DOW INC.

DOW · Materials · $21.4B mkt cap · FY2025 filings · No moat ·

Price verdict withheld — owner-earnings floor unreliable

No moat
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The five investor questions

Revenue & EPS trend15

2021–2025 (latest 5 aligned FYs; v3 window cap 5): revenue $55.0B to $40.0B, decreasing; diluted EPS 8.38 to -3.70, decreasing.

Pricing power1

Median gross margin 14.7% over 9y, variable.

Returns on capital

Not enough years of ROIC data to score returns on capital.

Balance-sheet safety0

Net debt/EBITDA 12.0x, interest coverage -2x.

Capital discipline51

Owner earnings trend unclear, share count shrinking (buybacks).

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. conservative owner-earnings floor

A cautious baseline, not a price target: what the shares may support if normalized owner earnings simply hold steady.

Above owner-earnings floorBelow owner-earnings floor
60% above owner-earnings floor
Owner earnings (normalized)
$1.2B
Owner-earnings floor / share
$18.60
Capped-growth comparison / share
$18.60
Recent price
$29.84
Price vs. owner-earnings floor
60% above owner-earnings floor

What today’s price assumes: owner earnings growing ~10%/yr over 5 years. The floor 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 floor equal today’s price. This keeps the existing model inputs and calculation unchanged; it is an expectations lens, not a forecast.

This floor assumes trailing owner earnings persist — unreliable for declining businesses. DOW revenue fell in each of the three most recent year-over-year FY comparisons, so this floor is flagged as unreliable for this company.

Cohort context: median current price is 239% above the floor across 48 of the current top 50 companies by Moat Score with both values.

Score records captured Jul 26, 2026.

Exactly which 50 companies?

FTNT, META, MEDP, IBEX, MSFT, GOOGL, LULU, ANF, IDXX, TXRH, FHI, QLYS, FFIV, ADBE, LLY, MANH, VEEV, GRMN, SSD, MNST, DOCS, MCO, CPRT, NTAP, LRCX, NVDA, CORT, SFM, MPTI, ULTA, SN, RMD, ROL, PAYC, IRMD, INTU, DECK, MORN, LGCY, DAL, GWW, ISRG, MPWR, CTAS, LOPE, MRK, CMG, FAST, BKNG, ORLY

Missing a usable price or floor: ANF, BKNG.

Model details under moat-index@3.0.0: zero-growth floor 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.

10 years of fundamentals

The business, in plain English

DOW INC. booked $40.0B of revenue in FY2025 in the Materials sector and kept 6.3% of it as gross profit — a thin-margin business by that measure. After every other cost, −6.1% of each revenue dollar reached the bottom line.

Across the filed record, revenue shrank from $43.7B (FY2017) to $40.0B (FY2025) — about −1.1% a year compounded over 8 years.

The balance sheet carried $18.1B of total debt in FY2025. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 0/100.

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.

FY2016–FY2025 · 10 fiscal years, normalized from DOW’s SEC filings

RevenueSales, as filed$40.0B FY2025
$0$25B$50B2016201920222025
Gross marginRevenue kept after cost of goods6.3% FY2025
0%10%20%2016201920222025
Return on invested capitalOperating profit on the capital employed

Not disclosed in DOW’s filings for these years — we don’t estimate it.

Owner earningsCash an owner could take out−$2.1B FY2025
$0$5B2016201920222025

Gaps in a line mean that item isn’t in DOW’s 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.

Moat Score history

16 logged readings since Jul 17, 2026 · append-only, never rewritten

Moat Score over timeLast scored reading of each day, on the 0–100 scale16.6 / 100
0406080100WideNarrowShallowNo moatJul 26, 2026

Score history begins Jul 26, 2026 — the record builds from here and can’t be backfilled.

Tier changesSame-methodology crossings of the Wide / Narrow / Shallow bars

  1. Normalizer upgraded unstamped (version unknown)tomoat-xbrl-normalizer@1.1.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 26, 2026
  2. Methodology upgraded moat-index@2.0.0tomoat-index@3.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 23, 2026
  3. 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 can’t be backfilled, which is exactly why it’s worth keeping.

Track record

How DOW INC.’s moat rated in each of the years we can reconstruct from its filings — scored only on what was knowable at the time — and what its price and returns did afterward. The score never saw a price; the two are joined only in hindsight, for education, not as a signal.

As-of scores 20192025, one methodology version · reconstructed from filings on file each Dec 31 — never with hindsight

As-of Moat Score (dot colored by tier)Indexed price (total-return (dividends reinvested))Rated Wide-moat that year

How to read this: each dot is what the engine would have scored DOW on that December 31; the line below is its total-return price path (dividends reinvested) in the years since.

0406080100WideNarrowShallowNo moatAs-of Moat Score100Indexed price · log scale 2019202020212022202320242025

Two tracks, one timeline: the score has its own 0–100 scale (top), the price its own 100-based scale (bottom) — never a shared axis. The indexed price path isn't available for this company yet; gaps in the score line are years with no reconstructed rating (see the table for why). The Table view carries every value.

What followed, in the years it rated Wide

In the reconstructed history shown, DOW did not rate Wide-moat in any year, so there is no wide-moat track record to report. That absence is itself the honest answer — we don’t manufacture a comparison where the rating never earned one.

Materials context

#298 of 309 scored Materials companies, ranked by Moat Score.

Nearest peers by Moat Score

  1. #296CMP Compass Minerals International, Inc.17.7 out of 100, No moatNo moat
  2. #297LXU LSB INDUSTRIES, INC.17.2 out of 100, No moatNo moat
  3. #299MDU MDU RESOURCES GROUP, INC.16.5 out of 100, No moatNo moat
  4. #300OLN OLIN Corp15.6 out of 100, No moatNo moat

Compare DOW with its nearest peersAll Materials companies on the Index →

Common questions about DOW

Does DOW INC. have an economic moat?
Based on its FY2025 SEC filings, the Moat Index scores DOW INC. (DOW) 16.6 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 15, pricing power 1, returns on capital not measurable from the filings, balance-sheet safety 0, capital discipline 51.
Is DOW trading below the conservative owner-earnings estimate?
The conservative owner-earnings floor is $18.60 per share. It capitalizes normalized owner earnings at a 9% rate and assumes 0% growth. Versus a recent price of $29.84, that is 60% above owner-earnings floor. The model also publishes a capped-growth comparison, but the floor 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 DOW's Moat Score changed over time?
The record logs 16 readings since Jul 17, 2026; the latest reads 16.6 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.
DOW Moat Score 16.6 — FY2025 | Buy Like Buffett