Share count
712Mpeak FY2021
← All companies ← DOV Manual DPZ → ← DD Chemicals ECL →
DOW, Dow Inc. Common Stock
Dow is one of the world's large chemical makers. It turns hydrocarbon feedstocks — oil and natural gas liquids — into plastics and industrial chemicals, led by its packaging and specialty plastics franchise, polyethylene above all, alongside the industrial intermediates that feed infrastructure, coatings, and consumer goods. It sells these by the ton to manufacturers around the world, and earns the spread between what feedstock and energy cost it and what the market will pay for the product.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$40.0B
−7.0% YoY · 1% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $39.3B 5-yr avg $47.9B
Revenue $9.8B −6.1% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income ($445M) yr-ago ($290M)
Net margin −4.5% yr-ago −2.8%
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 led by Packaging & Specialty Plastics (50%) and Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure (28%), with 2 more segments behind.
- 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
- This reads as a commodity business before a franchise. The bulk of the revenue is plastics and intermediates priced by the market — Dow takes the price, it does not set it — and even its patents, the filing says, matter only in the aggregate, never one by one. So the test is the cost position rather than pricing power: whether scale and access to cheap feedstock and energy make Dow a low-cost producer that can still earn through the trough of the chemical cycle, when product prices and the feedstock spread give way together. Watch the supply of feedstock and energy, some of it from single sources, the debt that must still be served when the cycle turns, and the margins, returns, and net-debt figures in the record below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 4%, above 15% in 1 of 9 years). By owner earnings: roughly 6% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.
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 →Revenue spreads across 4 segments, the largest Packaging & Specialty Plastics at 50%.
Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
- Packaging & Specialty Plastics50%$20.0B
- Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure28%$11.2B
- Performance Materials & Coatings20%$8.1B
- Corporate2%$701M
By geographyU.S.& Canada40%Europe, Middle East, Africa and India31%Asia Pacific18%Latin America11%
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, 2017–2025
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 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||||
| $43.7B | $49.6B | $43.0B | $38.5B | $55.0B | $56.9B | $44.6B | $43.0B | $40.0B | $39.3B | RevenueRevenue |
| 17% | 17% | 15% | 13% | 20% | 15% | 11% | 11% | 6% | 6% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 4% | 4% | 4% | 4% | 3% | 3% | 4% | 4% | 3% | 4% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| $2.0B | $5.5B | ($889M) | $2.0B | $8.1B | $6.0B | $585M | $1.5B | ($2.7B) | ($2.8B) | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 4.5% | 11.0% | −2.1% | 5.2% | 14.6% | 10.6% | 1.3% | 3.5% | −6.7% | −7.1% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $465M | $4.6B | ($1.4B) | $1.2B | $6.3B | $4.6B | $589M | $1.1B | ($2.6B) | ($2.8B) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | 15% | — | 39% | 22% | 24% | -1% | 26% | — | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||||||||
| ($4.9B) | $4.3B | $5.9B | $6.2B | $7.0B | $7.5B | $5.2B | $2.9B | $1.0B | $2.1B | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $2.5B | $2.9B | $2.9B | $2.9B | $2.8B | $2.8B | $2.6B | $2.9B | $2.8B | $2.8B | DepreciationDeprec. |
| ($7.9B) | ($3.3B) | $4.4B | $2.1B | ($2.1B) | $135M | $2.0B | ($1.1B) | $821M | $2.1B | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $2.8B | $2.1B | $2.0B | $1.3B | $1.5B | $1.8B | $2.4B | $2.9B | $2.5B | $2.3B | CapexCapex |
| 6.4% | 4.2% | 4.6% | 3.2% | 2.7% | 3.2% | 5.3% | 6.8% | 6.2% | 5.8% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($7.7B) | $2.2B | $4.0B | $5.0B | $5.5B | $5.7B | $2.8B | ($26M) | ($1.4B) | ($232M) | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −17.7% | 4.4% | 9.2% | 12.9% | 10.0% | 9.9% | 6.4% | −0.1% | −3.6% | −0.6% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($7.7B) | $2.2B | $4.0B | $5.0B | $5.5B | $5.7B | $2.8B | ($26M) | ($1.4B) | ($232M) | Free cash flowFCF |
| −17.7% | 4.4% | 9.2% | 12.9% | 10.0% | 9.9% | 6.4% | −0.1% | −3.6% | −0.6% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $0 | $20M | $0 | $130M | $129M | $228M | $114M | $125M | $0 | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $1.1B | $0 | $1.6B | $2.1B | $2.1B | $2.0B | $2.0B | $2.0B | $1.5B | $1.2B | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| $0 | $0 | $500M | $125M | $1.0B | $2.3B | $625M | $494M | $0 | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| 4% | 9% | -3% | 5% | 21% | 14% | 2% | 4% | -7% | -8% | ROICROIC |
| 1% | 14% | -10% | 10% | 35% | 22% | 3% | 6% | -16% | -19% | Return on equityROE |
| −2% | 14% | −21% | −7% | 23% | 12% | −7% | −5% | −26% | −27% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | ||||||||||
| $6.2B | $2.8B | $2.4B | $5.1B | $3.0B | $3.9B | $3.0B | $2.2B | $3.8B | $4.1B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $5.6B | $4.8B | $5.1B | $6.8B | $5.6B | $4.7B | $4.8B | $4.8B | $5.2B | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $6.9B | $6.2B | $5.7B | $7.4B | $7.0B | $6.1B | $6.5B | $6.6B | $6.8B | InventoryInvent. |
| — | $4.5B | $3.9B | $3.8B | $5.6B | $4.9B | $4.5B | $4.8B | $4.2B | $4.8B | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | $8.1B | $7.2B | $7.0B | $8.6B | $7.7B | $6.3B | $6.5B | $7.2B | $7.2B | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $39.4B | $16.8B | $19.1B | $20.8B | $20.5B | $17.6B | $16.6B | $18.1B | $19.5B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $15.5B | $10.7B | $11.1B | $13.2B | $11.3B | $10.0B | $10.3B | $9.2B | $10.5B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 2.5× | 1.6× | 1.7× | 1.6× | 1.8× | 1.8× | 1.6× | 2.0× | 1.8× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $9.8B | $9.8B | $8.8B | $8.9B | $8.8B | $8.6B | $8.6B | $8.6B | $8.0B | $7.9B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $83.7B | $60.5B | $61.5B | $63.0B | $60.6B | $58.0B | $57.3B | $58.5B | $59.8B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $19.6B | $16.4B | $17.0B | $14.5B | $15.1B | $14.9B | $15.7B | $17.8B | $17.3B | Total debtDebt |
| — | $16.8B | $14.0B | $11.8B | $11.5B | $11.2B | $11.9B | $13.5B | $14.0B | $13.1B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| $31.5B | $32.5B | $13.5B | $12.4B | $18.2B | $20.7B | $18.6B | $17.4B | $16.0B | $15.2B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| — | — | $1.0B | — | — | — | — | — | $690M | $690M | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
| Per share | ||||||||||
| 745M | 747M | 743M | 742M | 749M | 726M | 709M | 705M | 712M | 721M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $58.71 | $66.39 | $57.85 | $51.92 | $73.39 | $78.42 | $62.94 | $60.93 | $56.17 | $54.54 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $0.62 | $6.21 | $-1.83 | $1.65 | $8.43 | $6.31 | $0.83 | $1.58 | $-3.69 | $-3.95 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-10.39 | $2.89 | $5.35 | $6.70 | $7.35 | $7.79 | $4.01 | $-0.04 | $-2.03 | $-0.32 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-10.39 | $2.89 | $5.35 | $6.70 | $7.35 | $7.79 | $4.01 | $-0.04 | $-2.03 | $-0.32 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $1.42 | $0.00 | $2.09 | $2.79 | $2.77 | $2.76 | $2.78 | $2.79 | $2.09 | $1.73 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $3.77 | $2.80 | $2.64 | $1.69 | $2.00 | $2.51 | $3.32 | $4.17 | $3.48 | $3.18 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $42.31 | $43.47 | $18.24 | $16.75 | $24.25 | $28.55 | $26.24 | $24.61 | $22.50 | $21.14 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 8-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | −0.6%/yr | +1.6%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +5.0%/yr | −5.6%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | −1.0%/yr | +15.6%/yr |
| Book value / share | −7.6%/yr | +6.1%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2017–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
−7%low FY2025
Gross margin
6%low FY2025
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
4.2×peak FY2018
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
($1.4B)owner earningsvs.($2.6B)net incomelow FY2017
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cashEach 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.
FY2018FY2025
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 2025 the business turned a $2.6B loss into ($1.4B) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($2.6B) | $1.1B | $589M | $4.6B | $6.3B |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$2.8B | +$2.9B | +$2.6B | +$2.8B | +$2.8B |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$821M | −$1.1B | +$2.0B | +$135M | −$2.1B |
| Cash from operations | $1.0B | $2.9B | $5.2B | $7.5B | $7.0B |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$2.5B | −$2.9B | −$2.4B | −$1.8B | −$1.5B |
| Owner earnings | ($1.4B) | ($26M) | $2.8B | $5.7B | $5.5B |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | -4% | 0% | 6% | 10% | 10% |
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 .
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.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- Interest expense not tagged in the data
What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
- Net debt against an operating lossCash $3.8B + ST investments $21M − debt $17.8B
What this means
Netting $3.8B of cash and short-term investments against $17.8B of debt leaves $14.0B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Long (60+ days)DSO 43 + DIO 64 − DPO 40 days
What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle9-yr median, range -7%–21%; -7% latest = NOPAT ($2.1B) ÷ invested capital $30.0BIndustry peers: median 9%
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 9 years (it ran -7% 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.
- Solid through the cycle9-yr median margin, range -18%–13%; latest ($1.4B) = operating cash $1.0B − maintenance capex $2.5BIndustry peers: median 9%
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 -4% of revenue this year, a 6% median across 9 years.
- Loss, but cash-generativeNet income ($2.6B) · cash from operations $1.0B
What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.
How is the cash used?
- No surplus to allocate
What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.87×MaintainingCapex $2.5B ÷ depreciation $2.8B
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 6 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 PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $40.0B
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 NearCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.97×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $17.8B vs $8.9B 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 MissA profit every year (9-yr record) · 2 loss years
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · 8 of 9 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 MissEarnings +33% over the record · −124%
What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
- 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 $-0.42/share (latest year $-3.64), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $22.21/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, 2017–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 7 of 9
What this means
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 8 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 4% → −1% (3-yr avg ends)
In the filing’s words The words explain the slip: the filing names price competition rather than pricing actions of its own — a business that looks to take its price, not set it.
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 4% early to −1% lately, median 5% — competition or costs are biting in.
- 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.
- Worst year 2025 · −6.7% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count −0.6%/yr
What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
- Dividend record rising
What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
- How management talks about it Promotional
What this means
The returns have faded, yet the filing reaches for a promoter’s vocabulary — world-class, best-in-class, disruptive — more than an owner’s. When the words sell harder than the results deliver, the gap is the thing to weigh.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.
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, Mar 31, 2026Can 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$19.5B
- Cash & short-term investments$4.1B
- Receivables$5.2B
- Inventory$6.8B
- Other current assets$3.4B
Current liabilities$10.5B
- Accounts payable$4.8B
- Other current liabilities$5.8B
Current ratio1.85×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.20×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.39×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$8.9Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−6.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.8× → 1.8×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$5.9Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Debt incl. operating leases$17.7B$1.5B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $20.4B (annual-report basis)
Deferred revenue$1.9Bcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
Debt maturity
the debt note, SEC EDGAR →Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.
Bars scaled to the largest single year.
Due in the next 12 months$222Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year
Within two years$1.0Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions
Biggest single year$1.1Bin 2029the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest
Due over the next five years$3.9Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $17.8B of debt in all
Against what the business has and earns
Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$4.1B
Together, against $222M due next year18.5×
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 comes to $4.1B against the $222M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 19 times it.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.
Lease obligations
the lease note, SEC EDGAR →Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
Operating leasesFinance leases
Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.
Due in the next 12 months$583Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$3.1Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$2.6Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability
True leverage: debt plus leases
On-balance-sheet debt$17.8B
Lease obligations (present value)$2.6B
Total fixed claims on the business$20.4B
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $20.4B, of which the leases are 13%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.
Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.
How the cash was used, 2017–2025
Over the record, the business generated $35.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$19.2B · 55%
- Dividends$14.2B · 40%
- Buybacks$5.1B · 14%
- Returned to owners$19.3B
121% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $14.2B as dividends and $5.1B as buybacks.
- Source of funding−$3.4B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $3.4B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: cash and short-term investments drew down $2.1B.
- Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $5.1B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
- Net change in share count−3.2%
The diluted count fell from 745M to 721M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
- Dividend record$2.09/sh
Paid in 8 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 5% a year. 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 9-year cash-flow recordGoodwill 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$9.5B16% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity50%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$793Mover 9 years buying other businesses, against $19.2B of capital spent building
$1.7B written down across 2 years (2019, 2025): 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 9-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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Jim Fitterling | $24.9M | $19.2M | $5.5B |
| 2022 | Jim Fitterling | $19.5M | $17.0M | $5.7B |
| 2023 | Jim Fitterling | $20.8M | $22.5M | $2.8B |
| 2024 | Jim Fitterling | $19.1M | $15.0M | ($26M) |
| 2025 | Jim Fitterling | $19.1M | −$892k | ($1.4B) |
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.
- Insider ownership0.5%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio207:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why Dow Inc. Common Stock 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 2017–2025.
None of the 4 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.
Each test came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- Did the share count rise anyway?
- 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.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Pension & retirement, Income taxes, Contingencies as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Chemicals
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOWDow Inc. Common Stock | $40.0B | 15% | 4.5% | 4% | 6% |
| LINLinde plc | $34.0B | — | 21.4% | 8% | 16% |
| LYBLyondellBasell | $30.2B | 14% | 11.1% | 19% | 9% |
| PPGPPG Industries Inc. | $15.9B | 41% | 14.7% | 16% | 7% |
| CECelanese | $9.5B | 25% | 14.1% | 10% | 13% |
| EMNEastman Chemical | $8.8B | 24% | 10.8% | 9% | 9% |
| DDDuPont de Nemours Inc. | $6.8B | 33% | 9.9% | 3% | 5% |
| ALBAlbemarle Corporation | $5.1B | 33% | 18.6% | 7% | 12% |
| Group median | — | 25% | 12.6% | 8% | 9% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Dow Inc. Common Stock has delivered.
Dow Inc. Common Stock’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.
$
Through the cycle, Dow Inc. Common Stock earns about $2.5B on its 6.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −3.6% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
Base
—
The assumptions
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.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth, delivered—
Owner-earnings growth, delivered—
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—
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.
Owner-earnings yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings ($232M) on 721M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-03-31; net debt $13.1B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Dow Inc. Common Stock (DOW), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/DOW, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← DOV its page in the Manual DPZ →
Industry order: ← DD the Chemicals chapter ECL →