CURTISS-WRIGHT CORPORATION (CW): what the price requires

At today's price, CURTISS-WRIGHT CORPORATION (CW) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~9.3 years. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.

Generated: 2026-07-19 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CW

Headline

FieldValue
TickerCW
CompanyCURTISS-WRIGHT CORPORATION
Current price$738.64/sh
CompositionAerospace Defense 19% / Ground Defense 12% / Naval Defense 27% / Commercial Aerospace 12% / Power & Process 18% / General Industrial 12%

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin needed13.1%
Operating margin today17.6%
Margin compression implied-4.5pp
Must persist for9.3y
Multiple paid46x operating income

The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 12, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 9.3% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~2.1 years.

How unusual the bet is: high

ReferenceValue
vs own history+1.56σ
cohort percentile (of 225 peers)88
sustained it ~9.3 years at this level16%
implied end-window share0%

Valuation X-Ray

Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset4.25x4expensive
Earnings5.09x5expensive
Relative2.50x5expensive
Growth1.08x3expensive

Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings, Relative

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.8%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=17)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$414.631.78xyesFCF base $0.6B, growth 12% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.8%, 6yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$790.730.93xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 34.1x / 36.1x / 38.1x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr
Relative ValuationRelative$412.191.79xyesP/E 28.67x (blended: static sector reference 18x + trailing (TTM) 54x), scenarios: 23.8x / 28.7x / 33.6x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 19.23x
Simple DDMGrowthno
Two-Stage DDMGrowthno
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$149.094.95xyesBV/sh $71.02, ROE (TTM) 19.4%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$213.613.46xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$684.901.08xyesRev $3.6B, growth 12% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 6.3x / 7.6x / 8.9x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$295.862.50xyesEPS $13.65, growth 22% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=2.47 (Overvalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowthno
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$99.287.44xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.51B × (1−19%) / WACC 8.8% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset$208.343.55xyesBV $71.02 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 19.4% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$147.695.00xyes√(22.5 × EPS $13.65 × BVPS $71.02) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$227.463.25xyesEBITDA $0.79B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$145.225.09xyesFCF $590.8M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$138.395.34xyesSBC-adj FCF $0.57B (FCF $0.59B − SBC $0.02B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$440.441.68xyesEPS $13.65 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$28.6225.81xyesBV $71.02 × (ROIC 3.6% / WACC 8.8%) (excluded from median)
P/Sales SectorRelative$243.303.04xyesRevenue $3.61B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$443.791.66xyesEPS $13.65 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 21.7% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 32.5x
Earnings YieldEarnings$147.575.01xyesEPS $13.65 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelativeno
Clinical Phase NPVGrowthno
MertonAssetno
V5 Mechanicalno

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$814.2m
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)1.64x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)1.33x
Interest coverage14.9x
Share count CAGR (buyback)-1.1%
Burning cashno

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

Begin with the balance sheet, because it is what gives Curtiss-Wright the freedom to compound. Net debt sits near $814 million, about 1.2 times a year's operating profit, and interest is covered roughly fifteen times over. That is a conservative structure for a company growing earnings in the high teens to low twenties, and it tells you management is funding growth from internal cash rather than leverage. The share count has drifted lower, not higher, so holders are not being diluted to pay for that growth. A company that can expand into submarine production, nuclear life-extension work, and defense electronics while keeping leverage low and buying back a few shares is one whose growth is self-funding, which is the most durable kind.

The reason the growth has visibility is the nature of what Curtiss-Wright sells. This is not a cyclical capital-goods maker chasing orders quarter to quarter. Its Naval & Power businesses provide "secondary propulsion systems, primarily to the U.S. Navy, most notably supporting the Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarine programs, as well as the Ford-class aircraft carrier program," plus ship repair and aftermarket work. Submarine and carrier programs run for decades and are funded years in advance, so the content Curtiss-Wright wins today produces revenue and high-margin aftermarket demand far into the future. In the first quarter of 2026 Naval & Power sales rose 21%, and the segment posted a book-to-bill ratio of 1.5, meaning new orders came in at one and a half times what it shipped. Orders outrunning shipments is the cleanest forward signal an industrial can give.

The third leg is commercial nuclear, and it is genuinely a growth market rather than a story. Curtiss-Wright supports maintenance and life extensions at operating plants across North America and is positioned for advanced small modular reactors, with the Power and Process market posting high-teens revenue growth in the quarter. A 19.4% return on equity, operating margins around 18 to 19% and expanding, and management raising full-year guidance on strength in defense and commercial nuclear together describe a business firing on its two best engines at once. Buy the durability and you are buying a portfolio of decades-long programs run by a disciplined balance sheet.

Bear Case

The structural truth a holder has to face is that the multiples are pricing growth that has not happened yet, and is rare even when it does. At today's price the market is paying roughly 48 times company-wide operating profit. Inverted, that requires Curtiss-Wright to hold its growth near the top of what it can self-fund for about a decade. The base rate is unforgiving: only about 15% of comparable fast-growing companies have sustained that pace for nine to ten years. This is not a claim that the business is weak; it is the opposite. The business is excellent, and the price has already capitalized a decade of excellence. The bear case is that excellence priced to perpetuity leaves no room for the ordinary disappointments every long-cycle supplier eventually meets.

The valuation methods agree, and they agree lopsidedly. Asset-value methods built on a $71.02 book value and a 19.4% return on equity land far below the price. Earnings-power methods that capitalize current profit land further below still. Peer multiples against other diversified industrials land below. Only the forward-growth cash-flow models reach the price, and they get there by extrapolating the recent compounding rate forward and holding a 35-plus times exit multiple flat for the life of the forecast. When a single family of methods, the most assumption-dependent one, is the only one that justifies the price, the honest reading is that the price rests on a durability assumption the static frames cannot underwrite. The conservative methods are not wrong here; they are describing what you own today before the future arrives.

The fragility sits in the customer, not the balance sheet. Curtiss-Wright tells investors plainly that "the defense business is primarily impacted by government funding and spending on new programs, primarily driven by the U.S. Go"vernment, and that on the nuclear side "delays in the development of small modular reactors, could adversely affect our results of operations or future outlook." Both growth engines, naval and commercial nuclear, depend on government budgets and a reactor build-out whose timing is not in the company's control. A continuing resolution that slows submarine appropriations, or an SMR timeline that slips, would not break the company, but it would slow the very growth the price requires to persist for a decade. At 48 times operating profit, the margin for a slower year is thin.

Valuation

This report produces no fair value and no target. It works backward from the $772.98 price (June 27, 2026) to the assumption embedded in it, then measures how far the price sits from each way of valuing the business.

The price is a bet on durability, and the methods make that explicit. Only the forward-growth cash-flow models reach today's price. The asset-value methods, anchored on a $71.02 book value and a 19.4% return on equity, sit far below it. The earnings-power methods, which capitalize current sustainable profit, sit further below. Peer multiples against diversified industrials sit below. When only the growth family reaches the price and every static frame says richly valued, the premium is a moat-and-durability premium the static methods structurally cannot price. The market is paying for Curtiss-Wright to keep compounding, not for what its assets or its current earnings power are worth in isolation.

Inverting the price puts a number on the bet. At today's level the market is paying about 48 times company-wide operating profit, which implies the company holds growth near the ceiling it can self-fund for roughly a decade. The rate itself is within what Curtiss-Wright has recently delivered; the stretch is the duration. History is the relevant context: only about 15% of comparable fast-growers sustained that pace for nine to ten years. That is the concrete "what has to be true" behind the price, expressed as persistence rather than acceleration. The forward methods credit it; the trailing methods do not.

Solvency frames the downside as survivable rather than cheap. Net debt near $814 million is about 1.2 times a single year's operating profit, interest coverage runs roughly fifteen times, and a slowly falling share count points to disciplined capital return rather than dilution. The balance sheet can carry the business through a slow patch comfortably. What it cannot do is close the gap between the price and the conservative methods; that gap closes only if the decade of compounding the forward models assume actually shows up. A buyer at this price is underwriting durability, with a strong balance sheet as the floor under the bet.

Catalysts

The clearest catalyst is the raised full-year outlook and the order momentum behind it. After first-quarter 2026 sales of $914 million, up 13%, with margin expansion and diluted EPS up 23%, management lifted its 2026 guidance and now expects total sales to grow 7% to 8% and full-year diluted EPS of $14.90 to $15.30, up 13% to 16% from 2025. The upgrade was driven by stronger expectations in defense and commercial nuclear, the two markets the company is most levered to. The next quarterly print is the test of whether the order book keeps converting at the raised pace.

Naval and nuclear are the segments to watch. Naval & Power sales rose 21% in the quarter on accelerated submarine production and naval aftermarket demand, and the segment carried a 1.5 book-to-bill, with management now guiding that segment to 9% to 11% sales growth on submarine and commercial-nuclear backlog. On the nuclear side, the Power and Process market grew in the high teens, supporting life extensions at operating plants and advanced small modular reactors. Progress, or delay, on SMR timelines is a specific event-driven swing factor for that growth line.

These catalysts run on government and utility timelines rather than the company's own. Defense appropriations and the pace of the nuclear build-out determine how fast the backlog converts, which is why the order activity, more than any single quarter's earnings, is the signal that matters most.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Aerospace & Industrial (reported)

Defense Electronics (reported)

Naval & Power (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

Curtiss-Wright Q1 2026 earnings call, June 2026

View the full interactive CW report on boothcheck