither Columbia Sportswear Company or Gildan Activewear Inc. has a strong enough Momentum Grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if Columbia Sportswear Company or Gildan Activewear Inc. is the better investment when it comes to momentum.

Other Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc. Grades

In addition to Growth, Momentum and Value, A+ Investor also provides grades for Estimate Revisions and Quality.

Earnings estimate revisions scores take into account the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, surprises beget further surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).

AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the ranking of key metrics. Specifically, the quality grade is the percentile rank of the composite of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and F-Score.

These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc. pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, Columbia Sportswear Company or Gildan Activewear Inc. Stock?

Overall, Columbia Sportswear Company stock has a Value Score of 84, Growth Score of 60 and Momentum Score of 32.

Gildan Activewear Inc. stock has a Value Score of 28, Growth Score of 82 and Momentum Score of 31.

Comparing Columbia Sportswear Company and Gildan Activewear Inc.’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.

Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.

A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.