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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for New York Times Co. (NYT) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-09-02): Designation Watch · Gem Score -11 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality 75 · Value -69 · Sentiment -1 (timing only, not weighted)
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reference-name attribute you can cite):
profile-header/price-overview— company profile, live quote, market capextended-analysis— the core: three AI lens reads with findings, scores, and the analyst memofuture-predictions— our forward price-band predictionsmarket-narrative/ai-findings/gpt-critique— narrative context, cross-model findings, and an adversarial critique of our own analysis (near the end of the document)- Members-only sections (render as login gates for anonymous readers):
price-history,income-trend,key-metrics,financials(statement tables),insider-trading. The analysis above is public; the raw data tables require a free account.
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any ticker resolves at delvantic.com/stock/TICKER ·
raw inputs are public-company filings and market data (via licensed data feeds);
every model, score, lens read, and prediction on this page is Delvantic's own analysis.
New York Times Co.
NYT NYSENew York Times Co. is a media company that creates, collects, and distributes news and information through print and digital channels. The company’s portfolio includes The New York Times, NYTimes.com, mobile applications, podcasts, and interest-specific products such as Cooking, Games, and Audio. It also operates The Athletic, a sports media service focused on coverage and analysis for fans and subscribers. In addition to journalism, New York Times Co. offers related content and services designed to support subscription-based readership across consumer and professional audiences. Headquartered in New York City, the company plays a central role in the global news market by combining traditional reporting with digital media products and specialized content offerings.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 2.09
Total Equity: $2.04B
Shares: 164,943,000
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $255.45M
EBITDA: $516.56M
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $255.45M
Revenue: $2.82B
Revenue: $2.82B
Revenue: $2.82B
Total Equity: $2.04B
Tax Rate: 23.8%
Equity: $2.04B
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $255.45M
Current Liabilities: $666.70M
Long-Term Debt: $0.00
Total Debt: $0.00
Total Equity: $2.04B
Shares: 164,943,000
Shares: 164,943,000
CapEx: -$33.98M
Shares: 164,943,000
Stock Price: $64.79
Net Income: $343.98M
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:51am (18d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $2.1B | $2.3B | $2.4B | $2.6B | $2.8B |
| Cost of Revenue | $1.0B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.4B |
| Gross Profit | $1.0B | $1.1B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.4B |
| Operating Expenses | $767.3M | $897.4M | $900.8M | $925.3M | $1.0B |
| Operating Income | $268.0M | $202.0M | $276.3M | $351.1M | $431.6M |
| Net Income | $220.0M | $173.9M | $232.4M | $293.8M | $344.0M |
| EBITDA | $325.5M | $284.6M | $362.4M | $434.0M | $516.6M |
| EPS | $1.31 | $1.04 | $1.41 | $1.79 | $2.11 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $1.31 | $1.04 | $1.40 | $1.77 | $2.09 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:29am (18d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $320.0M | $221.4M | $289.5M | $199.4M | $255.4M |
| Total Current Assets | $952.7M | $655.7M | $781.7M | $936.3M | $1.0B |
| Total Assets | $2.6B | $2.5B | $2.7B | $2.8B | $3.0B |
| Current Liabilities | $559.2M | $571.2M | $611.6M | $613.5M | $666.7M |
| Long-Term Debt | — | — | — | — | — |
| Total Liabilities | $1.0B | $933.8M | $951.4M | $914.3M | $955.7M |
| Total Equity | $1.5B | $1.6B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $2.0B |
| Retained Earnings | $1.8B | $2.0B | $2.1B | $2.3B | $2.6B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:51am (18d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $269.1M | $150.7M | $360.6M | $410.5M | $584.5M |
| Capital Expenditure | -$34.6M | -$37.0M | -$22.7M | -$29.2M | -$34.0M |
| Free Cash Flow | $234.5M | $113.7M | $337.9M | $381.3M | $550.5M |
| Acquisitions (net) | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | $0 | — | — | — | — |
| Dividends Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Stock Buybacks | $0 | -$105.1M | -$44.6M | -$85.0M | -$165.3M |
| Net Change in Cash | — | — | — | — | — |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:51am (18d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | +11.3% | +5.1% | +6.6% | +9.2% |
| Gross Profit Growth | +6.2% | +7.1% | +8.4% | +12.4% |
| Operating Income Growth | -24.6% | +36.8% | +27.1% | +22.9% |
| Net Income Growth | -20.9% | +33.6% | +26.4% | +17.1% |
| EBITDA Growth | -12.6% | +27.3% | +19.8% | +19.0% |
Dividend History (Last 20)
Last updated: Aug 15, 2026 10:31am (18d ago)| Date | Dividend | Declaration | Record | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-08 | $0.23 | — | — | — |
| 2026-04-01 | $0.23 | — | — | — |
| 2026-01-06 | $0.18 | — | — | — |
| 2025-10-08 | $0.18 | — | — | — |
| 2025-07-09 | $0.18 | — | — | — |
| 2025-04-01 | $0.18 | — | — | — |
| 2025-01-10 | $0.13 | — | — | — |
| 2024-10-09 | $0.13 | — | — | — |
| 2024-07-09 | $0.13 | — | — | — |
| 2024-04-01 | $0.13 | — | — | — |
| 2024-01-02 | $0.11 | — | — | — |
| 2023-10-06 | $0.11 | — | — | — |
| 2023-07-10 | $0.11 | — | — | — |
| 2023-04-04 | $0.11 | — | — | — |
| 2023-01-03 | $0.09 | — | — | — |
| 2022-10-06 | $0.09 | — | — | — |
| 2022-07-08 | $0.09 | — | — | — |
| 2022-04-05 | $0.09 | — | — | — |
| 2022-01-04 | $0.07 | — | — | — |
| 2021-10-07 | $0.07 | — | — | — |
Deep Analysis
Risk : Reward — upside vs downside from this company's own quarters
Not computed yetNarrative Economics
market-narrative step).
Growth Outlook
Analyzed 2026-08-17 16:34The question every valuation on this page silently assumes: is this company likely to grow? Judged forward — the business, its category, the world — against what's already printed.
Claude Reading
Looking at the raw numbers first: NYT is compounding quite nicely. Annual revenue went $2.07B → $2.31B → $2.43B → $2.59B → $2.82B, a clean ~8% CAGR with acceleration in the last two years (9.2% most recent). Operating income moved $268M → $202M → $276M → $351M → $432M — that's 61% cumulative op income growth on 36% revenue growth, so operating leverage is real. Operating margin has walked from 12.9% (2021) to 15.3% (2025), and gross margin sits at 50.8%. FCF of $550M on a $10.45B market cap is a 5.3% FCF yield, and with capex of only $34M this is a capital-light business. Q1 2026 revenue of $712M vs Q1 2025 of $636M is 12% YoY — the trajectory is accelerating, not decelerating. Zero debt, $255M cash, ROIC 18.4%. This is a genuinely high-quality asset.
Now, the synthesis says fair value $40-43 against $65, i.e., 33% overvalued. I think that's too harsh, and here's where I part company with the DCF-driven models. A business growing revenue 9% with 20%+ earnings growth, ROIC of 18%, zero debt, and a $550M FCF stream that grew 27.6% CAGR does not deserve a mid-single-digit terminal multiple. 31x P/E on trailing looks rich, but on 2026E earnings (extrapolating Q1's 77% YoY NI jump — though that's noisy quarter-to-quarter) the forward multiple compresses meaningfully. EV/EBITDA of 19.9x for a growing, debt-free subscription business with pricing power is not egregious versus, say, consumer staples trading at 22-25x with 3% growth. The "$43 fair value" implicitly assumes 5% growth and terminal margins near current levels — but margins are still expanding and top-line is accelerating.
Where the models are right to be cautious: the Thesis Evaluation's 87% penetration point is the real bear case, not AI. If NYT already has ~11M subs against a plausible English-speaking premium-news TAM of 12-15M households, then subscriber growth must transition to ARPU expansion, and the model's SaaS-like framing breaks. The Athletic remains unproven economically. Insider activity is just tax-withholding F-InKind — no signal either way, and the "No Insider Transactions" tag is misleading given two prints appear. I'd also flag the 2026-08-10 insider dates and Q1 2026 revenue — the file appears to be time-shifted or has a date convention issue worth verifying before trading on it. The pre-flight calling this "high-growth" is a stretch: 9% revenue growth is good-mature, not high-growth, and mislabeling the archetype propagates through the valuation.
My verdict: partial dissent from the synthesis. I don't buy $43 fair value — that undervalues the FCF machine and the demonstrated operating leverage. But I also don't think $65 is a bargain. A fair multiple for a 9% grower with 20% earnings growth, 18% ROIC, no debt, and $550M FCF is probably 25-28x earnings or ~4% FCF yield, which lands intrinsic value in the $55-62 range. So NYT is modestly rich, not dramatically so. The market forces read ("own for quality, trim on rallies") is closer to correct than the synthesis's "-33%" verdict. The real risk isn't AI disintermediation in 3-5 years (news brands actually benefit from AI slop making trusted sources more valuable) — it's the subscriber saturation math forcing a growth deceleration that the market hasn't priced. I'd own a smaller position here, add below $55, trim above $75.
GPT Reading
What stands out is not a fragile legacy newspaper clinging to relevance, but a very clean, steadily compounding media asset that the “overvalued by DCF” framing may undersell on quality. Revenue has risen from $2.07B in 2021 to $2.82B in 2025, a 36% increase, while net income went from $220.0M to $344.0M, up 56%. Operating income improved from $268.0M to $431.6M over that span, and 2025 operating margin reached 15.3% with net margin at 12.2%. More important, the cash conversion is excellent: $584.5M of operating cash flow and $550.5M of free cash flow on $344.0M of net income means this is not an accounting story. With no debt and $255.4M of cash, equity holders own an unusually resilient franchise. The quarter-to-quarter pattern also looks healthy rather than promotional: Q1 2026 revenue of $712.2M was up 12.0% from $635.9M a year earlier, and net income jumped 77% to $87.9M from $49.6M. That is not what a saturated, ex-growth asset usually looks like.
The stock is expensive on ordinary screens, but I think the key analytical question is whether NYT deserves to be treated as a generic publisher. At $10.45B market cap, investors are paying about 3.7x sales, 31x earnings, and roughly 19x free cash flow using the $550.5M figure. For a cyclical ad-driven media company, that would be rich. For a debt-free subscription-led business with gross margins above 50%, ROIC of 18.4%, and demonstrated pricing and cost discipline, it is much less outrageous. The annual revenue progression is also accelerating in dollar terms: +$160M in 2022, +$120M in 2023, +$160M in 2024, +$230M in 2025. Meanwhile, quarterly margins have remained solid even outside the seasonally stronger Q4, with 2025 quarters at 7.8%, 12.1%, 11.7%, and 16.2%, followed by 12.3% in Q1 2026. That consistency suggests the business has already crossed from “turnaround” to “durable compounder.” I do not see evidence here that the market is hallucinating software economics; I see a business that has actually earned a premium multiple through stability, cash generation, and a balance sheet that removes a lot of downside scenarios.
That said, I still cannot call the shares cheap at $64.79. If I annualize the latest quarter loosely, earnings power is perhaps in the low-to-mid $300M range, which is basically where 2025 landed. So the market is not paying for depressed earnings that can snap back; it is paying up for continued high-single-digit revenue growth and further margin improvement from an already respectable 15% operating margin. On an equity base of $2.04B, the company earns a strong 16.9% ROE, but the 5.2x price-to-book tells you investors are capitalizing the franchise well beyond tangible accounting value. That can work for years, but it leaves little room for a stumble. My read is that NYT is a high-quality business priced like one: not a short, but not obviously mispriced to the upside either. Fair value feels closer to the high-$50s than the low-$40s because the DCF-style bears are too punitive on durability, but $65 already discounts a lot of the quality.
The best argument against my more constructive read is simple: the stock’s premium requires growth that may be harder to sustain than the recent numbers imply. Revenue CAGR of 7.9% since 2021 is good, not extraordinary, and a 31x P/E multiple on sub-10% top-line growth can derate quickly if subscriber additions slow, pricing power fades, or ad softness returns. Q1 2026’s 12.3% net margin was good, but still below Q4’s 16.2%, reminding you this is not a pure subscription software annuity. The market narrative may also be too generous in treating all digital subscription revenue as equally durable when consumer bundles can churn under pressure and AI tools may weaken direct visits and perceived necessity over time. If you instead anchor on a mature-earner framework, then 19x EBITDA and 3.8x sales for a publisher is simply too full, and the valuation synthesis around low-$40s starts to look less crazy.
What would change my mind either way is straightforward. If the next few quarters show revenue growth slipping toward 5% or less while operating margin stalls around 12% to 13%, then the premium multiple should compress and I would move bearish, probably seeing fair value in the low-to-mid $50s or below. Conversely, if NYT can sustain 9% to 10%+ revenue growth through 2026 while holding annualized operating margin at or above 15% and free cash flow above $550M, then today’s multiple is supportable and the stock can grow into a $70+ value without narrative stretch. For now, the business is better than many valuation models admit, but the stock price already knows it.
Grok Reading
The raw numbers describe a capital-light compounder that has already done most of the hard work of transforming a newspaper into a subscription engine. Revenue climbed from $2.07B in 2021 to $2.82B in 2025, a 7.9% CAGR, while operating income more than doubled from the 2022 trough of $202M to $432M and free cash flow reached $550.5M on only $34M of capex. That is a 19.5% FCF margin and a business that converts nearly all operating cash into free cash. Net margin expanded to 12.2%, ROIC sits at 18.4%, and the balance sheet carries zero debt against $255M cash and $2.04B of equity. Recent quarters confirm the trajectory: Q1 2026 revenue of $712M was up roughly 12% from the year-earlier $636M, with net margin recovering to 12.3% from 7.8%. Earnings and FCF have grown far faster than sales (21.7% and 27.6% CAGRs), which is the signature of mix shift and operating leverage, not of a business still inventing its model.
What the multiple is asking for is another matter. At $64.79 the stock trades at 31x earnings, 3.8x sales and roughly 19x the latest free-cash-flow run-rate, implying a FCF yield of only about 5.3%. That price embeds continued high-single-digit revenue growth, further margin expansion toward the mid-teens operating level, and durable pricing power on a subscriber base the models already flag as approaching household saturation. The rule-based classifier correctly tags this as a mature earner; the “high-growth / SaaS-like” framing overstates the remaining runway. An 8–9% top line with mid-teens earnings growth is excellent for a media franchise, but it does not justify software multiples once the easy digital conversion is behind it. My read of the cash flows alone points to fair value nearer the low-to-mid $50s; the gap to $65 is narrative premium, not present economics.
The strongest counter-argument is that quality and scarcity deserve a permanent premium. Bulls will correctly note the 50.8% gross margin, fortress balance sheet, Games-driven low-CAC funnel, demonstrated pricing power, and the fact that FCF has compounded at nearly 28% while the company still throws off a 1.3% dividend. They will also argue that 31x forward earnings on a no-debt compounder with 18% ROIC is not extreme if earnings can keep growing mid-teens for several more years and The Athletic eventually contributes rather than dilutes. That case is coherent; I simply weigh the penetration and AI-disintermediation risks more heavily. Subscriber growth is now a measured, decelerating variable rather than an open-ended TAM story, and generative AI lowers the switching cost of “good enough” news summaries. Those are not distant hypotheticals; they are already visible in the bear mass that slightly outweighs the bull mass in the thesis score.
I would reverse to a constructive stance if the next two reported quarters show digital subscriber net adds re-accelerating above 8–10% annualized while operating margin clear 16% on a trailing basis, or if management demonstrates pricing realization that lifts ARPU enough to keep FCF growing mid-teens even as unit growth slows. A sustained break of the stock below $52–54 on no fundamental deterioration would also reset the risk-reward. Until one of those occurs, the shares look rich relative to the cash they actually produce.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
Revenue has grown every year from $2.07B (2021) to $2.82B (2025), a ~8% CAGR, while gross margin expanded from 49.9% to 50.8% and operating margin climbed from 12.9% to 15.3%. Net income rose from $220M to $344M and FCF nearly doubled from $234M in 2021 to $550M in 2025 - operating leverage is real, not accounting-driven, with OCF/NI at 1.35x and accruals at -3.6% of assets. Beneish M of -2.73 and Altman Z of 9.31 both sit deep in safe territory. The balance sheet is a fortress relative to the business: $642M liquid cash, zero net debt, and FCF alone would fund operations many times over. Capital discipline is a genuine positive: diluted share count fell from 168.5M to 164.9M (-0.5% CAGR), and buybacks run 157% of SBC (2.6% of revenue), so per-share value is compounding on top of business growth. The insider tape shows only routine tax-withholding (F-InKind) events with no open-market activity in either direction - neutral rather than confirmatory. The main things that keep this from a higher rung are the modest absolute scale of the moat (subscription news/games/cooking bundle in a structurally challenged industry) and a single-digit growth profile that, while consistent, is not extraordinary.
Verify before trusting this (6)
- Subscriber growth mix and ARPU trajectory across News, Games, Cooking, Wirecutter, The Athletic in the latest 10-K/10-Q
- Digital-only subscriber retention and pricing steps; churn trends
- Advertising revenue trend vs. subscription (mix shift and cyclicality)
- Pension obligations and any off-balance-sheet liabilities in 10-K footnotes
- Capital return policy - dividend growth and buyback authorization remaining
- Any material customer/platform concentration (e.g., Apple News, licensing to AI firms)
At $64.79 the market cap is ~$10.4B against a composite fair value of $40.83 and a signal-adjusted FV of $43.13 - roughly 33% downside on the blended read. The DCF at $51.26 is the most generous method and still sits ~21% below the current price; the anchored P/E at $41.96 corroborates the composite, while the EPV floor of $18.83 is a runaway low-end input (it ignores the durable subscription growth) and should be down-weighted rather than used as a target. Earnings quality is high, so no haircut is warranted - the deserved value already reflects clean cash generation.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Digital subscriber net adds and ARPU trajectory in the next 1-2 quarters - any deceleration collapses the growth assumption embedded in price
- Bundle attach rates (Cooking, Athletic, Games, Wirecutter) and churn disclosures
- Ad revenue trend and margin guide - to test whether operating leverage is still expanding
- Any change in content or licensing deals (AI licensing) that could reset the terminal value
NYT is riding a durable 'moat of trust' narrative -- platform monopoly, 12.8M digital subs, subscription-first re-rating -- which is exactly the kind of story that holds up in a calm, risk-on tape (VIX 14.3, S&P near highs). With beta 0.93 and a defensive-ish subscription profile, the macro tape neither punishes nor turbocharges this name; it is a mild tailwind at best. The narrative intensity is strong and the cult coefficient is meaningful, which keeps a bid under the stock even when print prints look ugly. That said, the most recent news pulse is a negative post-Q2 reaction: revenue beat, ad revenue +20.7%, subs at record -- but the market focused on cost and margin pressure, and coverage is flagging NYT among 'favorite stocks walking a fine line.' That is a classic sign of a narrative running slightly ahead of numbers, with analyst tone still bullish but starting to prod at the setup. Net-net: story tailwind and macro tailwind roughly offset by a fresh headline-driven wobble and the well-known gap between DCF ($43) and price ($65). Pressure is close to neutral with a faint negative tilt from the earnings-reaction hangover.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Whether post-Q2 selling extends or reverses over next 2-3 weeks
- Any downward target revisions citing margin pressure
- Signs of subscriber growth deceleration in next print
- AI/licensing headlines that either validate or undercut the moat-of-trust narrative
The world is consolidating news consumption into a handful of national brands with direct relationships, and NYT is the clearest beneficiary: trust plus a bundle that converts a news habit into a daily multi-product habit. The genuine change in the environment is AI-mediated discovery, which attacks the free funnel rather than the paid base — NYT's answer is direct-app distribution plus licensing its archive to the intermediaries, which turns some of the threat into revenue. Against that, the macro backdrop (10y at 4.63, headwind regime) pressures the advertising minority of the P&L and consumer willingness to absorb serial price increases. Net: the business direction is up and structurally supported, but the shape shifts from subscriber-volume growth toward ARPU and margin, which is inherently a decelerating-slope engine over several years.
Prediction unavailable. valuation-synthesis has no result for NYT — the prediction needs its fair-value anchors.