No-moat Dell Technologies reported fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter earnings that missed our top-line estimate but surpassed our bottom-line forecast. The top-line miss was almost entirely driven by lumpiness in artificial intelligence server deliveries resulting in AI server sales of $2.1 billion versus the $2.8 billion projected. However, margins were better than we expected, and we would not read into quarterly deliveries too much. Rather, the more important indicators, backlog and pipeline, remained as strong as ever. This gives us the confidence to maintain our overall AI growth outlook for Dell, and we are maintaining our fair value estimate of $121. With shares selling off recently, they are starting to look marginally undervalued.
Show me how fair value is derived (00:41)
Morningstar calculates the fair value estimate of a company based on a projection of how much cash the company will generate in the future. Morningstar analysts create custom industry and company assumptions to feed income statement, balance sheet, and capital investment assumptions into a proprietary discounted cash flow modeling template. Scenario analysis, in-depth competitive advantage analysis, and a variety of other analytical tools are used to augment the discounted cash flow process. The analyst discounts future cash flows using the weighted average of the costs of equity, debt, and preferred stock (and any other funding sources), using expected future proportionate long-term, market-value weights.
The Morningstar Fair Value Estimate is a projection/opinion and not a statement of fact. If Morningstar's base-case assumptions are true the market price will converge on Morningstar's fair value estimate over time, generally within three years. Investments in securities are subject to market and other risks. Past performance of a security may or may not be sustained in the future and is no indication of future performance.