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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for Waters Corporation (WAT) — 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 2026-08-23): Designation Low · Gem Score -37 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality 4 · Value -70 · Sentiment 14 (timing only, not weighted) · Composite fair value $205.30 vs $410.70 at analysis
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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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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.
Waters Corporation
WAT NYSEWaters Corporation is a scientific instrumentation company that provides analytical workflow solutions to customers in the life sciences, industrial, and academic sectors. The company specializes in liquid chromatography systems, mass spectrometry platforms, and related precision chemistry consumables that support complex chemical and biochemical analysis. Through its Waters segment, it delivers integrated instruments, software, and services used in drug development, quality control, food and environmental testing, and advanced materials research. Its TA Instruments segment focuses on thermal analysis and rheology equipment that measure material properties such as stability, viscosity, and mechanical performance for industrial and research applications. Waters Corporation serves biopharmaceutical companies, industrial manufacturers, and government and academic laboratories globally, with a particularly strong presence in diagnostics and research-related workflows. Founded in 1958 and headquartered in Milford, Massachusetts, Waters Corporation plays a significant role in enabling precise measurement, regulatory compliance support, and data-driven decision-making across regulated and research-intensive markets.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 6.52
Total Equity: $2.56B
Shares: 98,573,354
Total Debt: $947.45M
Cash: $587.83M
EBITDA: $890.73M
Total Debt: $947.45M
Cash: $587.83M
Revenue: $3.17B
Revenue: $3.17B
Revenue: $3.17B
Total Equity: $2.56B
Tax Rate: 14.9%
Equity: $2.56B
Total Debt: $947.45M
Cash: $587.83M
Current Liabilities: $1.24B
Long-Term Debt: $947.45M
Total Debt: $947.45M
Total Equity: $2.56B
Shares: 98,573,354
Shares: 98,573,354
CapEx: -$112.75M
Shares: 98,573,354
Stock Price: $410.70
Net Income: $642.63M
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 22, 2026 5:09pm (1d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $2.8B | $3.0B | $3.0B | $3.0B | $3.2B |
| Cost of Revenue | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.3B |
| Gross Profit | $1.6B | $1.7B | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.9B |
| Operating Expenses | $807.6M | $850.4M | $943.5M | $931.8M | $1.1B |
| Operating Income | $821.7M | $873.4M | $817.7M | $826.4M | $802.6M |
| Net Income | — | $707.8M | $642.2M | $637.8M | $642.6M |
| EBITDA | $893.3M | $945.4M | $902.3M | $913.4M | $890.7M |
| EPS | $11.25 | $11.80 | $10.87 | $10.75 | $6.54 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $11.17 | $11.73 | $10.84 | $10.71 | $6.52 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 22, 2026 4:51pm (1d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $480.5M | — | $395.1M | $324.4M | $587.8M |
| Total Current Assets | $1.8B | — | $1.8B | $1.7B | $2.1B |
| Total Assets | $3.3B | — | $4.6B | $4.6B | $5.1B |
| Current Liabilities | $785.7M | — | $789.6M | $789.8M | $1.2B |
| Long-Term Debt | $1.5B | — | $2.3B | $1.6B | $947.4M |
| Total Liabilities | $2.8B | — | $3.5B | $2.7B | $2.5B |
| Total Equity | $504.5M | — | $1.2B | $1.8B | $2.6B |
| Retained Earnings | $8.5B | — | $9.2B | $9.8B | $10.4B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Aug 22, 2026 5:09pm (1d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $747.3M | $611.7M | $602.8M | $762.1M | $652.6M |
| Capital Expenditure | — | — | -$160.6M | -$142.5M | -$112.7M |
| Free Cash Flow | — | — | $442.2M | $619.6M | $539.8M |
| Acquisitions (net) | $0 | $0 | -$1.3B | $0 | -$35.1M |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | $160.0M | $60.0M | $780.0M | -$730.0M | -$220.0M |
| Dividends Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Stock Buybacks | -$648.9M | -$626.1M | -$70.3M | -$13.5M | -$14.7M |
| Net Change in Cash | $64.5M | -$20.7M | -$85.5M | -$70.7M | $262.5M |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Aug 22, 2026 5:09pm (1d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | +6.7% | -0.5% | +0.1% | +7.0% |
| Gross Profit Growth | +5.8% | +2.2% | -0.2% | +6.7% |
| Operating Income Growth | +6.3% | -6.4% | +1.1% | -2.9% |
| Net Income Growth | — | -9.3% | -0.7% | +0.8% |
| EBITDA Growth | +5.8% | -4.6% | +1.2% | -2.5% |
Dividend History (Last 20)
Last updated: Aug 22, 2026 4:02pm (1d ago)| Date | Dividend | Declaration | Record | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996-11-26 | $0.01 | — | — | — |
Deep Analysis
Risk : Reward — if the last quarter repeats
Live · as of 2026-08-22 17:20Recovery pays +111%; another quarter like the worst recent one costs 96%. Ratio 1.1:1.
| Case | Growth | Margin | Fair value | vs price ($410.70) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull — recovery | +95% | 21.6% | $864.77 | +111% |
| Base — stabilizes | +63% | 18.8% | $370.95 | -10% |
| Bear — keeps slipping | +32% | 15.9% | $138.77 | -66% |
| Stress — last quarter repeats | +7% | 3.1% | $14.49 | -96% |
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
Growth Outlook
Analyzed 2026-08-22 17:18The 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
The raw numbers tell a strange story that the models are partly missing. Look at the quarterly sequence: Q1 2026 revenue jumped to $1.27B and Q2 2026 to $1.65B — versus $662M and $771M in the year-ago quarters. That's not organic growth of 7%; that's a doubling. And it comes with net losses (-$72M then -$136M), collapsing margins from +19% to -8%. This is almost certainly the Waters–BD Biosciences/Life Sciences merger closing (announced 2025, ~$17.5B deal), with acquired revenue consolidating and deal/integration charges hitting NI. None of the prior models flag this — they're treating the trailing metrics as organic and running DCFs off a $3.17B revenue base that no longer exists. The pro-forma company is closer to $6–7B revenue with materially different margin structure and a much larger debt load than the $947M shown on the stale 2025 balance sheet. That single omission invalidates most of the quantitative work.
That said, the direction of the synthesis verdict — overvalued — likely still holds, just for different reasons. Pre-merger Waters was a ~$3B revenue business earning ~$640M with 3.5% revenue CAGR and flat earnings CAGR over five years (2021 rev $2.79B → 2025 $3.17B; NI $707M in 2022 → $642M in 2025 — actually shrinking). At $410 and $40.3B market cap, that's 63x trailing earnings on a business that has demonstrated zero earnings growth for four years. The DCF fair value of $205 from the synthesis is probably directionally right for standalone Waters but ignores the acquired BD assets, which BD was reportedly divesting at ~3-4x sales — meaning Waters paid up and diluted ROIC (from 23% pre-deal toward mid-teens post). The thesis evaluator's -20 score and the "P/E of 63 demands biotech-like growth" headline are the most honest reads in the file.
The contrarian case: LC-MS is genuinely mission-critical, consumables are ~50%+ of revenue and grow with installed base, and the BD Bio deal — if integration goes well — gives Waters a bioprocessing/flow cytometry adjacency that plausibly justifies a re-rating IF cross-sell materializes and GLP-1/biologics manufacturing capex accelerates as bulls claim. FCF CAGR of 10.5% (vs revenue 3.5%) shows real operating leverage historically. The narrative-economics layer is right that the moat is durable. But even granting all that, you'd need to see pro-forma EBITDA of ~$2B+ and ~mid-teens organic growth to justify $410 — and there's no evidence yet either exists post-merger. The insider print (option exercise immediately sold, same day, same share count) is a nothing-signal but tilts marginally negative — no insider is buying at $410.
I dissent slightly from the synthesis magnitude ($200 fair value is too low because it ignores the acquisition) but agree strongly with direction. My read: pro-forma fair value is probably $260–$310 depending on synergy assumptions and how much of the BD Bio revenue sticks — still ~25–40% downside from $410. The market forces "neutral/fair value" call is the weakest output here; it appears to be splitting the difference without engaging the P/E-vs-growth arithmetic. This isn't a quality cyclical at fair value — it's a mature compounder that just did the biggest M&A in its history at a premium multiple, and the market is extrapolating deal accretion the company hasn't yet demonstrated. Wait for two clean post-integration quarters showing organic growth ex-BD-contribution and margin trajectory before touching this. A 20%+ pullback toward $320 would make it interesting; at $410 you're paying full price for a merger thesis that hasn't proven itself, on a base business growing 3.5%.
GPT Reading
Waters looks like a very good business priced like a much better growth story than the numbers support. The core annual picture is clear: revenue was $2.96B in both 2023 and 2024, then rose to $3.17B in 2025, so this is a company with roughly 3.5% multi-year top-line CAGR and essentially flat net income around $638M-$643M for three straight years before the odd 2026 quarterly losses show up. Even giving full credit for quality, the valuation is extreme for that profile: 38.2x trailing earnings, 7.7x sales, 27.8x EV/EBITDA, and 9.6x book for a business with 25.4% operating margin and 20.3% net margin. Those margins are excellent, and ROIC at 23.4% is the real reason the stock deserves a premium. But a premium is not the same as doubling fair value. At a $40.3B market cap against $539.8M of 2025 free cash flow, investors are paying roughly 75x FCF for a company whose annual revenue only grew $210M last year.
What most stands out is the disconnect between stable historical economics and the latest quarterly distortions. The annual statements through 2025 describe a disciplined, high-return, moderately growing instrumentation franchise: gross margin improved to 59.3% in 2025 from 58%-59% territory, operating income stayed above $800M every year since 2021, leverage is modest with $947M debt against $588M cash, and the balance sheet is not a problem. Then 2026 shows two huge quarters of revenue growth — $1.27B and $1.65B versus prior-year quarterly run rates of $662M and $771M — alongside net losses of $72M and $136M. That combination almost certainly means a major accounting event, acquisition-related charges, or some other non-operating distortion rather than a collapse of the business model. The key implication is that the optical P/E may actually be understating how expensive the stock is if normalized earnings are not inflecting upward commensurately with whatever drove that revenue step-up. If the company truly transformed its revenue base, I would expect to see at least some evidence of operating leverage; instead the quarterly net margin went from positive high teens/20s in 2024-25 to negative mid-single digits in 2026.
The market is effectively capitalizing Waters as a mission-critical compounder that can sustain both pricing power and a richer mix shift over a long period, and there is some truth there. This is not a low-quality cyclical. Free cash flow of $539.8M on $642.6M net income is respectable, current ratio of 1.73 is healthy, and debt-to-equity below 0.37 gives management flexibility. But if I strip away the franchise quality and just ask what would justify $410, I need to believe either that revenue growth is about to live in the high single digits for years or that margins can move materially above already strong levels. The historical data do not show that. From 2022 to 2025, revenue went from $2.97B to $3.17B, while operating income fell from $873M to $803M. That is not a business demonstrating latent operating leverage; it is a business already near margin maturity. Paying nearly 8x revenue for that setup is aggressive.
The best argument against my read is that the quarterly revenue surge in 2026 may reflect a step-function change in the business that the annual 2025 numbers simply do not capture yet. If Waters has materially expanded its platform, added a higher-growth adjacent asset, or is in the middle of a temporary GAAP earnings trough caused by integration, amortization, or restructuring, then trailing multiples are misleadingly harsh. A smart bull would also point to the durability of the installed base, recurring consumables and service pull-through, and the company’s unusually high ROIC and gross margins as evidence that this deserves to trade more like a premium software-enabled tools platform than an ordinary instruments maker. I still weigh those points less heavily because even premium-quality medtech tools businesses do not usually deserve 75x FCF unless growth is clearly reaccelerating in a way that survives normalization. Here, the only hard evidence of reacceleration is revenue, and it is paired with sharply negative quarterly earnings, which makes me skeptical rather than enthusiastic.
What would change my mind is simple: if the next few quarters show that the 2026 revenue jump is real, repeatable, and profitable. Specifically, I would want to see annualized revenue power above $5B sustained with net margins recovering back into at least the mid-teens, or clear disclosure that the 2026 losses were one-time and that normalized EPS and free cash flow are stepping materially higher. If free cash flow can move from roughly $540M toward $1.0B without stretching the balance sheet, then today’s valuation starts to become defensible. Absent that, I think the stock is priced for a transformation that the historical record does not yet verify.
Grok Reading
The raw numbers describe a high-quality franchise that stopped growing years ago and is now being asked to justify a growth-stock multiple. Waters generated $2.96–$3.17B of revenue every year from 2022 through 2025, a 3.5% revenue CAGR and essentially zero earnings CAGR; 2025 net income of $642.6M sits below the $708M printed in 2022. Operating margins have compressed from the high-20s toward 25%, and free-cash-flow conversion, while still healthy at $540M, is not accelerating fast enough to underwrite the capital structure. Against that backdrop the stock trades at roughly 63× trailing earnings ($40.3B market cap / $643M NI), 28× EV/EBITDA and nearly 8× sales. The two most recent quarters explode revenue to $1.27B and $1.65B while swinging to deep losses (-$72M and -$136M), which is the unmistakable signature of a transformative acquisition closing and loading the P&L with deal costs, amortization and integration drag. That step-up may eventually reset the earnings base, but it does not erase the fact that the legacy business was already fully valued, and the market is still capitalizing the combined entity as if mid-single-digit organic growth plus margin expansion is a lock.
Return metrics remain excellent—ROE 25%, ROIC 23%, gross margin near 59%—and the balance sheet is conservative (net debt roughly $360M, debt-to-equity 0.37). Those are the hallmarks of a genuine installed-base moat in liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, with sticky consumables and high switching costs inside regulated pharma QC. Yet the valuation synthesis fair-value range near $200–205 is directionally correct: at any normalized multiple a mature diagnostics-and-research name with 3–5% organic growth and flat earnings deserves (mid-20s P/E or low-20s EV/EBITDA), the equity is roughly twice intrinsic value. The 2025 7% revenue uptick and accelerating quarterly trend are real, but they are still single-digit and already more than discounted.
The strongest contrary case is that the acquisition permanently re-rates the growth algorithm and that the 63× multiple is simply the market correctly capitalizing a multi-year GLP-1/biologics manufacturing and regulatory-tightening supercycle plus a shift toward higher-margin software and services. A bull can point to the recurring-revenue mix, the fact that FCF CAGR has outpaced earnings at 10.5%, and the sector’s willingness to pay scarcity premiums for mission-critical analytical infrastructure. Those points have merit on durability of the moat; they fail on arithmetic. Even if the combined company reaches $6B of revenue and restores mid-20% operating margins within three years, the present enterprise value still embeds perfection on synergy capture, zero competitive share loss in China and Asia, and no prolonged pharma R&D budget freeze. History shows mature instrumentation platforms rarely sustain the high-teens growth or 40% EBITDA margins the narrative requires.
I would reverse the overvalued call if two consecutive post-integration quarters deliver organic growth above 8% with operating margins back above 22% and free-cash-flow conversion holding, or if trailing twelve-month earnings power visibly clears $1.1B while the multiple compresses below 30×. Until then the stock is a high-quality compounder priced for a transformation it has not yet earned.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
Waters runs a durable diagnostics/instruments business at scale: revenue $2.79B to $3.17B over five years, gross margins parked in the high-50s (58.5% to 59.3%), and operating margins in the mid-to-high 20s (25.4% in 2025, down from 29.5% in 2021). Net income has been remarkably steady around $640M and FCF averaged roughly $590M/yr, with OCF/NI ~1x and accruals -0.7% of assets. Beneish M of -2.37 and Altman Z of 13.86 signal no mechanical earnings-quality issues. This is a mature earner with real cash generation. The blemish is capital structure and share count. Liquid cash is only $587.8M against a net debt position of -$359.6M, so the balance sheet is a constraint rather than a cushion. Diluted share count jumped from ~59.6M in 2024 to 98.6M in 2025 - a step-change roughly 65% higher in a single year that is inconsistent with normal SBC (1.7% of revenue) and heavy buyback intensity (buyback/SBC 660%). This pattern almost certainly reflects the announced BD Biosciences/Diagnostic Solutions combination and associated share issuance rather than dilutive comp, and needs filing-level confirmation. Operating margin compression of ~400bps since 2021 alongside flat-to-modest revenue growth also weakens the trajectory story. Underlying franchise quality is strong (razor-and-blade consumables in LC/MS with sticky pharma customers, as the industry implies), but current-state execution shows margin erosion and a very large share issuance event that materially affects per-share economics.
Verify before trusting this (6)
- Confirm the mechanics and terms of the 2025 diluted share count jump to 98.6M (BD Biosciences combination structure, exchange ratio, closing timing)
- Debt maturity schedule and covenants behind the $359.6M net debt position
- Consumables vs instruments revenue mix and recurring-revenue percentage
- Cause of ~400bps operating margin compression since 2021 (mix, FX, opex, integration costs)
- Pharma/biotech customer concentration and China exposure disclosures
- Post-deal pro-forma leverage and integration cost guidance
The e2e composite pegs deserved value at $205.30 (signal-adjusted $200.46), implying roughly -51% downside from $410.70. The DCF at $343 is the most generous read and still sits ~16% below spot; the EPV floor ($70.52) and anchored P/E ($64.33) look like runaway-low methods reflecting a no-growth or trough-earnings world I don't fully buy for a franchise with 59% gross margins and reliable $500M+ FCF. Splitting the difference, a defensible deserved range is roughly $250-$340 - meaning the market is paying a 20-60% premium over even a quality-adjusted anchor. Earnings quality is high so no haircut, and the Solid quality grade lifts deserved value toward the top of that band, but not to $410. What's priced in: perpetual high-single to low-double-digit revenue growth, margin re-expansion (despite -400bps of op-margin erosion over five years), and no share-count drag from the 2025 jump to ~98M shares. That's a stack of things that all have to go right. This isn't a bubble - it's a great business the market already understands and then some. Fairly-valued-to-rich is the honest verdict; deep overvaluation would require the anchored-PE read to be correct, which I don't fully trust.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- What drove the 2025 share count jump to ~98M - acquisition currency, comp, or convert dilution
- Consumables vs instruments mix and organic growth trajectory in latest quarter
- Management commentary on op-margin path and China competitive pressure
- Any pending M&A that changes the capital structure and deserved value math
The dominant force on WAT right now is narrative: a strong, durable platform-monopoly story (LC-MS as non-negotiable pharma infrastructure) with medium cult coefficient. That archetype tends to attract sticky quality-growth capital and defends multiples through wobbles, and with the tape modestly risk-on (regime score +32, VIX 15) the narrative has room to keep working. Beta 1.18 means WAT participates in up-tape moves, and the healthcare tools cohort has been a favored expression of the biotech R&D and GLP-1 tooling story. Momentum reads strong-positive, reinforcing reflexivity. The offsetting pressure is that the story is visibly stretched vs the DCF anchor - roughly 2x fair value on the bear framing - which makes sentiment fragile to any narrative crack (China competitive erosion headlines, a soft tools print, or a biotech funding scare). Analyst tone is not flagged as diverging yet, so the story still has consensus cover. Near-term the Agilent print on Aug 26 is the real swing factor: a strong ATools read-through would extend the tailwind on WAT; a miss or cautious guide would hit WAT harder than the tape because of its narrative premium and 1.18 beta.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Agilent (A) earnings Aug 26 and tools-sector read-through on China and pharma capex
- Any sell-side target revisions or downgrades citing valuation vs organic growth
- Biotech funding and XBI action as a proxy for end-market sentiment
- China competitive commentary in peer prints eroding the moat narrative
The world is shifting testing volume from discovery toward regulated, repeatable manufacturing QC — biologics and peptide therapeutics, PFAS and food-safety mandates, battery/materials characterization. That favors owners of the validated method and the consumable, which is Waters' structural position, and it makes the revenue base less hostage to pharma capex budgets than the instrument-only framing suggests. Against that: research funding austerity trims the academic channel, Chinese localization preference erodes a formerly premium geography, tariffs tax precision hardware, and a 4.69% 10-year raises the carrying cost of a large combination. Net: the demand substrate is genuinely growing at a mid-single-digit pace, and no plausible reading of the world produces the compounding rate the current price arithmetic implies.
When we made this prediction on Aug 23, 2026, WAT was $410.70. We expect it to be $382.00 by Feb 2027, and we consider it great value under $300.00. This is an early model (v0.6.0) — the direction is more reliable than the exact price. Made Aug 23, 2026.
Blue is our prediction, starting the day we made it. Grey is a slower route to the same place — the same destination, taking longer. Black is the actual price, so you can see how we are doing.