DuPont de Nemours DD
Basic Materials · Chemicals · Synthos Deep Dive · 2026-07-03
The Overview
DuPont used to be a sprawling chemicals giant. In late 2025 it split itself up — it spun off its electronics/semiconductor arm into a separate company (Qnity) and sold another business (Aramids). What's left is a smaller company that makes specialized materials for healthcare, water purification, construction, and industry — think medical packaging, water filters, and high-performance materials.
The leftover business is steady but slow: sales grow only a few percent a year, though it keeps a healthy chunk of each dollar as profit and doesn't carry much debt. On the numbers we trust most, the stock trades at roughly what it's worth — not a bargain, not wildly overpriced.
Our verdict is Watch: nothing is broken, but nothing is compelling either. Here's what the three scores mean in plain terms:
- Downside Risk 5/10 (middle). Financially sound and not heavily indebted, but its customers are in cyclical industries (like construction) that slow down when the economy does.
- Growth Quality 4/10 (below average). It grows slowly and its profits on the money invested are only so-so.
- Exponential Potential 2/10 (low). This is a slow-and-steady business. Don't expect it to double quickly.
The one big worry: a slump in construction and industrial demand would hit sales and profits at the same time, and there's no fast-growing engine to offset it.
Two honesty flags a beginner should know: (1) The Wall-Street "price target" in our data feed (~$56) is left over from before the split and doesn't match today's $140 stock — we ignore it. (2) Management has proposed a reverse stock split (combining shares), which would raise the per-share price mechanically without changing what the company is worth.
Putting a number on it: our fair-value estimate is $141 against a current price of $136.98 — real upside if our numbers are right.
Our summary metrics
Modest 1.4× net-debt/EBITDA and 12× EV/EBITDA, but cyclical end-markets, a GAAP loss year, C+ letter rating and a pending reverse split add noise.
~4% organic revenue growth with expanding EBITDA margins (~24%), but low-6% ROIC and a cyclical Industrials leg cap the quality.
Post-spin specialty-materials compounder growing ~4%/yr with no acceleration — a steady cash machine, not an exponential.
What does “fair value” mean?
Fair value is Synthos’s estimate of what one share is worth today, based on our model of the company’s future cash generation and the risks to it. It is not a price target or a prediction of where the stock trades next quarter — it’s the price where we think risk and reward are balanced. Above it, you’re paying for outcomes better than our base case; below it, the market is offering a margin of safety.
The model’s inputs and weightings are proprietary — they’re the product. What we publish is the output, We don’t publish a reverse-DCF cross-check for pre-profit companies — negative or missing earnings break that math — so take this number on our modeling alone.
What do the 5 tiers mean? (Core · Tactical · Watch · Hold · Avoid)
Exponential Potential
Post-spin specialty-materials compounder growing ~4%/yr with no acceleration — a steady cash machine, not an exponential.
What could take this further than the base case — and where the market may be underpricing it. Full forward-growth and acceleration math in Deeper analysis, §4 below.
Deeper analysis
Technicals, fundamentals, valuation, and the full expert-claim evidence panel — the detail behind the numbers above.
Reference table
| Street consensus | FMP target ~$56 is stale / pre-restructuring vs a $140 tape — we discard it as an anchor (grades: 24 Buy · 16 Hold · 1 Sell) |
| Valuation | ~59× adj EPS (distorted) · ~12× EV/EBITDA · 2.2× EV/sales · 5.7% FCF yield — EV/EBITDA is the honest lens |
| Technicals | Neutral-up — $140, −9.5% off 52-wk high, above 200-DMA / below 50-DMA, RSI 49, +56% 12-mo (SPY +21%) |
| Conviction | Low — 0 expert voices in the KB; fundamentals/quant only |
| Position sizing | Watch-list; if owned, small (~1–2%), cyclical-materials sleeve |
What the experts actually said 3 traceable claims on DD · showing the highest-conviction voices
“Major major bull run coming in chemicals as we move away from GPUs into advanced packaging and edge devices; chemicals a big part of the next phase.”
“DuPont's water & protection segment (Tyvek, Kevlar, water filtration) grows mid-to-high single digit as market leader, driven by rising fresh-water costs forcing desalination/water-recycling adoption, with pricing power to pass…”
Every claim reconciles to a real claim_id in the Synthos knowledge base — this is the evidence the verdict is built on, not vibes. Management (the company itself) is shown but half-weighted; one cautionary voice is included on purpose.
Price & moving averages 12 months · 50 & 200-day averages · 52-week range
Solid line = price · dashed line = 50-day average · dotted line = 200-day average · the two thin horizontal lines mark the 52-week high and low. Price above both averages is an uptrend.
Data summary: last close $136.98, 2% below the 50-day average ($139), 0% above the 200-day average ($136) — a mixed trend. 11% below the 52-week high of $155, 48% above the 52-week low of $92.
Bollinger Bands 20-day average ± 2 standard deviations
The shaded band widens when the stock gets more volatile. Riding the upper edge = strong momentum (sometimes stretched); the lower edge = weak / potentially oversold.
Data summary: price $136.98 is currently inside the band (band $135–$148).
RSI (14) momentum gauge · 0–100
Above 70 (overbought zone, shaded) = overbought, below 30 (oversold zone, shaded) = oversold. Currently 44.
MACD 12 / 26 / 9 · trend & momentum
The MACD line crossing above the signal line (bars flip to the up color) = momentum turning up; crossing below (bars flip to the down color) = turning down. Bar height = the size of that gap.
Data summary: MACD is currently below its signal line by 0.63, negative momentum.
Relative performance vs S&P 500 & its sector (XLB (sector)), set to 100 a year ago
Solid = DD · dashed = S&P 500 · dotted = XLB (sector). A rising line means it is beating that benchmark — the sector line shows whether it is a leader or laggard within its own group.
Forward revenue & earnings actual → estimate · "FY" = fiscal year, "E" = estimate
Darker bars = actual results, brighter = analyst estimates. Taller bars to the right = expected growth.
Key stats an RIA wants
1. What it is
DuPont de Nemours (NYSE: DD) is a global specialty-materials company headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, led by CEO Lori Koch. The company you see today is not the company of a year ago. Two structural events reshaped it:
- The Qnity spin-off (Nov 2025): DuPont separated its large Electronics & Industrial (semiconductor/advanced-materials) business into an independent public company, Qnity. That is why FY2025 continuing-operations revenue collapses to $6.85B from FY2024's $12.39B — the Electronics revenue left with the spin and is reported as discontinued operations.
- The Aramids divestiture (Apr 1, 2026): DuPont sold its Aramids (Kevlar/Nomex-type) business for ~$1.2B cash plus a note and equity stake; it is also treated as discontinued operations.
The RemainCo now reports in two segments (per the Q1'26 release):
- Healthcare & Water Technologies — medical packaging, biopharma materials, water purification/separation. Q1'26 sales $806M, 30.3% EBITDA margin (+110 bps YoY), organic +3%. The higher-quality, less-cyclical leg.
- Diversified Industrials — Building Technologies and Industrial Technologies (aerospace, automotive, printing/packaging). Q1'26 sales $875M, 22.9% EBITDA margin, organic ~flat — dragged by weak construction markets.
Geographic revenue (FY2025 continuing ops, from filings): U.S. & Canada $3.42B (50%) · Asia-Pacific $1.64B · EMEA $1.47B · China $0.71B · Latin America $0.33B. Roughly half US, half international — typical for specialty chemicals.
2. The expert thesis
There is no expert coverage of DuPont in the Synthos knowledge base. total_claims = 0; zero net-bullish voices; no cautionary voice either. None of the investor-panel voices Synthos tracks have said anything traceable about DD.
Accordingly, this note carries no conviction premium and cites no claim_ids — to do so would be fabrication, which the house standard forbids. The verdict below rests entirely on the reported fundamentals (FMP filings), management's own guidance (half-weighted), and quantitative valuation. Readers should weight this as a fundamentals/quant call, not an expert-backed one. For a name this freshly restructured, the absence of a distilled expert view is itself information: the story is too new and too corporate-action-driven for the panel to have formed one.
3. Synthos scores & the Bull / Base / Bear cases
The one-glance judgment — three scores, 0–10, each anchored to real metrics:
| Score | 0–10 | The read |
|---|---|---|
| Downside Risk (lower = safer) | 5 · Moderate | Net-debt/EBITDA 1.4×, current ratio 2.7×, and a reasonable 12× EV/EBITDA are supportive; but cyclical construction/industrial exposure, a GAAP net loss in FY25 (spin/impairment charges), a C+ letter rating (weak ROE/ROA), and a pending reverse split add uncertainty. Beta 1.08. |
| Growth Quality | 4 · Below-average | Organic sales ~2–4%, EBITDA margin expanding (~24%, +110–230 bps YoY), but ROIC ~6%, TTM ROE negative, and half the business is cyclical Industrials. The Healthcare/Water leg is genuinely good; the whole is average. |
| Exponential Potential | 2 · Low | ~4% forward revenue CAGR (FY25→FY29E $6.85B→$8.07B), no acceleration — organic growth is flat-to-low-single-digit. A mature specialty-materials compounder, not an exponential. |
The three cases (our own EV/EBITDA-based scenario model — assumptions shown; each target is a ~12–18-month fair value). We do not attach probabilities; the cases bound the range and the scores summarize them. Because the FMP per-share EPS estimates are distorted by the restructuring (see §6), we value off EV/EBITDA, the cleanest cross-cyclical lens, then bridge to equity per share (net debt $2.44B, ~137M shares).
| Case | Key assumptions | Fair value |
|---|---|---|
| Bull | Healthcare/Water re-rates the mix; construction recovers; FY28 EBITDA ~$1.95B earns a ~13.5× multiple as a de-levered, cleaner compounder. | ~$174 (+24%) |
| Base (our anchor) | Guidance roughly holds; FY27 operating EBITDA ~$1.81B at a fair ~12× for slow-growth specialty chem. | ~$141 (+1%) |
| Bear | Construction/industrial recession; organic goes negative; FY26 EBITDA ~$1.68B (guidance low end) de-rates to ~10×. | ~$105 (−25%) |
Synthos fair value = the base case, ~$141 (+1%), with the full $105–$174 span as the honest range. The stock is trading right at our base-case fair value — the market is pricing this roughly correctly. We discard the FMP Street target (~$56) entirely: it is a stale, pre-restructuring number attached to a post-restructuring $140 tape and would be misleading to headline. This is a tracked call — the Forecaster Scorecard grades it once it matures.
4. Exponential Potential
Synthos separates compounders (durable returns on capital) from exponentials (accelerating multi-baggers). DuPont is neither an exponential nor, yet, a proven compounder — it is a re-based cyclical:
- Forward growth: continuing-ops revenue CAGR FY25→FY29E ~4.2% ($6.85B → $8.07B on FMP consensus); management guides FY26 organic growth ~4%. Low-single-digit.
- Acceleration (2nd derivative): flat. Q1'26 organic +2%, guided to ~3% in Q2 and ~4% for the year — steady, not accelerating. Building Technologies is declining on weak construction; the growth comes from Healthcare and aerospace/auto within Industrials.
- Room to run: end-markets (medical packaging, water, construction materials) are large but mature and contested; there is no winner-take-most TAM expansion here. At ~$19B market cap the name could re-rate modestly, but there is no structural runway for a multibagger.
- Reinvestment runway: capex is light (~$102M in Q1'26, ~$333M FY25, ~2% of sales) and FCF conversion is solid (65% in Q1'26) — this is a cash-return story (dividend + buyback), not a high-reinvestment compounding story.
Exponential Potential: Low (2/10). Own DD, if at all, for steady cash generation and a possible mix re-rate, not for growth. This is the honest framing: a defensible, de-levered materials business whose ceiling is a modest multiple expansion, not exponential earnings.
5. Financials (real numbers — FMP filings + Q1'26 release)
Read these on a continuing-operations basis; headline GAAP is badly distorted by the spin.
- Revenue: FY25 continuing-ops $6.85B (vs $12.39B FY24 pre-spin — the drop is the Qnity separation, not a demand collapse). Q1'26 net sales $1.68B, +4% reported / +2% organic.
- Margins: gross 33.8% TTM; operating EBITDA margin ~24–25% and expanding — Q1'26 operating EBITDA $414M, +15% YoY, margin +230 bps to 24.6%. Segment EBITDA margins: Healthcare/Water 30.3%, Diversified Industrials 22.9%.
- Earnings: FY25 GAAP net income was −$779M (a loss) — driven by an −$836M discontinued-operations charge (spin/impairment); continuing-ops net income was positive at $98M. This is why the trailing P/E (−777×) and adjusted P/E (~59×) are both meaningless here. Q1'26 GAAP income from continuing ops $150M (+88% YoY); adjusted EPS $0.55, +53% YoY.
- Cash flow: FY25 operating CF $1.41B, capex −$333M, FCF ~$1.08B (5.7% FCF yield). Q1'26 transaction-adjusted FCF $147M at 65% conversion — a genuine improvement off a weak base.
- Balance sheet: total debt $3.19B, cash $757M, net debt $2.44B, net-debt/EBITDA ~1.4× — down sharply from ~2.0× post-spin deleveraging. Current ratio 2.7×, interest coverage ~5.2×. Investment-grade and comfortable.
Capital returns: $500M buyback in FY25, a further $275M accelerated share repurchase announced with Q1'26, and a ~1.65% dividend yield ($2.31/sh TTM). Cash is being returned, consistent with the low-growth profile.
6. Valuation — priced in or room?
The per-share earnings multiples in the data feed are not trustworthy for this name, and we say so. Trailing P/E is negative (FY25 GAAP loss); "adjusted" P/E on management's $2.35–2.40 FY26 guidance is ~59× — but that figure sits against a pending reverse stock split (1-for-2 to 1-for-4) and a share/estimate basis that FMP has not cleanly restated post-spin (its est block still shows FY26 EPS ~$7.16, which does not reconcile to management's ~$2.37 adjusted guidance). We therefore anchor on enterprise value, which is unaffected by share-count games:
- EV/EBITDA ~12.2× TTM (EV $21.3B / EBITDA ~$1.74B) — a fair, middle-of-the-fairway multiple for a slow-growth specialty-chemicals company. On FY26E EBITDA (~$1.75B) it is ~12×; on FY27E (~$1.81B) ~11.8×.
- EV/sales 2.2×, FCF yield 5.7%, price/book 1.36× — none of these scream cheap or expensive.
- Reverse-EV read: at $140 the market is paying ~12× for a business guided to ~4% organic growth with expanding margins. That is a fair price — neither the deep discount that would make this a Buy nor the premium that would make it an Avoid.
Street targets (context only): the FMP consensus target of ~$56 is stale/pre-restructuring and internally inconsistent with a $140 tape and a "Buy" grade tally (24 Buy / 16 Hold / 1 Sell) — we do not use it as an anchor and flag it as a data artifact. Our EV/EBITDA-derived base-case fair value is ~$141, essentially where the stock trades. Not a value buy; fairly valued.
7. Technicals (from the tech block)
- Trend: mixed-to-up. $139.91 sits above the 200-DMA ($128.80) but below the 50-DMA ($142.45) — a short-term pullback within a longer uptrend.
- Location: −9.5% off the 52-week high ($154.59), +59% off the 52-week low ($87.75). Max drawdown from peak −9.5% — orderly, not broken.
- Momentum: RSI(14) 49 — neutral, neither overbought nor oversold. MACD −1.45 (mildly negative) — near-term momentum has cooled.
- Relative strength: +56% 12-mo vs SPY +21% (strong 1-yr outperformance, largely the spin/re-rate), but only +0.9% 3-mo vs SPY +13.7% — it has lagged badly the last quarter as the post-spin excitement faded.
- Read: technicals are neutral. The 12-month chart is strong but the recent 3-month lag and sub-50-DMA price say momentum has stalled. No urgency to buy or sell in the price action — consistent with a Watch.
8. Moat & competitive position
DuPont's moat is moderate and segment-specific: durable in Healthcare/Water (regulated, spec'd-in medical-packaging and water-purification materials with switching costs and 30%+ margins), thinner in Diversified Industrials (more cyclical, more commoditized construction and industrial materials). The company competes on formulation know-how, regulatory qualifications, and brand (Tyvek, Liveo, water technologies), not on scale-cost leadership. Post-spin it is smaller and more focused, which is a plausible quality upgrade — but it also shed its highest-growth (electronics/semiconductor) leg with Qnity.
Peer set (from the data feed, market cap): Dow $20.0B (the direct legacy sibling), LyondellBasell $17.2B, IFF $21.4B, Albemarle $16.0B, SQM $20.8B, CF Industries $17.0B, RPM $14.2B, Reliance $19.0B, Cemex $17.8B. Note the FMP peer list is a broad basic-materials basket (it even includes a gold miner, Alamos) — the truest comps are the specialty/diversified chemicals names (Dow, LYB, IFF, RPM). Against those, DD's ~12× EV/EBITDA and ~24% EBITDA margin are middle-of-pack — richer than commodity chem (Dow/LYB), cheaper than premium specialty (RPM).
9. Management, capital allocation & guidance
- Capital allocation: disciplined and shareholder-friendly — post-spin deleveraging (net-debt/EBITDA to ~1.4×), a $500M FY25 buyback plus a $275M accelerated repurchase announced with Q1'26, a maintained dividend (~1.65% yield), and light capex (~2% of sales). Appropriate for a low-growth cash generator.
- Insider activity: the sampled Form 4s (filed 2026-06-02, transactions late May 2026) are almost entirely routine — CEO Lori Koch and CFO Antonella Franzen show tax-withholding "F-InKind" dispositions (not open-market sales) around $48, and several directors received awards (acquisitions). Note the ~$48 price on these filings vs the $140 quote is another sign of the share-basis/restructuring distortion in the feed. No alarming cluster of discretionary insider selling.
- Management's own guidance (half-weighted — their self-interested words): the SEC 8-K (Q1'26 earnings release, filed 2026-05-05) is a genuine earnings release and gives dated forward guidance. Management raised full-year 2026 guidance: net sales $7.155–$7.215B, operating EBITDA $1.730–$1.760B, adjusted EPS $2.35–$2.40; for Q2'26, net sales ~$1.8B, operating EBITDA ~$430M, adjusted EPS ~$0.59. FY26 assumes ~4% organic growth (incl. ~1% pricing to offset Middle-East-conflict input-cost inflation) plus an interest-income benefit from the Aramids sale. CEO Koch cited "organic growth, margin expansion, and double-digit adjusted EPS growth." Treat as management talking its book — half-weight. It is, however, internally consistent with the reported Q1'26 beat (adj EPS $0.55 vs $0.36 prior year) and is the most reliable forward anchor we have (more so than the distorted FMP EPS estimates).
10. Catalysts & what to watch
- Next earnings: 2026-08-04 (Q2'26; management guides adj EPS ~$0.59, net sales ~$1.8B, operating EBITDA ~$430M). Watch organic growth (guided ~3%) and whether construction stabilizes.
- Reverse stock split: management is seeking approval at the 2026 Annual Meeting for a 1-for-2 to 1-for-4 reverse split. Mechanically neutral to value but changes the per-share optics and the data feeds — watch for the ratio and effective date.
- Construction/industrial demand: Building Technologies is the current drag; a turn here is the swing factor for the Diversified Industrials segment.
- Healthcare/Water momentum: continued 30%+ margins and high-single-digit organic growth in medical packaging/biopharma would support a mix re-rate (the bull case).
- Post-spin capital returns: execution of the $275M ASR and any further buyback/dividend action.
Thesis tripwires (what would change the call): organic sales turning negative for two consecutive quarters; EBITDA-margin reversal below ~22%; net-debt/EBITDA rising back above ~2×; or, on the upside, a sustained Healthcare/Water re-rate that would argue for an upgrade from Watch toward Buy — Tactical.
11. Key risks
- Cyclicality (structural): roughly half the business (Diversified Industrials, incl. construction) is economically sensitive; a downturn hits volume and mix simultaneously. Construction is already weak.
- Slow organic growth: ~2–4% leaves little cushion; DD must deliver on margins and buybacks to move EPS.
- Restructuring/complexity overhang: back-to-back spin (Qnity) and divestiture (Aramids) plus a pending reverse split make the reported financials and third-party data feeds hard to read — a source of mispricing and confusion (as the stale ~$56 target and ~$48 insider prices show).
- No expert conviction / no moat premium: with zero KB coverage, there is no informed second opinion supporting the name — the call is quant/fundamentals only.
- Input-cost / geopolitical inflation: management flagged Middle-East-conflict-driven input-cost inflation being passed through via ~1% pricing — a margin risk if pricing power fades.
- Data-quality risk: the FMP EPS estimates and price target do not reconcile to management's own guidance; anyone anchoring on those figures would badly misjudge the stock.
12. Verdict, position sizing & monitoring
Watch. Post-restructuring DuPont is a cleaner, de-levered, ~$7B-revenue specialty-materials business with expanding EBITDA margins (~24%), solid FCF (5.7% yield), a modest 1.4× net-debt/EBITDA, and shareholder-friendly capital returns. But it grows only ~4% organically with no acceleration, half its revenue is cyclical, it posted a GAAP loss year on spin charges, carries a middling C+ quality rating, and — critically — trades right at our ~$141 base-case fair value. There is no expert conviction behind it and no valuation discount to create one. That combination is the textbook definition of a Watch: nothing broken, nothing compelling.
- Sizing: not a Buy today. If held for the dividend/cash-return profile, keep it small (~1–2%) in a cyclical-materials sleeve. New money is better deployed on a pullback toward the low-$120s (nearer the 200-DMA and our bear/base midpoint) or on evidence of a Healthcare/Water-led re-rate.
- Monitoring: re-underwrite on the §10 tripwires; formal re-score each earnings print, and re-check the data feed after the reverse split so the per-share math stays honest.
- Single biggest risk: a cyclical downturn in construction/industrial demand against a top line that is only growing low-single-digits.
An upgrade to Buy — Tactical would require either a clear valuation discount (EV/EBITDA toward ~10× / price toward the low-$120s) or a demonstrated, sustained mix shift toward the higher-margin Healthcare/Water franchise.
Provenance & disclosures
- Traceability: 0 KB claims, breadth 0 — DuPont has no expert coverage in the Synthos knowledge base. No
claim_ids are cited because none exist; this note is explicitly fundamentals- and quant-driven. Fabricated conviction is structurally impossible (claim-ID reconciliation) and none is claimed here. - Data as-of: fundamentals 2026-03-31 (Q1'26) · estimates & prices 2026-07-02/03 · management guidance from the SEC 8-K earnings release filed 2026-05-05. Forward figures are analyst consensus (FMP) or management guidance, labeled as estimates.
- Data-quality caveat (important): DuPont's Nov-2025 Qnity spin-off, Apr-2026 Aramids divestiture, and a pending reverse stock split distort several third-party fields — the FMP price target (~$56), the FMP forward EPS estimates (~$7.16 FY26), and the ~$48 insider-transaction prices all fail to reconcile to the current ~$140 tape and management's ~$2.37 adjusted-EPS guidance. We valued off EV/EBITDA to sidestep this and discarded the stale price target as an anchor.
- Management caveat: management's FY26 guidance is its own self-interested view, half-weighted by design.
- Not investment advice. Independent research, educational and informational only, never personalized. Hypothetical/forward figures are labeled; the only performance numbers Synthos will headline are the live, real-money Flagship's.
- Version: 2026-07-03. Prior versions available via the deep-dive version dropdown ("based on the info at the time").