First Solar, Inc.
FSLR · Technology · $21.8B mkt cap · FY2025 filings · · not refreshed in 35 days · Shallow moat ·
Doesn't clear the bar
The five investor questions
2021–2025 (latest 5 aligned FYs; v3 window cap 5): revenue $2.9B to $5.2B, increasing; diluted EPS 4.38 to 14.21, increasing.
Median gross margin 23.5% over 10y, variable.
Median ROIC 5.3%, above the 12% hurdle in 30% of years.
Net cash position — no leverage risk.
Owner earnings changed trend unclear over up to the ten most recent annual observations.
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.
- $831M
- $86.02
- $139.35
- $202.82
- 136% above value if growth stopped today
What today’s price assumes: owner earnings growing ~19%/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 239% above the zero-growth estimate 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 zero-growth estimate: ANF, BKNG.
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 4% (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.
20 years of fundamentals
The business, in plain English
First Solar, Inc. booked $5.2B of revenue in FY2025 in the Technology sector and kept 40.6% of it as gross profit — a solid-margin business by that measure. After every other cost, 29.3% of each revenue dollar reached the bottom line.
Across the filed record, revenue grew from $504M (FY2007) to $5.2B (FY2025) — about 13.9% a year compounded over 18 years.
It earned 21.3% on invested capital in the latest filed year, FY2025. Across the full 19-year measurable filed record, median ROIC was 10.1%. Over the v3 recent window (10 measurable filed years), median ROIC was 5.3%. The Returns on Capital filter above scores it 12/100.
The balance sheet carried $499M of total debt in FY2025 against $1.5B of owner earnings — roughly 0.3 years of owner earnings to retire it all. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 100/100.
Put together: Balance-Sheet Safety is the strongest of the five filters (100/100) and Returns on Capital the weakest (12/100), which is how FSLR lands at 51/100 — a Shallow moat.
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.
Gaps in a line mean that item isn’t in FSLR’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.
Visual explainers
The filing-backed explainer service is temporarily unavailable, so no partial or guessed chart is shown.
Moat Score history
Breaks in the line mark methodology or normalizer upgrades — readings across versions aren’t compared, so a level shift there isn’t a change in the business.
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.
This machine-readable surface covers SEC ownership filings from 2003; it does not represent earlier paper-era records.
Records still being gathered — partial as of retrieval Aug 30, 2026.
Trailing-12-month totals and the 90-day cluster result are withheld because this issuer walk is incomplete.
| Insider | Shares owned after | Date | Filing detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sloan Samantha L.EVP, Corporate Affairs | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 127 | $222.95 | $28,315 | 2,018 | Aug 17, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Sloan Samantha L.EVP, Corporate Affairs | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table I · Acquired · Common Stock · 1 paired event | 437 | —Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M) | — | 2,145 | Aug 14, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Sloan Samantha L.EVP, Corporate Affairs | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table II · Disposed · Restricted Stock Units · 1 paired event | 437 | —Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M) | — | 1,314 | Aug 14, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Dymbort Jason E.General Counsel and Secretary | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 3,700 | $249.38 | $922,706 | 5,624 | Aug 11, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Gloeckler MarkusChief Technology Officer | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 829 | $248.00 | $205,592 | 6,642 | Aug 4, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Ahearn Michael JDirector | Gift (G)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 44,584 | Not disclosed | Not disclosed | 66,057 | Aug 4, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Gloeckler MarkusChief Technology Officer | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 3,425 | $218.9496 | $749,903 | See lot detail | Aug 3, 2026 | 2 filed lots
|
| Koralewski MichaelChief Supply Chain Officer | Open-market or private sale (S)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 7,000 | $221.51 | $1,550,570 | See lot detail | Aug 3, 2026 | 2 filed lots
|
Source-event as of . Retrieved .
Track record
How First Solar, 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.
How to read this: each dot is what the engine would have scored FSLR on that December 31; the line below is its total-return price path (dividends reinvested) in the years since.
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 price path is a total-return (dividends reinvested) index built from the same data the forward returns use; 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 1 year FSLR rated Wide-moat (2011), the median forward total return that followed — measured only after each year’s filings were public — was:
- 1 year −11% vs the S&P 500’s 15% (price basis) · median over 1 year
- 3 years 24% vs the S&P 500’s 61% (price basis) · median over 1 year
- 5 years −6% vs the S&P 500’s 77% (price basis) · median over 1 year
These are medians computed from the data, not a claim about any one year. The company figures are total returns (dividends reinvested); the S&P 500 is the price-only ^GSPC index, which excludes dividends and so understates the index — the gap flatters the company. A quality rating is not a return forecast, and past returns don’t predict future ones. Educational only, not investment advice.
Technology context
#285 of 744 scored Technology companies, ranked by Moat Score.
Nearest peers by Moat Score
- #283UPBD Upbound Group, Inc50.6 out of 100, Shallow moatShallow moat
- #284COUR COURSERA, INC.50.6 out of 100, Shallow moatShallow moat
- #286ENR ENERGIZER HOLDINGS, INC.50.5 out of 100, Shallow moatShallow moat
- #287AITX ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS INC.50.4 out of 100, Shallow moatShallow moat
Compare FSLR with its nearest peers →All Technology companies on the Index →
Common questions about FSLR
- Does First Solar, Inc. have an economic moat?
- Based on its FY2025 SEC filings, the Moat Index scores First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) 50.5 out of 100 — a Shallow 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 90, pricing power 13, returns on capital 12, balance-sheet safety 100, capital allocation 38.
- Is FSLR trading below the conservative owner-earnings estimate?
- The value if growth stopped today — a zero-growth baseline — is $86.02 per share. It capitalizes normalized owner earnings at a 9% rate and assumes 0% growth. Versus a recent price of $202.82, that is 136% 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 FSLR's Moat Score changed over time?
- The record logs 16 readings since Jul 17, 2026; the latest reads 50.5 out of 100 (shallow 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.