Dow
Dow's revenue fell 7.0% to $40.0 billion in fiscal 2025. Its net margin was −6.6%, down from 2.6% a year earlier. Free cash flow was −$1.4 billion. It paid out $1.5 billion in dividends and buybacks. The diluted share count rose 0.9%.
Net margin is net income as a share of revenue. Free cash flow is cash from operations minus capital spending. Return on capital is after-tax operating income as a share of the money invested in the business: debt plus equity, minus cash. Market cap is the last closing share price times the latest diluted share count, so it is approximate. P/E is the last close divided by diluted earnings per share over the last four quarters, or the latest fiscal year where the quarters aren't available; there is none when the company made a loss.
What Dow does
Dow is a chemicals and materials company. It makes plastics, chemicals and coatings that go into packaging, buildings and infrastructure, cars and consumer products. It runs manufacturing sites in 29 countries, employs about 34,600 people, and had sales of approximately $40 billion in 2025. Dow Inc. is a holding company that runs all its businesses through a subsidiary, The Dow Chemical Company.
Dow has three operating segments. Packaging & Specialty Plastics makes ethylene, a basic chemical building block, and polyethylene and related plastics used in food packaging, pipe, health and hygiene products and wire and cable. Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure makes chemicals from ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, used in appliances, coatings, furniture, construction and cleaning products. Performance Materials & Coatings uses acrylic, cellulose and silicone technology for paints and coatings, home and personal care, and electronics.
Dow shares ownership of several plants with partners, including joint ventures in Kuwait, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. Its key raw materials include natural gas, ethane, naphtha and other hydrocarbons. It lists competitors including ExxonMobil, INEOS, LyondellBasell, SABIC, Shell and Sinopec. Its subsidiary Union Carbide faces asbestos-related lawsuits, and the company put its asbestos-related liability at $708 million at the end of 2025.
Its biggest risks, as it describes them
- Swings in the balance of supply and demand for its products, which change its earnings.
- The cost and availability of raw materials and energy.
- Climate change rules and the cost of meeting its climate commitments.
- Tighter rules on the safe use of chemicals and plastics and their effect on the environment.
- Asbestos-related lawsuits against its Union Carbide subsidiary, and other legal claims.
Charts show fiscal years, from the 10-K filings.
Revenue and margins
Net income and earnings per share
From fiscal 2017 to 2024, earnings per share grew 14.7% a year and net income 13.3% a year, as buybacks cut the share count by 5%. Dow then lost money in fiscal 2025.
Returns on capital
Cash flow
Payouts and share count
Valuation
Two ways to value Dow yourself, both starting from its filings: a discounted cash flow model and the price-to-earnings method.
Discounted cash flow (DCF)
A discounted cash flow (DCF) model values a business as the cash it may generate in future, discounted back to today. The starting figures come from Dow's 10-K (or, for net cash and shares, its latest 10-Q) and the assumptions are yours: start from one of three example scenarios, then change any figure to see what it implies for a share, and how that compares with the last share price.
Value per share on three example scenarios, from Dow's 3-year average free cash flow of $456M, net cash of −$14.3B at December 31, 2025 and 712 million diluted shares, from its filings. The scenarios are fitted to Dow: the base scenario's growth in years 1 to 5 is its revenue growth over the last 3 years, -11.1% a year, kept between 0% and 20%; the cautious and optimistic ones are lower and higher, and growth in years 6 to 10 is halfway to the long-run rate. The base scenario's discount rate is 12%: 11% for a cyclical or higher-risk business (Commodity Chemicals), plus 1 point for unsteady results (a loss in fiscal 2025); the cautious and optimistic ones use a point more and a point less. Select one to load it into the calculator. These are the model's arithmetic on those assumptions, not a forecast or a price target. A negative value means Dow's net debt is larger than what that scenario's cash flows are worth today.
- Last close, October 26, 2026
- $33.99
- Value on these assumptions, against the last close
- —
- Cash flows in years 1 to 10, valued today
- —
- Everything after year 10, valued today
- —
- Plus net cash
- —
- Share of value from after year 10
How the value changes with two assumptions
Price-to-earnings (P/E) method
Another common way to value a company is to multiply its earnings per share by a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple: the number of years of today's earnings an investor pays for a share. A higher multiple usually means investors expect earnings to grow. Choose a multiple, for example from similar companies, to see the value it gives.
The P/E method needs positive earnings, and Dow's latest diluted earnings per share were negative or zero.
Balance sheet
| Fiscal year end | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash and short-term investments | 3.0 | 3.9 | 3.0 | 2.2 | 3.8 |
| Debt incl. finance leases | 15.5 | 16.2 | 15.1 | 16.2 | 18.1 |
| Net debt (negative means net cash) | 12.6 | 12.3 | 12.1 | 14.0 | 14.3 |
| Net debt to EBITDA | 1.1x | 1.3x | 3.0x | 2.6x | 12.0x |
| Debt to equity | 0.9x | 0.8x | 0.8x | 0.9x | 1.1x |
| Interest coverage | 12.1x | 10.2x | 1.9x | 3.0x | −1.9x |
| Current ratio | 1.6x | 1.8x | 1.8x | 1.6x | 2.0x |
| Quick ratio | 1.0x | 1.2x | 1.2x | 1.0x | 1.2x |
Insider trades
No officer, director or 10% owner of Dow reported buying or selling its shares on the open market between October 27, 2025 and October 26, 2026.
Piotroski F-score
The F-score counts how many of nine simple tests of profitability, funding and efficiency a company passed in a year (Piotroski, 2000). The more tests passed, the stronger the year: 8 or 9 is strong, 0 to 2 weak. Companies that report no gross profit are scored on the other eight.
| Test | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net income is positive | Pass | Pass | Fail |
| Cash from operations is positive | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Return on assets rose | Fail | Pass | Fail |
| Cash from operations exceeds net income | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Debt fell relative to assets | Fail | Fail | Fail |
| Current ratio rose | Fail | Fail | Pass |
| Share count didn't rise | Pass | Pass | Fail |
| Gross margin rose | Fail | Fail | Fail |
| Revenue rose relative to assets | Fail | Pass | Fail |
| F-score | 4 of 9 | 6 of 9 | 3 of 9 |
| Accruals ratio | −7.8% | −3.1% | −6.3% |
Compare
Put Dow side by side with any other company we cover: revenue, growth, margins, cash flow and returns, with ten years of charts.
Similar companies
| Company | Year | Revenue growth | Operating margin | Free cash flow margin | Return on capital | Net debt to EBITDA | F-score | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | FY25 | −7.0% | — | −3.6% | −4.1% | 12.0x | 3 | |
| Koppers | FY25 | −10.2% | 8.9% | 3.6% | 8.1% | 3.7x | 8 | Compare |
| Hawkins | FY26 | 11.2% | 11.2% | 7.9% | 13.1% | 1.4x | 4 | Compare |
| Vale | FY25 | 0.9% | 15.4% | — | — | — | — | Compare |
| CRH | FY25 | 5.3% | 14.5% | 7.8% | 11.8% | 1.9x | 7 | Compare |
9 years of figures
| Fiscal year | FY17 | FY18 | FY19 | FY20 | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||
| Revenue | 43.7 | 49.6 | 43.0 | 38.5 | 55.0 | 56.9 | 44.6 | 43.0 | 40.0 |
| Revenue growth | — | 13.4% | −13.4% | −10.3% | 42.6% | 3.5% | −21.6% | −3.7% | −7.0% |
| Gross profit | 7.4 | 8.5 | 6.3 | 5.2 | 10.8 | 8.6 | 4.9 | 4.6 | 2.5 |
| Research and development | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 |
| Operating income | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net income | 0.5 | 4.6 | −1.4 | 1.2 | 6.3 | 4.6 | 0.6 | 1.1 | −2.6 |
| Diluted EPS (US$) | 0.60 | 6.21 | −1.84 | 1.64 | 8.38 | 6.28 | 0.82 | 1.57 | −3.70 |
| Diluted shares (millions) | 745 | 747 | 742 | 742 | 749 | 726 | 709 | 705 | 712 |
| Cash flow | |||||||||
| Cash from operations | −4.9 | 4.3 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 7.0 | 7.5 | 5.2 | 2.9 | 1.0 |
| Capital expenditure | 2.8 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.8 | 2.4 | 2.9 | 2.5 |
| Free cash flow | −7.7 | 2.2 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 5.5 | 5.7 | 2.8 | −0.0 | −1.4 |
| Dividends paid | 1.1 | 0.0 | 1.6 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 1.5 |
| Share buybacks | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 2.3 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.0 |
| Acquisitions | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| Stock-based compensation | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| Balance sheet at fiscal year end | |||||||||
| Cash and short-term investments | 6.2 | 2.8 | 2.4 | 5.1 | 3.0 | 3.9 | 3.0 | 2.2 | 3.8 |
| Debt incl. finance leases | — | 19.9 | 17.4 | 17.6 | 15.5 | 16.2 | 15.1 | 16.2 | 18.1 |
| Total assets | — | 83.7 | 60.5 | 61.5 | 63.0 | 60.6 | 58.0 | 57.3 | 58.5 |
| Total liabilities | — | 50.1 | 46.4 | 48.5 | 44.3 | 39.4 | 38.9 | 39.5 | 41.0 |
| Shareholders' equity | 31.5 | 32.5 | 13.5 | 12.4 | 18.2 | 20.7 | 18.6 | 17.4 | 16.0 |
| Margins and ratios | |||||||||
| Gross margin | 16.9% | 17.2% | 14.7% | 13.5% | 19.6% | 15.1% | 10.9% | 10.7% | 6.3% |
| Operating margin | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net margin | 1.1% | 9.4% | −3.2% | 3.2% | 11.5% | 8.1% | 1.3% | 2.6% | −6.6% |
| Free cash flow margin | −17.7% | 4.4% | 9.2% | 12.9% | 10.0% | 9.9% | 6.4% | −0.1% | −3.6% |
| Return on capital | — | — | −0.6% | 6.6% | 24.6% | 15.9% | 4.3% | 5.7% | −4.1% |
| Return on equity | — | — | −5.9% | 9.4% | 41.2% | 23.6% | 3.0% | 6.2% | −15.7% |
| Return on assets | — | — | −1.9% | 2.0% | 10.1% | 7.4% | 1.0% | 1.9% | −4.5% |
| Net debt to EBITDA | — | 2.2x | 5.7x | 2.2x | 1.1x | 1.3x | 3.0x | 2.6x | 12.0x |