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DELL, Dell Technologies Inc.

Technology Hardware consumer brand Cyclical

Dell builds and sells computers — laptops and desktops for households and businesses, and servers, storage and networking gear for the data centers that run companies and train artificial intelligence. Most of the money comes from selling the hardware itself, much of it assembled to order from parts — processors, memory and drives — bought from other makers. A smaller slice comes from the support, financing and services wrapped around those machines.

With our extensive portfolio and commitment to innovation, we design, deploy, and support secure, integrated solutions that extend from the edge to the core to the cloud.

We deliver AI-optimized, software-defined, and cloud native infrastructure solutions across a broad partner ecosystem to help customers address evolving information technology ("IT") needs, drive outcomes, and capture growth as customer spending priorities evolve.

Latest annual: FY2026 10-K

DELL · Dell Technologies Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2026

$113.5B

+18.8% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $134.0B 5-yr avg $100.2B

Gross margin 19% 5-yr avg 22%

Operating margin 7.9% 5-yr avg 6.0%

ROIC 49% 5-yr avg 29%

Owner-earnings margin 7% 5-yr avg 5%

Free cash flow margin 7% 5-yr avg 5%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Products (80%) and Services (20%).
Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: The question is whether this is a franchise or a box-assembler that re-sells other people's silicon: gross margin is thin, the way it tends to be when the product is largely standardized components a buyer could source elsewhere, so the test is pricing power — whether Dell can hold its spread when chip and memory costs swing, or must pass them straight through. Against those thin margins the returns on capital read high, which is the mark you'd expect of a business that takes cash from customers before it pays suppliers and carries little idle inventory; watch whether an edge in scale, procurement and distribution endures, and whether the services and financing tail makes the relationship sticky rather than a fresh bidding war at each refresh. The bad case is a price-taker carrying debt, leaning on suppliers it does not control and customers who can switch brands cheaply — so the levers to watch are the cost position, the durability of that working-capital advantage, and the balance sheet. The figures are in the record below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 18%, above 15% in 5 of 10 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 7% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Products is 80% of revenue, with Services the other meaningful line at 20%.

Revenue by product line, FY2026

Products80%$90.4B
Services20%$23.1B

By geographyUnited States56%International44%

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2017–2026

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	2026’26	TTMTTMMay 2026
											Income statement
$62.2B	$79.0B	$90.6B	$84.8B	$86.7B	$101.2B	$102.3B	$88.4B	$95.6B	$113.5B	$134.0B	RevenueRevenue
22%	26%	28%	24%	23%	22%	22%	24%	22%	20%	19%	Gross marginGross mgn
22%	23%	23%	19%	16%	14%	14%	15%	13%	10%	9%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
4%	6%	5%	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%	3%	2%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($2.4B)	($2.4B)	($191M)	$2.4B	$3.7B	$4.7B	$5.8B	$5.4B	$6.2B	$8.1B	$10.6B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−3.8%	−3.1%	−0.2%	2.8%	4.3%	4.6%	5.6%	6.1%	6.5%	7.2%	7.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($1.2B)	($2.8B)	($2.3B)	$4.6B	$3.3B	$5.6B	$2.4B	$3.4B	$4.6B	$5.9B	$8.4B	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	—	3%	15%	25%	17%	9%	18%	17%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$2.4B	$6.8B	$7.0B	$9.3B	$11.4B	$10.3B	$3.6B	$8.7B	$4.5B	$11.2B	$12.5B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$4.9B	$8.6B	$7.7B	$6.1B	$5.4B	$4.6B	$3.2B	$3.3B	$3.1B	$3.0B	$3.0B	DepreciationDeprec.
($1.8B)	$223M	$637M	($2.7B)	$1.2B	($1.4B)	($3.0B)	$1.1B	($4.0B)	$1.5B	$290M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$699M	$1.2B	$1.5B	$2.6B	$2.1B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$2.8B	$2.7B	$2.6B	$3.0B	CapexCapex
1.1%	1.5%	1.7%	3.0%	2.4%	2.8%	2.9%	3.1%	2.8%	2.3%	2.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$1.7B	$5.6B	$5.5B	$6.7B	$9.3B	$7.5B	$562M	$5.9B	$1.9B	$8.6B	$9.4B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
2.7%	7.1%	6.1%	7.9%	10.8%	7.4%	0.5%	6.7%	2.0%	7.5%	7.0%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$1.7B	$5.6B	$5.5B	$6.7B	$9.3B	$7.5B	$562M	$5.9B	$1.9B	$8.6B	$9.4B	Free cash flowFCF
2.7%	7.1%	6.1%	7.9%	10.8%	7.4%	0.5%	6.7%	2.0%	7.5%	7.0%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$37.6B	$658M	$0	$3M	$0	$16M	$70M	$126M	$0	$84M	$84M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0	$0	$2.1B	$0	$0	$0	$964M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.5B	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$611M	$724M	$14.1B	$8M	$241M	$1.5B	$2.9B	$2.1B	$2.6B	$6.0B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
-4%	-4%	-0%	6%	11%	25%	24%	27%	29%	38%	49%	ROICROIC
-9%	-24%	—	—	131%	—	—	—	—	—	—	Return on equityROE
−9%	−24%	—	—	131%	—	—	—	—	—	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$9.5B	$16.1B	$9.7B	$9.3B	$9.5B	$9.5B	$8.6B	$7.4B	$3.6B	$11.5B	$11.6B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$9.4B	$11.7B	$12.4B	$12.5B	$10.7B	$12.9B	$12.5B	$9.3B	$10.3B	$17.6B	$25.9B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$2.5B	$2.7B	$3.6B	$3.3B	$3.4B	$5.9B	$4.8B	$3.6B	$6.7B	$10.4B	$15.1B	InventoryInvent.
$14.4B	$18.3B	$19.2B	$20.1B	$21.6B	$27.1B	$18.6B	$19.2B	$20.8B	$33.6B	$45.3B	Accounts payablePayables
($2.5B)	($3.9B)	($3.2B)	($4.3B)	($7.4B)	($8.3B)	($1.3B)	($6.3B)	($3.8B)	($5.6B)	($4.4B)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$30.8B	$40.3B	$36.1B	$36.9B	$43.6B	$45.0B	$42.4B	$36.0B	$36.2B	$57.6B	$70.6B	Current assetsCur. assets
$38.1B	$45.8B	$45.0B	$52.5B	$54.1B	$56.2B	$51.7B	$48.4B	$46.5B	$63.3B	$74.6B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.8×	0.9×	0.8×	0.7×	0.8×	0.8×	0.8×	0.7×	0.8×	0.9×	0.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$38.9B	$39.9B	$40.1B	$21.2B	$20.0B	$19.8B	$19.7B	$19.7B	$19.1B	$19.5B	$19.5B	GoodwillGoodwill
$118.2B	$124.2B	$111.8B	$118.9B	$123.4B	$92.7B	$89.6B	$82.1B	$79.7B	$101.3B	$114.9B	Total assetsAssets
$49.4B	$51.9B	$53.5B	$52.1B	$39.2B	$27.0B	$29.6B	$26.0B	$24.6B	$31.5B	$31.2B	Total debtDebt
$39.9B	$35.7B	$43.8B	$42.8B	$29.7B	$17.5B	$21.0B	$18.6B	$20.9B	$20.0B	$19.6B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-1.4×	-1.0×	-0.1×	1.0×	1.8×	3.0×	4.7×	3.6×	4.5×	5.2×	6.7×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$13.2B	$11.7B	($5.8B)	($1.6B)	$2.5B	($1.7B)	($3.1B)	($2.2B)	($1.5B)	($2.5B)	($1.4B)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.6%	1.1%	1.0%	1.5%	1.9%	1.6%	0.9%	1.0%	0.8%	0.6%	0.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	$190M	$207M	—	—	—	—	—	—	$207M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
778M	769M	719M	751M	767M	791M	753M	736M	720M	684M	656M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$79.90	$102.78	$126.04	$112.94	$113.00	$127.94	$135.86	$120.14	$132.73	$165.99	$204.27	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.50	$-3.70	$-3.21	$6.15	$4.24	$7.03	$3.24	$4.60	$6.38	$8.68	$12.82	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.14	$7.32	$7.64	$8.94	$12.16	$9.50	$0.75	$8.04	$2.60	$12.50	$14.39	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.14	$7.32	$7.64	$8.94	$12.16	$9.50	$0.75	$8.04	$2.60	$12.50	$14.39	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00	$0.00	$2.97	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$1.28	$1.46	$1.77	$2.13	$2.33	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.90	$1.58	$2.08	$3.43	$2.71	$3.53	$3.99	$3.74	$3.68	$3.85	$4.62	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$17.02	$15.24	$-8.02	$-2.10	$3.23	$-2.13	$-4.15	$-3.03	$-2.06	$-3.61	$-2.14	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+8.5%/yr	+8.0%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+21.6%/yr	+0.6%/yr
EPS	—	+15.4%/yr
Capital spending / share	+17.5%/yr	+7.2%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Revenue+18.8%
“Net Revenue During Fiscal 2026, net revenue increased 19%, driven by an increase in ISG net revenue and, to a lesser extent, CSG net revenue that was partially offset by a decrease in Corporate and other net revenue.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
Net income+29.3%
“Net Income During Fiscal 2026, net income increased 30% to $5.9 billion primarily due to an increase in operating income and, to a lesser extent, a favorable change in interest and other, net, the effects of which were partially offset by higher income tax expense.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
Services-4.2%
“During Fiscal 2026, services net revenue decreased 4% due to a decline in Corporate and other services net revenue.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2017–2026

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

684Mpeak FY2022

ROIC

38%low FY2018

Gross margin

20%low FY2026

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

2.3×peak FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$8.6Bowner earningsvs.$5.9Bnet incomelow FY2023

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2017FY2026

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2022–FY2026cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2026 the business turned $5.9B of profit into $8.6B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$5.9B

Owner earnings$8.6B · 8% of revenue

	FY2026	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022
Reported net income	$5.9B	$4.6B	$3.4B	$2.4B	$5.6B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$3.0B	+$3.1B	+$3.3B	+$3.2B	+$4.6B
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$723M	+$785M	+$878M	+$931M	+$1.6B
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$1.5B	−$4.0B	+$1.1B	−$3.0B	−$1.4B
Cash from operations	$11.2B	$4.5B	$8.7B	$3.6B	$10.3B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$2.6B	−$2.7B	−$2.8B	−$3.0B	−$2.8B
Owner earnings	$8.6B	$1.9B	$5.9B	$562M	$7.5B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	8%	2%	7%	1%	7%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $723M), owner earnings is nearer $7.8B.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 5.2×

Comfortable

Operating income $8.1B ÷ interest expense $1.6B

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $20.0B · 2.5× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $11.5B − debt $31.5B

What this means
Netting $11.5B of cash and short-term investments against $31.5B of debt leaves $20.0B owed, about 2.5× a year's operating profit (3.9× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? -37d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 57 + DIO 42 − DPO 135 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 11%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median, range -4%–38%; 38% latest = NOPAT $6.7B ÷ invested capital $17.5B

Industry peers: median 13%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 38% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 7%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 1%–11%; latest $8.6B = operating cash $11.2B − maintenance capex $2.6B

Industry peers: median 6%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 8% of revenue this year, a 7% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $723M of SBC) leaves $7.8B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.88×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $11.2B ÷ net income $5.9B

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 87%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $7.5B ÷ Owner Earnings $8.6B

What this means
Of $8.6B Owner Earnings, $7.5B (87%) went back to shareholders, $1.5B dividends, $6.0B buybacks. Net of $723M stock comp, the real buyback was about $5.3B. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.87×

Maintaining

Capex $2.6B ÷ depreciation $3.0B

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $113.5B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.91×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $31.5B vs ($5.7B) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 3 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · 5 of 10 yrs

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $7.15/share (latest year $9.15), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-3.81/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2017–2026

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 7 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 5 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −2% → 7% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing ties gains to its own pricing, but names price competition too — pricing power that is real yet contested, not unopposed. The margin shows who is winning.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −2% early to 7% lately, median 4% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +4%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 4% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · −3.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2017, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −1.4%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 5 of the years on record.
How management talks about it Promotional

What this means
The record is compounding, but the filing leans on a promoter’s vocabulary rather than the per-share, return-on-capital terms an owner uses. The results back the talk here; the register is still worth noting.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2026 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“ISG offers a portfolio of storage, server, and networking solutions, including AI-optimized technologies, and faces intense competition from existing on-premises competitors and increasing competitive pressures from Infrastructure-as-a-Service providers.”

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, May 1, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$70.6B

Cash & short-term investments$11.6B
Receivables$25.9B
Inventory$15.1B
Other current assets$18.1B

Current liabilities$74.6B

Debt due within a year$7.5B
Accounts payable$45.3B
Other current liabilities$21.8B

Current ratio0.95×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.74×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.16×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($4.0B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. This business collects from customers before it pays suppliers (a negative cash-conversion cycle), so the balance sheet is funded by that float, the way Costco's and Amazon's are. The low ratio can be the edge, not the risk; the cash-conversion cycle and the debt due above say which.

Debt due this year vs. cash$7.5B due · $11.6B cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the May 1, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+87.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.7× → 0.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($25.3B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($45.7B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$31.9B$745M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$27.5Bcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2017–2026

Over the record, the business generated $75.2B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a deleverager, a meaningful share of cash went to paying down debt.

Reinvested$21.9B · 29%
Dividends$6.9B · 9%
Buybacks$30.7B · 41%
Retained (debt / cash)$15.6B · 21%

Returned to owners$37.6B
71% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $6.9B as dividends and $30.7B as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt fell $18.2B and cash and short-term investments rose $2.1B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $30.7B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−15.7%
The diluted count fell from 778M to 656M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$2.13/sh
Paid in 5 of the years on record. It was cut at least once along the way.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$24.1B24% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity—goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$40.9Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $21.9B of capital spent building

$397M written down across 2 years (2019, 2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2022	Michael S. Dell	$3.5M	$3.5M	$7.5B
2023	Michael S. Dell	$2.8M	$2.8M	$562M
2024	Michael S. Dell	$3.0M	$3.0M	$5.9B
2025	Michael S. Dell	$3.1M	$3.1M	$1.9B
2026	Michael S. Dell	$3.4M	$3.4M	$8.6B

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Stock-based compensation$723M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 9% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Dell Technologies Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2017–2026.

1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.

Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?19% → 31% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $12.0B to $40.9B while revenue grew 116%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (19% of revenue then, 31% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

Peers, Technology Hardware

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
AAPLApple Inc.	$416.2B	40%	28.8%	53%	25%
DELLDell Technologies Inc.	$113.5B	23%	4.4%	18%	7%
IBMInternational Business Machines Corp	$67.5B	55%	15.2%	13%	18%
CSCOCisco Systems Inc. Common Stock (DE)	$56.7B	63%	25.7%	21%	26%
HPQHP Inc.	$55.3B	19%	6.6%	64%	6%
HPEHewlett Packard Enterprise Company	$34.3B	56%	4.2%	3%	5%
SMCISuper Micro Computer Inc.	$22.0B	15%	4.3%	12%	2%
WDCWestern Digital Corporation	$9.5B	28%	7.2%	6%	4%
Group median	—	34%	6.9%	15%	7%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Dell Technologies Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Dell Technologies Inc. earns about $7.8B on its 6.9% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 7.5% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($7.8B) Net of stock comp (−$722M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($9.8B)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’22→’26+7%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’26+4%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’24–’26)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $9.4B on 649M shares outstanding, the balance-sheet count at 2026-05-01; net debt $19.6B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($3.0B) runs well above depreciation ($3.0B), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $9.8B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh DELL against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/DELL, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← DEI its page in the Manual DFH →

Industry order: ← DBD the Technology Hardware chapter EVLV →