Waters (WAT) Stock Forecast & Price Target
WAT$479.37+2.49 +0.52%
$47.07B
Market Cap
118.63
P/E
32.89
Forward P/E
30
Score
Waters (WAT) Stock Forecast & Price Target
WAT price $479.37 +2.49 +0.52%
- Ticker
- WAT
- Price
- $479.37
- Change
- +2.49 +0.52%
- Market cap ?
- $47.07B
- P/E ?
- 118.63
- Forward P/E ?
- 32.89
- Dividend yield ?
- 0.00%
- Beta ?
- 1.15
- Sector
- Healthcare
- Industry
- Medical - Diagnostics & Research
- Stocklytics score
- 30
- Value
- 10
- Quality
- 42
- Growth
- 39
Stocklytics score rationale: value 10, quality 42, growth 39.
Financials
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2167423000 | 2309078000 | 2419929000 | 2406596000 | 2365365000 | 2785874000 | 2971956000 | 2956416000 | 2958387000 | 3165286000 |
Waters Corporation is a global leader in specialized measurement, delivering analytical solutions across Asia, the Americas, and Europe. The company operates through two main divisions: Waters and TA. Under its Waters segment, it engineers, manufactures, sells, and provides support for high and ultra-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (MS) systems. This includes essential consumables like…
Fair value
WAT fair value $302.12. Price $479.37. Price is 59% above fair value.
Above fair value, and more expensive than usual. A larger premium than on more than 99% of days in the past 5 years.
Fair value is an estimate of what one share is worth if future cash flows arrive as modeled. It is not a forecast of the share price. How discounted cash flow works.
Calculated with a 10-year free-cash-flow discount. Starting free cash flow 533.88M. Growth 10.01%. When analyst earnings forecasts are available, free cash flow in those years is forecast earnings times the company's usual conversion of earnings into free cash flow, kept between 60% and 130%. Years with fewer than 3 analyst estimates are left out. Growth then fades in a straight line to terminal growth by year 10, starting from the last well-covered year's growth, or from the pace across those years when the final year slows sharply, kept between 0% and 20%. Without those forecasts, year-1 growth is analyst revenue growth for the next full fiscal year, or 5-year historical revenue growth when that forecast is missing, held for five years, then fading in a straight line to terminal growth by year 10. Terminal growth 3.00%. Discount rate 10.62% (beta 1.1). Beta is kept between 0.8 and 2.0, which on its own would make the discount rate 8.7% to 15.3%. The rate is then capped at 12%. A cap is used because a discount above 12% pushes higher-beta stocks further from the price. The discount rate stays at least 5 percentage points above terminal growth. Shares 98.19M. Net debt 903.25M. The earnings value is next-12-months earnings per share, or trailing earnings when that forecast is missing, times the median P/E of the company's industry. That median uses listed stocks worth at least $10 billion with a positive P/E of 100 or below, and the industry needs at least eight of them. Otherwise the sector median is used when that group also has at least eight, then the market median of those large companies. The multiple used is the lower of that median and 1.25 times the stock's own 10-year median P/E, then kept between 8 and 30. If the stock has no 10-year median, the peer median is kept between 8 and 30. Fair value is the average of the cash-flow value and the earnings value when both exist. Card and credit companies use the earnings value only, because changes in customer receivables distort free cash flow. Model uncertainty is high when fair value is more than 60% from the price, or when most of the cash-flow value sits after year 10.
Earnings
| Date | EPS actual | EPS estimate | Revenue | Revenue estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-03 | — | 4.00 | — | 1.75B |
| 2026-08-04 | 3.05 | 3.01 | 1.65B | 1.62B |
| 2026-05-05 | 2.70 | 2.31 | 1.27B | 1.20B |
| 2026-02-09 | 4.53 | 4.51 | 932.36M | 928.34M |
| 2025-11-04 | 3.40 | 3.21 | 799.89M | 781.01M |
| 2025-08-04 | 2.95 | 2.94 | 771.33M | 748.66M |
| 2025-05-06 | 2.25 | 2.22 | 661.71M | 654.81M |
| 2025-02-12 | 4.10 | 4.03 | 872.71M | 857.06M |
| 2024-11-01 | 2.93 | 2.68 | 740.30M | 712.99M |
| 2024-07-31 | 2.63 | 2.56 | 708.53M | 700.09M |
| 2024-05-07 | 2.21 | 2.10 | 636.84M | 635.57M |
| 2024-02-06 | 3.62 | 3.55 | 819.47M | 815.03M |
| 2023-11-07 | 2.84 | 2.55 | 711.69M | 724.08M |
| 2023-08-02 | 2.80 | 2.59 | 740.58M | 734.45M |
| 2023-05-09 | 2.49 | 2.61 | 684.67M | 697.92M |
| 2023-02-15 | 3.84 | 3.73 | 858.51M | 833.19M |
| 2022-11-01 | 2.64 | 2.57 | 708.55M | 680.06M |
| 2022-08-02 | 2.75 | 2.66 | 714.32M | 707.55M |
| 2022-05-03 | 2.80 | 2.32 | 690.57M | 634.14M |
| 2022-02-01 | 3.67 | 3.47 | 836.45M | 820.83M |
| 2021-11-02 | 2.66 | 2.35 | 659.23M | 653.74M |
| 2021-08-03 | 2.60 | 2.25 | 681.65M | 681.65M |
| 2021-05-05 | 2.29 | 1.57 | 608.54M | 522.58M |
| 2021-02-02 | 3.65 | 2.89 | 786.66M | 579.79M |
| 2020-10-27 | 2.16 | 1.93 | 593.78M | 530.56M |
| 2020-07-28 | 2.10 | 1.54 | 519.98M | 381.32M |
| 2020-04-28 | 1.15 | 1.42 | 464.94M | 594.31M |
| 2020-02-04 | 3.20 | 3.01 | 716.29M | 673.76M |
| 2019-10-29 | 2.13 | 2.13 | 577.28M | 577.28M |
| 2019-07-30 | 2.14 | 2.11 | 599.16M | 590.76M |
| 2019-04-23 | 1.60 | 1.72 | 513.86M | 552.40M |
| 2019-01-23 | 2.87 | 2.64 | 715.02M | 657.72M |
| 2018-10-23 | 1.92 | 1.90 | 578.02M | 571.98M |
| 2018-07-24 | 1.95 | 1.92 | 596.22M | 587.03M |
| 2018-04-24 | 1.59 | 1.55 | 530.67M | 517.35M |
| 2018-01-23 | 2.51 | 2.44 | 687.27M | 668.13M |
| 2017-10-24 | 1.77 | 1.74 | 565.58M | 556.01M |
| 2017-07-25 | 1.76 | 1.71 | 558.25M | 542.44M |
| 2017-04-25 | 1.46 | 1.33 | 497.97M | 453.66M |
| 2017-01-24 | 2.21 | 2.13 | 628.79M | 606.04M |
Dividends
Yield 0.00%. Payout ratio 0.00%. Frequency Irregular.
Safety score 43/100 · Watch. Payout ratio is 0% of earnings. Free-cash-flow coverage is not available, so this part stays neutral. Dividend history is short. There is no dividend yield.
| Ex-date | Dividend | Record | Payment | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996-11-26 | $0.04 | — | — | Irregular |
Insider trades
| Date | Insider | Action | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-30 | Knight Heather | Buy | 57 | — | — |
| 2026-09-30 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 57 | — | — |
| 2026-08-21 | Wu Tong (NMN) | Other | 0 | — | — |
| 2026-08-06 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Buy | 3.63K | $136.43 | 494.70K |
| 2026-08-06 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Sell | 3.63K | $397.94 | 1.44M |
| 2026-08-06 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Sell | 3.63K | $136.43 | 494.70K |
| 2026-06-30 | Knight Heather | Buy | 63 | — | — |
| 2026-06-30 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 67 | — | — |
| 2026-06-24 | Carpio Robert L III | Sell | 189 | $369.18 | 69.78K |
| 2026-05-12 | Chaubal Amol | Sell | 239 | $352.21 | 84.18K |
| 2026-04-06 | Bennett Jianqing | Sell | 302 | $304.09 | 91.84K |
| 2026-03-31 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 64 | — | — |
| 2026-03-31 | Knight Heather | Buy | 68 | — | — |
| 2026-03-16 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 500 | $289.46 | 144.73K |
| 2026-03-06 | FEARON RICHARD H | Buy | 1.00K | $306.34 | 306.34K |
| 2026-03-02 | Batra Udit | Sell | 3.42K | $307.23 | 1.05M |
| 2026-03-02 | Chaubal Amol | Sell | 709 | $307.23 | 217.83K |
| 2026-03-02 | Bennett Jianqing | Sell | 410 | $307.23 | 125.96K |
| 2026-02-25 | Carpio Robert L III | Buy | 4.88K | $319.44 | 1.56M |
| 2026-02-25 | Carpio Robert L III | Buy | 997 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Bennett Jianqing | Buy | 986 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Bennett Jianqing | Buy | 4.83K | $319.44 | 1.54M |
| 2026-02-25 | Chaubal Amol | Buy | 1.46K | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Chaubal Amol | Buy | 7.12K | $319.44 | 2.28M |
| 2026-02-25 | Batra Udit | Buy | 5.17K | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Batra Udit | Buy | 25.28K | $319.44 | 8.08M |
| 2026-02-25 | Vergnano Mark | Buy | 23 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Vergnano Mark | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-25 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Buy | 23 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-25 | Knight Heather | Buy | 23 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Knight Heather | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-25 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 23 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-25 | Huang Pearl S | Buy | 23 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Huang Pearl S | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-25 | Fraser Claire | Buy | 877 | $319.44 | 280.15K |
| 2026-02-25 | Fraser Claire | Buy | 358 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | FEARON RICHARD H | Buy | 23 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | FEARON RICHARD H | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-25 | Brennan Daniel J. | Buy | 23 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Brennan Daniel J. | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-25 | BADDOUR LINDA | Buy | 23 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | BADDOUR LINDA | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-25 | Ornskov Flemming | Buy | 336 | — | — |
| 2026-02-25 | Ornskov Flemming | Buy | 57 | $319.44 | 18.21K |
| 2026-02-09 | Fraser Claire | Other | 0 | — | — |
| 2026-02-05 | Carpio Robert L III | Sell | 38 | $376.89 | 14.32K |
| 2026-02-05 | Bennett Jianqing | Sell | 43 | $376.89 | 16.21K |
| 2026-02-05 | Chaubal Amol | Sell | 58 | $376.89 | 21.86K |
| 2026-02-05 | Batra Udit | Sell | 218 | $376.89 | 82.16K |
| 2026-02-04 | Bennett Jianqing | Buy | 1.39K | — | — |
| 2026-02-04 | Chaubal Amol | Buy | 1.88K | — | — |
| 2026-02-04 | Batra Udit | Buy | 7.07K | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | Vergnano Mark | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | Vergnano Mark | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2026-01-02 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2026-01-02 | Huang Pearl S | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | Huang Pearl S | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2026-01-02 | FEARON RICHARD H | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | FEARON RICHARD H | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2026-01-02 | Brennan Daniel J. | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | Brennan Daniel J. | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2026-01-02 | BADDOUR LINDA | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | BADDOUR LINDA | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2026-01-02 | Ornskov Flemming | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | Ornskov Flemming | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2026-01-02 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2026-01-02 | Knight Heather | Buy | 307 | — | — |
| 2026-01-02 | Knight Heather | Buy | 828 | $381.96 | 316.26K |
| 2025-12-31 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 60 | — | — |
| 2025-12-31 | Knight Heather | Buy | 60 | — | — |
| 2025-11-05 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Buy | 3.76K | $130.35 | 490.25K |
| 2025-11-05 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Sell | 1.32K | $371.97 | 490.26K |
| 2025-11-05 | KUEBLER CHRISTOPHER A | Sell | 3.76K | $130.35 | 490.25K |
| 2025-09-30 | Knight Heather | Buy | 78 | — | — |
| 2025-09-30 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 73 | — | — |
| 2025-06-30 | Knight Heather | Buy | 68 | — | — |
| 2025-06-30 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 68 | — | — |
| 2025-06-24 | Carpio Robert L III | Sell | 134 | $346.80 | 46.47K |
| 2025-05-12 | Chaubal Amol | Sell | 239 | $366.67 | 87.63K |
| 2025-04-07 | Bennett Jianqing | Sell | 303 | $325.80 | 98.72K |
| 2025-03-31 | Jiang Wei | Buy | 53 | — | — |
| 2025-03-31 | Knight Heather | Buy | 53 | — | — |
| 2025-03-01 | Bennett Jianqing | Sell | 786 | $371.79 | 292.23K |
| 2025-03-01 | Chaubal Amol | Sell | 1.08K | $371.79 | 400.05K |
| 2025-03-01 | Batra Udit | Sell | 4.98K | $371.79 | 1.85M |
| 2025-02-05 | Batra Udit | Buy | 3.62K | — | — |
| 2025-02-05 | Batra Udit | Buy | 11.35K | — | — |
| 2025-02-05 | Batra Udit | Buy | 18.64K | $414.09 | 7.72M |
| 2025-02-05 | Chaubal Amol | Buy | 833 | — | — |
| 2025-02-05 | Chaubal Amol | Buy | 3.32K | — | — |
| 2025-02-05 | Chaubal Amol | Buy | 4.29K | $414.09 | 1.78M |
| 2025-02-05 | Bennett Jianqing | Buy | 615 | — | — |
| 2025-02-05 | Bennett Jianqing | Buy | 2.62K | — | — |
| 2025-02-05 | Bennett Jianqing | Buy | 3.17K | $414.09 | 1.31M |
| 2025-02-05 | Carpio Robert L III | Buy | 2.80K | $414.09 | 1.16M |
| 2025-02-05 | Carpio Robert L III | Buy | 543 | — | — |
Institutional holders
Latest filed quarter: Q2 2026.
Institutions holding: 1.20K, holders +9 vs prior quarter. Ownership 120.28%.
| Holder | Shares | Change | Change % | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BLACKROCK, INC. | 8.48M | -58.08K | -0.68% | 3.18B |
| MASSACHUSETTS FINANCIAL SERVICES CO /MA/ | 4.63M | -5.08K | -0.11% | 2.53B |
| VANGUARD CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC | 6.42M | 36.78K | +0.58% | 2.41B |
| VANGUARD PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT LLC | 4.74M | -13.66K | -0.29% | 1.78B |
| STATE STREET CORP | 4.38M | 20.00K | +0.46% | 1.64B |
| T. ROWE PRICE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, INC. | 3.82M | -846.10K | -18.14% | 1.43B |
| INVESCO LTD. | 3.49M | 1.33M | +61.15% | 1.31B |
| GEODE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC | 2.64M | -10.31K | -0.39% | 984.75M |
| FUNDSMITH LLP | 2.27M | -938.44K | -29.22% | 852.70M |
| PRICE T ROWE ASSOCIATES INC /MD/ | 2.18M | 1.05M | +93.76% | 816.82M |
| ALLIANCEBERNSTEIN L.P. | 2.69M | 577.85K | +27.30% | 802.45M |
| JPMORGAN CHASE & CO | 2.16M | 184.74K | +9.36% | 796.17M |
| JUPITER TOPCO LLC | 1.66M | 1.66M | New | 623.92M |
| VIKING GLOBAL INVESTORS LP | 1.66M | 405.68K | +32.29% | 623.37M |
| WELLINGTON MANAGEMENT GROUP LLP | 1.37M | 561.82K | +69.25% | 514.99M |
| FIRST EAGLE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, LLC | 1.34M | -240.08K | -15.24% | 500.72M |
| SCHRODER INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT GROUP | 1.26M | 948.02K | +299.81% | 474.14M |
| MAWER INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LTD. | 1.22M | -186.68K | -13.30% | 456.40M |
| PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP INC | 1.11M | 94.80K | +9.30% | 417.84M |
| MORGAN STANLEY | 1.10M | -124.61K | -10.20% | 411.53M |
| NORTHERN TRUST CORP | 1.03M | -9.67K | -0.93% | 387.31M |
| D. E. SHAW & CO., INC. | 948.64K | -76.60K | -7.47% | 355.78M |
| FMR LLC | 924.74K | 421.93K | +83.91% | 346.82M |
| MILLENNIUM MANAGEMENT LLC | 894.66K | 709.49K | +383.16% | 335.53M |
| VERITAS ASSET MANAGEMENT LLP | 851.62K | -349.19K | -29.08% | 319.39M |
Forecast
Consensus Buy from 25 analysts. Average price target $453.50, -5.4% versus the current price. Low $387.00. High $515.00.
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