Waters Corporation

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

Waters Corporation trades at $396, in a confirmed uptrend and 9 weeks into that stage. That is +11.6% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 94% of a 52-week range of $287 to $403. On relative strength it has been ahead of the S&P 500 on a trailing-13-week view for 11 straight weeks.

Today the stock is in a confirmed uptrend — week 9 of stage 2. At $396 it trades +11.6% versus its 200-day average and sits at 94% of its 52-week range ($287–$403).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 10.1 years the stock moved +170% while the S&P 500 moved +263% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock has been ahead for 11 straight weeks — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

Valuation P/E is the price of $1 of annual profit: how many dollars the market pays for each dollar the company earns in a year.

Waters Corporation trades at 178.8× P/E, against too little history to rank. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/E of 178.8× is against too little history to rank. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

🚨 Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year annual EPS moved +0.5% against a +36.4% price move — the price outran earnings, pushing the multiple UP its own range.

The price move, decomposed: over 3y, of the +11.0%/yr price move, ~−11.5%/yr came from earnings growth and ~+22.5 pp from the multiple (expanding). The split is the honest approximate (price return minus earnings growth); it makes the rally itself visible instead of hiding it behind the percentile.

Put together: the multiple is unremarkable against its own past, so the story rests on the earnings line underneath it, not the multiple.

Stage: Mixed Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

Waters Corporation reads as mixed on its fundamental arc. Mixed — revenue growth is rising at +26.5% while profit growth is falling at −29.2% — the curves disagree, so the per-curve reads carry the story. The read is built from 12 quarters across 4 curves, on full evidence.

Why it matters: when the curves disagree, the per-curve reads above matter more than any single verdict.

4-Factor Sector Score

38.3/100 — rank 26 of 30 in Diagnostics & Research · 58% evidence confidence

Waters Corporation scores 38.3 out of 100 against the 30 companies it is compared with in Diagnostics & Research, ranking 26. Fill the missing evidence before acting; the ranking is deliberately pulled toward neutral.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 12 + 9.6 + 9.8 + 6.9 = 38.3. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if profit growth turns negative or margin improvement reverses while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Revenue Revenue is the top line: everything the company billed its customers in the period.

Waters Corporation reported $1.3 B of revenue in the Apr 26 quarter, +92.4% year on year. That is the 7th straight quarter of year-on-year growth. Over 4 years it has compounded at 3.2% a year. The last full year, FY25, came in at $3.2 B. The last four reported quarters add to $3.8 B.

FY25 revenue came in at $3.2 B (+7.1% on the year), capping 4 years at 3.2% compound. The latest quarter (Apr 26) printed $1.3 B, +92.4% year on year — the 7th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged +29.0% growth against the decade's 3.2% — the current year is running faster than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew +26.5% over the last 4 quarters against +13.8%/yr over the last 8 — accelerating; TTM profit −29.2% vs −12.4%/yr — rolling over.

Operating margin Operating margin is what is left of every $100 of sales after running the business, before interest and tax. It is the cleanest read on pricing power and cost control.

Waters Corporation's operating margin is −3.9% in the Apr 26 quarter, −26.6 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 25.2% to 29.4%. The current quarter is running below every full year in that window.

The latest quarter's operating margin is −3.9%, −26.6 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged 25.2%–29.4%.

🚨 Why the margin moved: operating margin went −26.6 pp year on year while gross margin went −12.6 pp — the loss came mostly below the gross line: operating leverage, with costs spread over a bigger revenue base.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

Waters Corporation posted a net loss of $0.1 B in the Apr 26 quarter. Full-year FY25 profit was $0.6 B. The 4-year compound rate is −1.9%. That loss is 5.5% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned $0.1 B. 1 of the last 12 reported quarters were loss-making.

Apr 26 profit was $−0.1 B, −158.3% year on year. On the full year, FY25 printed $0.6 B (+0.0%), and the 4-year compound rate is −1.9%.

🚨 Why profit moved: revenue contributed +92.4% and the margin −26.6 pp — the quarter was revenue-led despite a thinner margin.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit −39.4% vs revenue +29.0%. Profit is growing slower than sales — costs are eating the growth before it reaches the bottom line.

Cash flow — the router The P&L says what was earned; the cash-flow statement says what actually arrived. Operating cash flow (CFO) against profit is the cleanest lie detector in the accounts.

Over the last 3 fiscal years 105% of Waters Corporation's reported profit arrived as operating cash — the cash follows the profit. In FY25 that was $0.7 B of operating cash against $0.6 B of profit. After $0.1 B of capital spending, $0.5 B was left as free cash.

FY25: operating cash of $0.7 B against reported profit of $0.6 B, leaving free cash of $0.5 B after $0.1 B of capital spending. Across the last 3 fiscal years the conversion rate is 105% of profit.

Cash-flow readings here are annual — that is the resolution our series carries, so this section moves once a year.

Why: conversion is measured cleanly, but the working-capital day-counts behind it sit below what we hold — the move is shown without inventing its driver.

Router verdict: the visible cash user is investment — the next section checks what the spending is buying.

Where the cash goes Working capital is the cash tied up between paying suppliers and getting paid: debtor days (customers owe), inventory days (stock waits), and the cash conversion cycle (the whole loop, in days of sales).

Waters Corporation does not report the debtor, inventory and payable day-counts a cash cycle is built from, so this section reads the investment side instead. Capital spending ran $0.0 B over the last 3 years. Averaged over those years that is 0.0% of FY25 revenue a year.

Working-capital day-counts are not in our numbers for this stock, so this section reads the investment side — where the cash is being put to work.

On the investment side: capital spending of $0.0 B over the last 3 fiscal years.

The synthesis: the cash is going into capacity, not disappearing into the cycle — the question becomes whether the new capacity earns.

Return on equity Return on equity (ROE) is the profit the business earns on its shareholders’ money. With the full capital-employed split not in our numbers, ROE is the cleanest long ladder we can draw here.

Waters Corporation earns a ROE of 25% in FY25. Return on invested capital clears the cost of that capital by −7.9 percentage points, so growth here is not yet paying for the capital it uses. The wiring behind it is 20.2% net margin on 0.62× asset turns.

FY25 ROE is 25%.

🚨 Why the return is what it is — the wiring (FY25): 20.2% net margin × 0.62× asset turns × 1.98× balance-sheet leverage ≈ 24.8% on equity. Margin is doing the heavy lifting; leverage is a meaningful part of the equation.

The capstone test — ROIC − WACC: 1.9% − 9.8% = a −7.9 pp spread. The 9.8% is an estimate of this company's own cost of capital — read the sign and the size of the spread, not the decimals. Negative — growth at these returns destroys value until the returns recover.

Dividend

Waters Corporation pays no dividend. Across the last 12 reported quarters it has declared no dividend per share, so there is no payout history to chart and no yield to quote. Companies at this stage typically reinvest earnings rather than distribute them, which makes the cash-flow and reinvestment sections the place that cash shows up.

Waters Corporation does not currently pay a dividend. Across the last 12 reported quarters the company has declared no dividend per share, so there is no payout history to chart and no yield to quote. Companies at this stage typically reinvest earnings instead of distributing them.

Debt Debt-to-equity says how much of the business is funded by borrowings. Low is the safe corner; the trend matters as much as the level.

Waters Corporation carries total debt of $5.6 B against shareholder equity of $15.3 B as of Apr 26, a debt-to-equity of 0.36. On the annual view that ratio went from 4.32 in FY21 to 0.58 in FY25. Read the returns elsewhere on this page with that leverage in mind.

Apr 26: total debt of $5.6 B against shareholder equity of $15.3 B — a debt-to-equity of 0.36. On the annual view, debt-to-equity went from 4.32 (FY21) to 0.58 (FY25). Read the returns on this page with that leverage in mind.

Ownership There is no quarter-by-quarter holder register to read here, so we read the crowd through short interest — the slice of tradable shares currently sold short, positioned for a fall.

3.7% of Waters Corporation's tradable float is currently sold short — some money is positioned against it. At typical trading volumes those positions would take about 4.0 days to buy back. There is no quarter-by-quarter holder register to read for this filer, so the crowd is read through short interest instead.

The latest reading: 3.7% of the float is sold short, and at typical trading volumes it would take about 4.0 days to buy those positions back. Some money is positioned against it. This is a single point-in-time reading — we do not yet hold its history, so we show no trend chart.

Why it sits there: who is doing the shorting, and why, does not travel with the number — the level is shown without inventing its story.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

Waters Corporation: the Z-score reads 2.36. A Z-score above roughly 3 reads as safe and below roughly 1.8 as the distress zone, so this sits in the grey band between the two. It is a distance-to-distress estimate from the balance sheet, not a forecast of failure.

Why it matters: a Z-score of 2.36 sits in the grey band — neither clearly safe nor clearly distressed.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score reads 2.36.

Frequently asked questions