Waters (WAT)
Forward P/E is 30.89x against a peer median of 30.58x, a ratio of 1.01x — inside the 0.90–1.15 fairly priced band, essentially at the peer median — with trailing P/E 216.79x and PEG 2.41. Latest-quarter revenue grew 105.7% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), far above the group pace, but the ratio is not at or below 0.95 and the PEG is not at or below 1.2, so the conditions for a move to UNDERVALUED are not met. Delivered demand check: the Life sciences tools & services group's median growth was 8.1% year over year — demand rising, and this company's reported growth was far above that pace.
What would change this label: Move to UNDERVALUED if the forward P/E compresses to about 27.5x or below (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates, with revenue growth staying above the group pace and the PEG falling to about 1.2 or below. Move to OVERVALUED if the forward P/E rises above about 35.2x (1.15x the peer median), or if revenue growth falls below the group pace while the multiple stays above 31x.
Waters sells laboratory instruments that test liquids and chemicals for drug makers and other industries. Its shares cost about the same, for each dollar of expected earnings, as similar companies. With sales reported up sharply in the latest quarter but the price already matching peers, the shares look fairly priced.
Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Waters returned +120.99% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Waters: -44.3% (2021-09-08 to 2023-10-30). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.
What the label rests on
Forward P/E is 30.89x against a peer median of 30.58x, a ratio of 1.01x — inside the 0.90–1.15 fairly priced band, essentially at the peer median — with trailing P/E 216.79x and PEG 2.41. Latest-quarter revenue grew 105.7% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), far above the group pace, but the ratio is not at or below 0.95 and the PEG is not at or below 1.2, so the conditions for a move to UNDERVALUED are not met. Delivered demand check: the Life sciences tools & services group's median growth was 8.1% year over year — demand rising, and this company's reported growth was far above that pace. The company’s forward P/E is 30.9× against a peer median of 30.6×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Life sciences tools & services group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 8.1% year over year (SEC filings) — demand rising. This company's reported latest-quarter growth was 105.7%, far above that pace. Latest-quarter sales growth was +105.7% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).
| Company | Price (Oct 28, 2026) | Forward P/E | Trailing P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Waters (WAT) | $480.15 | 30.9× | 216.8× |
| IQV | — | 20.2× | 34.0× |
| ILMN | — | 51.0× | 54.1× |
| A | — | 27.8× | 36.0× |
| MTD | — | 34.9× | 38.6× |
| CRL | — | 30.6× | — |
| Peer median | 30.6× |
Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.
Sales, profit and cash
This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.
Free cash flow = cash from operations minus spending on plant and equipment, both from the company’s SEC cash-flow statement. Gaps are quarters where that spending line is not separately tagged in the filings — shown as gaps, never estimated.
| Quarter | Sales | Gross margin | Net income | EPS (GAAP, diluted) | Free cash flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q/E Jul 2026 2026-07-04 | $1.6B | — | $-136M | -1.39 | $153M |
| Q/E Apr 2026 2026-04-04 | $1.3B | — | $-72M | -0.87 | $-42M |
| Q/E Dec 2025 2025-12-31 | $932M | — | $225M | 3.77 | — |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-30 | $800M | — | $149M | 2.50 | — |
| Q/E Sep 2025 2025-09-27 | $800M | — | $149M | 2.50 | — |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-30 | $771M | — | $147M | 2.47 | — |
| Q/E Jun 2025 2025-06-28 | $771M | — | $147M | 2.47 | $18M |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-31 | $662M | — | $121M | 2.03 | — |
| Q/E Mar 2025 2025-03-29 | $662M | — | $121M | 2.03 | $234M |
| Q/E Dec 2024 2024-12-31 | $873M | — | $231M | 3.88 | — |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-30 | $740M | — | $162M | 2.71 | — |
| Q/E Sep 2024 2024-09-28 | $740M | — | $162M | 2.71 | — |
The last twelve reported quarters. Full 39-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.
Earnings: getting better or worse?
Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.
Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
Key facts
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Company (legal name in filings) | WATERS CORP /DE/ |
| Chief executive | Udit Batra (source: https://www.waters.com/nextgen/tw/zh/about-waters/executive-team.html) |
| Sector | Health Care — Life Sciences Tools & Services — sells laboratory instruments that separate and identify chemicals in liquids |
| Share price (Oct 28, 2026) | $480.15 |
| Market value (market cap) | $46.0B — share price times shares outstanding of 98,248,111 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest)) |
| Sales, last twelve months | $4.6B |
| Net income, last twelve months | $166M |
| Free cash flow, last twelve months | — |
| Latest reported quarter | Q/E Jul 2026 (of 39 quarters in the data pack) |
| Six-year price return vs S&P 500 | +120.99% vs +118.28% |
| Worst peak-to-trough fall | -44.3% (2021-09-08 to 2023-10-30) |
What we could not verify
- Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
- Free cash flow is absent for one or more quarters: either the filer does not separately tag PP&E purchases in its EDGAR cash-flow facts (common for banks), or — for a successor registrant's newest quarter — the cash-flow lines are year-to-date without the prior-quarter rung needed to difference them. Affected quarters are null in the data, never estimated.
- Own-history P/E range not yet compiled for this company in the Phase 1 batch run; the label rests on peer-median, growth and PEG evidence.
- Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.
The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name.
https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0001000697.json - SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares.
https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0001000697.json - Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates.
https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/WAT/historical?assetclass=stocks - Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.
Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.