MAXLINEAR, INC (MXL): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $67.54, MAXLINEAR, INC (MXL) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~21.8 years. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-06-27.

Generated: 2026-08-10 · Exported: 2026-08-12 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/MXL

Headline

FieldValue
TickerMXL
CompanyMAXLINEAR, INC
Current price$67.54/sh
CompositionBroadband 44% / Connectivity 17% / Infrastructure 32% / Industrial and multi-market 8%

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

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

FieldValue
Inversion basisrevenue-multiple
EV / sales paid10.9x
Steady-state operating margin assumed22.7%
Must persist for21.8y

The company earns no operating profit yet; the inversion runs on the revenue multiple and an assumed steady-state margin.

Solve inputs: computed at a 14.3% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~3.2 years.

Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~9.5 years; the models below use their own rates.

How unusual the bet is: elevated

ReferenceValue
vs own history+0.36σ
sustained it ~10 years at this level15%
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
Asset13.33x2expensive
Earnings—0—
Relative2.15x2expensive
Growth1.00x3justifies

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

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=7)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$0.65103.91xyesFCF base $0.0B, growth 25% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 9.1%, 7yr projection (excluded from median)
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$67.261.00xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 3109.7x / 3112.7x / 3115.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 7yr
Relative ValuationRelative$31.372.15xyesP/S fallback (negative EPS): Sector P/S 5.0x × TTM revenue — excluded from consensus
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$5.3512.62xyesBook value floor: BV/sh $5.35, ROE negative
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$4.8114.04xyesBook value with convergence: BV/sh $5.35, ROE converges to ke
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$98.000.69xyesRev $0.6B, growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 8.6x / 10.8x / 12.9x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$0.00—noNegative/zero EPS — earnings-based value floored at $0
Margin TrajectoryGrowth$60.001.13xyesMargin ramp: -18% → 25% over 7yr, rev growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered)
Earnings Power ValueEarnings——no—
Residual IncomeAsset——no—
Graham NumberAsset——no—
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$0.016754.00xyesEBITDA $0.00B × sector EV/EBITDA 16.0x (excluded from median)
FCF YieldEarnings$0.016754.00xyesFCF $3.3M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity (excluded from median)
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings——no—
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings——no—
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset——no—
P/Sales SectorRelative$31.372.15xyesRevenue $0.57B × sector P/S 5.0x
PEG Fair ValueRelative——no—
Earnings YieldEarnings——no—
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

Only one reportable economic unit is present in the current topology source. Consolidated operating lenses remain available, but there is no multi-unit decomposition.

UnitRoleValuation basisRevenueReported profitValue evidenceStatus
MaxLinear (communications SoC solutions)operatingenterprise0.5B reported-currency—withheldunresolved no unit value

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$59.1m
Interest coverage-8.2x
Share count CAGR (dilution)4.9%
Burning cashno

Operating profit is negative or near zero and the company has no demonstrated through-cycle (mid-cycle) operating margin to normalize against, so years-to-repay cannot be computed honestly.

Bullet Takeaways

MaxLinear sits in the mature box by classification, but the trailing financials read like a turn: the company carried a trailing operating loss while the most recent quarter showed revenue up 43% year over year and a return to per-share profit, led by an infrastructure line that more than doubled. The stage label and the recent trajectory are pulling in opposite directions, and which one you weight changes the whole read.

At roughly $88.79 the price is being measured against sales, near 17x revenue, because trailing operating profit sits below the steady state the price assumes. To justify that, the business has to reach an operating margin around 22.7% and grow at its self-funding ceiling for close to 28 years. None of the four valuation families reach the price on today's numbers.

The balance sheet is workable but not pristine: about $61 million of liquid assets against roughly $124 million of gross debt, so net debt near $63 million. With trailing operating income negative, there is no honest through-cycle margin to convert that debt into a years-to-repay figure, which is itself a caution.

Bull Case

MaxLinear is filed under the mature stage, and that label normally tells you to read the numbers as a steady-state machine: stable margins, modest growth, a price anchored to current earnings. MaxLinear breaks that template, and the break is the bull case. The trailing window still carries an operating loss, but the most recent quarter showed revenue up 43% year over year and a swing back to per-share profit, driven by an infrastructure segment that grew sharply as optical data-center parts ramped at hyperscale customers. Read as a mature business, the stock looks expensive against trailing profit. Read as a business at an inflection, the trailing loss is the trough and the forward line is what matters.

The product story behind that inflection is grounded in a real demand shift the company describes in its own filing: data traffic inside the data center has outgrown the traffic moving in and out of it, server links are stepping from 10Gbps toward 25 and 100Gbps, and router and switch links are moving from 400G to 800G and 1.6T (FY2025 10-K, accession 0001288469-26-000011). Each of those transitions is a socket MaxLinear's high-speed connectivity and optical parts can address, and the speed ladder does not stop at one generation. That is the difference between a chip cycle and a secular ramp, and the company is positioned on the ramp side of it.

The gross-margin structure gives the model a path to the profit the price assumes. Management has consistently pointed to infrastructure and optical mix as the higher-margin part of the portfolio, and the filing is explicit that the company must keep introducing new products and reducing cost to defend gross margin over time (FY2025 10-K, accession 0001288469-26-000011). If the data-center mix keeps rising while the legacy broadband base holds, operating margin can move toward the low-twenties the price implies without heroic assumptions about the top line, because the leverage comes from mix and scale on a cost base that is already largely in place.

Bear Case

The variable with the most leverage over MaxLinear is not interest rates or tariffs, it is customer and end-market concentration, and the price does not reflect how exposed that makes the forward story. The optical data-center ramp that is doing the heavy lifting depends on a small set of hyperscale buyers, and the company warns directly that a significant portion of its revenue comes from a limited number of customers and that it cannot assume those customers keep supporting its products (FY2025 10-K, accession 0001288469-26-000011). A price built on a near-28-year persistence of growth and margin is underwriting a level of customer loyalty and design-win durability that semiconductor history rarely delivers, and the bet is concentrated in a handful of accounts that can switch suppliers or pull in their own silicon.

The second exposure is the gap between the two ways of measuring the company's profit. On the EDGAR trailing basis the operating line is a loss of about $98 million, while the record basis the price is anchored to shows positive operating income near $106 million. That is a divergence of more than 200%, and it means the bull's clean inflection narrative rests on which number you trust. If the EDGAR trailing read is closer to sustainable earning power, the price is not paying up for a brief trough, it is paying up for a profit profile the company has not yet shown on a full-year basis.

Third, the margin math is unforgiving. The price implies an operating margin near 22.7% held for decades, against a trailing margin around minus 19% and a business that the filing itself says must continually cut its own and its customers' costs just to keep gross margin from declining (FY2025 10-K, accession 0001288469-26-000011). Wafer and packaging input costs are rising. Every family of valuation method lands below the current price, which means there is no conservative frame that gets you to today's quote, only the single forward scenario where the data-center mix wins and holds for a very long time.

Valuation

The price has to be read against revenue rather than profit, because trailing operating income sits below the steady state the price assumes. At about 17x sales, today's quote near $88.79 (June 27, 2026) implies the business reaches an operating margin around 22.7% and grows revenue at its self-funding ceiling for roughly 28 years. That solve runs at a cost of capital near 14.5%, with growth searched up to a 25% ceiling, and each additional point of margin moves the implied horizon by about 3.8 years. These are approximate figures from a single solve under fixed fade assumptions, not measured facts.

What stands out is that no valuation family reaches the price. The asset-based methods land well below it, the peer-multiple methods land below it, and even the forward-growth methods come up short. When every frame sits under the quote, the price is not leaning on one optimistic method, it is a bet beyond what any standard approach supports. The reverse-DCF range on a revenue-multiple basis centers far below the current price and carries a low reliability flag, which is consistent with a loss-making trailing window where margin normalization is doing most of the work.

The one piece of grounded support is rarity: the near-term growth pace is within what the company has recently delivered, so the stretch is in how LONG that pace and margin must persist, not in the rate itself. Historically only about 15% of comparable fast-growers sustained this level for roughly a decade. That is the crux. The bull is underwriting durability, not a single good year, and the balance sheet (about $61 million liquid against $124 million gross debt) gives modest room but no cushion if the data-center ramp stalls before margins normalize.

Catalysts

The most recent quarter (reported late April 2026) was the key recent event: revenue of $137.2 million, up 43% year over year, with infrastructure revenue up sharply as optical data-center products ramped at hyperscale customers, and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.22 versus a small loss a year earlier. The company still reported a GAAP operating loss for the quarter and a small operating cash outflow tied to wafer prepayments, so the swing to profit is on the adjusted line, not yet the reported one.

Forward, management raised full-year optical data-center revenue guidance to a range of $150 million to $170 million and guided the following quarter to $160 million to $170 million, with all segments expected to grow sequentially. The next quarterly print, expected in the second half of 2026, is the catalyst that matters most: it tests whether the optical ramp keeps compounding and whether the gap between non-GAAP profit and the GAAP operating line begins to close.

The watch items are input costs and mix. Management flagged rising wafer and packaging costs, while noting the infrastructure business typically carries higher gross margin. A continued mix shift toward infrastructure that outruns input-cost inflation would support the margin path the price needs; a stall in hyperscale orders or a step-up in costs would expose the concentration risk directly. Sources: MaxLinear Q1 FY2026 press release and earnings call coverage (investors.maxlinear.com; fool.com; finance.yahoo.com), April 2026.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

MaxLinear (communications SoC solutions) (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.

View the full interactive MXL report on boothcheck