Archer-Daniels-Midland Co
ADM · Consumer Staples · $38.2B mkt cap · FY2025 filings · · not refreshed in 9 days · No moat ·
Doesn't clear the bar
The five investor questions
2021–2025 (latest 5 aligned FYs; v3 window cap 5): revenue $85.2B to $25.0B, decreasing; diluted EPS 4.79 to 2.23, decreasing.
Median gross margin 7.0% over 10y, variable.
Not enough years of ROIC data to score returns on capital.
Net debt/EBITDA 2.4x, interest coverage 3x.
Owner earnings changed -2.0%/yr over up to the ten most recent annual observations.
The returnsOnCapital component abstained: Not enough years of ROIC data to score returns on capital. The other four 20% weights were renormalized over the scored 80%.
Price vs. value if growth stopped today
A cautious baseline, not a price target: what the shares may support if normalized owner earnings simply hold steady.
- $2.7B
- $62.55
- $62.55
- $79.40
- 27% above value if growth stopped today
What today’s price assumes: owner earnings growing ~5%/yr over 5 years. The zero-growth estimate assumes owner earnings stay flat (0% growth).
How to read this
We solve for the constant annual change in owner earnings that would make the five-year zero-growth estimate equal today’s price. This keeps the existing model inputs and calculation unchanged; it is an expectations lens, not a forecast.
This zero-growth estimate assumes trailing owner earnings persist — unreliable for declining businesses. The recent FY revenue series does not trigger the three-consecutive-declines flag.
Among the current top-score group, the median current price is 216% above the zero-growth estimate across 49 of the current top 50 companies by Moat Score with both values.
Score records captured Sep 29, 2026 through Sep 30, 2026.
Exactly which 50 companies?
FTNT, IBEX, META, MEDP, MSFT, GOOG, LULU, ANF, IDXX, TXRH, FHI, QLYS, FFIV, ADBE, LLY, MANH, CPRT, VEEV, RMD, GRMN, PCTY, EAT, UI, SSD, MNST, DOCS, LRCX, MCO, NTAP, NVDA, CORT, SFM, MPTI, ULTA, SN, ROL, CTAS, PAYC, IRMD, DECK, MORN, INTU, JKHY, TPR, LGCY, DAL, GWW, ISRG, MPWR, LOPE
Missing a usable price or zero-growth estimate: ANF.
Model details under moat-index@3.0.0: zero-growth multiple 11.1×, capped-growth comparison at no more than 18×; 9% discount rate; high-end growth 0% (capped at 4%) using min(5y revenue CAGR, 5y diluted-EPS CAGR), clamped to 0%–4%; maintenance capex uses min(capex, D&A); abstain when D&A is unavailable. This is a disclosed model range, not intrinsic value as fact.
19 years of fundamentals
The business, in plain English
Archer-Daniels-Midland Co booked $25.0B of revenue in FY2025 in the Consumer Staples sector and kept 20.2% of it as gross profit — a moderate-margin business by that measure. After every other cost, 4.3% of each revenue dollar reached the bottom line.
Across the filed record, revenue shrank from $69.8B (FY2008) to $25.0B (FY2025) — about −5.9% a year compounded over 17 years.
The balance sheet carried $8.4B of total debt in FY2025 against $1.1B of owner earnings — roughly 7.8 years of owner earnings to retire it all. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 24/100.
This breakdown is generated from the filed numbers and sub-scores above — no outside narrative, no estimates. Where a filing doesn’t disclose an input, the sentence that would need it is omitted instead of guessed.
Exact FY and FY-1 financing invested-capital inputs are required.. Current-year EBIT, tax expense, and non-zero pretax income are required for standard ROIC.
Exact FY and FY-1 financing invested-capital inputs are required.. Current-year EBIT, tax expense, and non-zero pretax income are required for standard ROIC.
The explained ROIC gaps have filed inputs but no meaningful positive invested-capital denominator. Other gaps mean the item is not in the filings for that year. The series is never interpolated or estimated. The Table view lists every filed value, including operating and net margins, total debt, and share count.
Visual explainers
The filing-backed explainer service is temporarily unavailable, so no partial or guessed chart is shown.
Moat Score history
Tier changesSame-methodology and same-normalizer crossings of the Wide / Narrow / Shallow bars
- Normalizer upgraded unstamped (version unknown)tomoat-xbrl-normalizer@1.1.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 26, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@2.0.0tomoat-index@3.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 23, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@1.2.0tomoat-index@2.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 20, 2026
Scores are logged append-only and never overwritten — this record cannot be reconstructed retroactively, which is exactly why it’s worth keeping.
Insider activity
Form 4 reports mix P/S market or private transactions with compensation-plan mechanics. Activity casually described as “insider selling” can include compensation mechanics; awards, tax withholding, and option exercises are shown by their exact filed class here, never collapsed into “Bought” or “Sold.”
These are disclosed filing facts and arithmetic aggregates, not a signal or verdict.
The insider-filing service is temporarily unavailable, so no partial or guessed answer is shown for ADM.
Consumer Staples context
#78 of 85 scored Consumer Staples companies, ranked by Moat Score.
Nearest peers by Moat Score
- #76SENEA Seneca Foods Corp21.5 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #77FLO FLOWERS FOODS INC21.3 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #79RMCF Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Inc.21.1 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #80MDWK MDwerks, Inc.20.3 out of 100, No moatNo moat
Compare ADM with its nearest peers →All Consumer Staples companies on the Index →
Common questions about ADM
- Does Archer-Daniels-Midland Co have an economic moat?
- Based on its FY2025 SEC filings, the Moat Index scores Archer-Daniels-Midland Co (ADM) 21.2 out of 100 — below the Shallow-moat bar, so no moat. The five questions behind that score begin at 20% each; if exactly one genuinely lacks data, the other four weights are renormalized and disclosed. revenue and EPS trend 10, pricing power 0, returns on capital not measurable from the filings, balance-sheet safety 24, capital allocation 50.
- Is ADM trading below the conservative owner-earnings estimate?
- The value if growth stopped today — a zero-growth baseline — is $62.55 per share. It capitalizes normalized owner earnings at a 9% rate and assumes 0% growth. Versus a recent price of $79.40, that is 27% above value if growth stopped today. The model also publishes a capped-growth comparison, but the zero-growth estimate is the cautious baseline. It assumes trailing owner earnings persist and is unreliable for declining businesses. This is an educational estimate from primary SEC filings, not intrinsic value as a fact or investment advice.
- How has ADM's Moat Score changed over time?
- The record logs 21 readings since Jul 17, 2026; the latest reads 21.2 out of 100 (no moat). No tier changes on record yet. (Methodology or normalizer upgrades on Jul 20, 2026, Jul 23, 2026, Jul 26, 2026 re-based the score; readings across versions aren't compared.) The history is append-only — readings are only ever added, never rewritten.