VICOR CORPORATION (VICR): what the price assumes
In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $219.89, VICOR CORPORATION (VICR) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~27.9 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 2026-06-28.
Generated: 2026-08-10 · Exported: 2026-08-12 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/VICR
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | VICR |
| Company | VICOR CORPORATION |
| Current price | $219.89/sh |
| Composition | Direct customers, contract manufacturers and non-stocking distributors 58% / Stocking distributors, net of sales allowances 27% / Non-recurring engineering 1% / Royalties 14% / Other 0% |
What The Price Assumes (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Must persist for | 27.9y |
| Multiple paid | 101x operating income |
Solve inputs: computed at a 13.7% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~3.7 years.
Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~15.1 years; the models below use their own rates.
How unusual the bet is: elevated
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.02σ |
| sustained it ~10 years at this level | 15% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
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.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 5.92x | 4 | expensive |
| Earnings | 7.80x | 5 | expensive |
| Relative | 3.14x | 5 | expensive |
| Growth | 0.94x | 3 | justifies |
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 9.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=17)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $104.92 | 2.10x | yes | FCF base $0.1B, growth 25% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 9.2%, 7yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $234.76 | 0.94x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 93.0x / 96.0x / 99.0x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 7yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $109.21 | 2.01x | yes | P/E 38.21x (blended: static sector reference 22x + trailing (TTM) 76x), scenarios: 30.6x / 38.2x / 45.9x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 35.2x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $31.27 | 7.03x | yes | BV/sh $15.95, ROE (TTM) 18.1%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $43.23 | 5.09x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $243.82 | 0.90x | yes | Rev $0.7B, growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 9.6x / 12.0x / 14.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $35.88 | 6.13x | yes | EPS $2.99, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=38.01 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $16.06 | 13.69x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.04B × (1−21%) / WACC 9.2% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $42.89 | 5.13x | yes | BV $15.95 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 18.1% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $32.76 | 6.71x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $2.99 × BVPS $15.95) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $43.50 | 5.05x | yes | EBITDA $0.10B × sector EV/EBITDA 16.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $28.19 | 7.80x | yes | FCF $87.3M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $24.47 | 8.99x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.07B (FCF $0.09B − SBC $0.02B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $96.48 | 2.28x | yes | EPS $2.99 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $6.30 | 34.90x | yes | BV $15.95 × (ROIC 3.6% / WACC 9.2%) (excluded from median) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $70.02 | 3.14x | yes | Revenue $0.66B × sector P/S 5.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $112.12 | 1.96x | yes | EPS $2.99 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $32.32 | 6.80x | yes | EPS $2.99 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | 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.
| Unit | Role | Valuation basis | Revenue | Reported profit | Value evidence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vicor (power modules) | operating | enterprise | 0.4B reported-currency | — | withheld | unresolved 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
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net cash | $404.2m |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | -5.18x (net cash) |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | -4.09x (net cash) |
| Share count CAGR (dilution) | 1.3% |
| Burning cash | no |
Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.
Bullet Takeaways
- Vicor makes the power-conversion modules that deliver electricity to advanced chips, and the one number that defines the stock right now is backlog: its one-year order backlog jumped about 70% sequentially to $301 million on book-to-bill above 2:1, driven by AI data-center demand.
- The defining risk is that the price assumes that surge lasts: no standard valuation method reaches today's level, and the company concedes that "our strategic emphasis on larger, high-volume customers" means "a greater concentration of sales among relatively fewer customers."
- What moves the story next is the AI power-delivery ramp: management guided second-quarter revenue to about $126 million and full-year 2026 to roughly $570 million, leaning on its vertical power-delivery technology for next-generation GPUs.
Bull Case
One number reframes Vicor: a one-year backlog that surged roughly 70% in a single quarter to $301 million, with new orders running at more than twice the rate of shipments. A book-to-bill above 2:1 means demand is arriving far faster than the company can ship it, and for a components maker that is the clearest possible leading indicator of a revenue inflection. The driver is specific and structural: as AI accelerators draw more power into ever-smaller spaces, getting clean, dense power the last few millimeters to the chip has become a bottleneck, and Vicor's vertical power-delivery modules are built precisely for that problem. The backlog is the market telling Vicor it has the right product at the moment the AI buildout needs it most.
The reason Vicor can capture that demand at high margins is a genuine technology moat. The filing states the company believes its intellectual property affords advantages by "building fundamental and multilayered barriers to competitive encroachment upon key features and performance benefits of our principal product families," and describes a differentiation strategy of giving customers "the modular products, design tools, and engineering support to enable the rapid design of advanced power system" solutions. Power delivery at the densities AI chips require is hard engineering that few competitors can match, and once a Vicor module is designed into a GPU power architecture, it is sticky through that product generation. This is not a commodity brick supplier; it is a specialist whose parts win on performance.
The financial position lets Vicor scale into the demand without strain. The company holds about $404 million in cash with zero debt, so it can fund the capacity and engineering needed to convert the backlog without raising money or taking on risk. First-quarter revenue of about $113 million and net income of roughly $21 million reflect a business already profitable as the AI ramp begins, and management guided second-quarter revenue up to about $126 million and full-year 2026 to roughly $570 million. Analysts hold a strongly positive consensus with targets toward the low $300s. The bull bet is that the backlog surge marks the start of a multi-year AI-power-delivery cycle, that Vicor's IP moat lets it earn rich margins on it, and that a debt-free balance sheet turns that demand into compounding earnings.
Bear Case
Set the excitement aside and look at what the price assumes versus what the business has earned, and the gap is enormous. No standard valuation method reaches today's price near $332 (June 28, 2026). Group the approaches by what they measure and the asset-value, earnings-power, peer-multiple, and even forward-growth families all land far below it, several at a fraction of the price. After a stock that has risen roughly 145% in a year, the market is paying for an outcome no conventional frame can support: the model reads the price as requiring the company to sustain elevated growth and margins for an implausibly long horizon, decades on the math. That is not a normal growth premium; it is a price that has detached from every measurable anchor and now rests entirely on the AI narrative continuing without interruption.
The backlog that powers the bull case is also the bear's biggest uncertainty, because backlog is an order book, not realized revenue, and it can soften as fast as it surged. Vicor's order intake is tied to a small number of large AI customers, and the company says so directly: "our strategic emphasis on larger, high-volume customers, we expect to experience a greater concentration of sales among relatively fewer customers." Concentration in a handful of AI buyers cuts both ways. If those customers' chip programs slip, change power architectures, or pull back capital spending, the backlog that doubled can shrink just as quickly, and a company priced for flawless execution has no cushion for a stumble at even one major account. The filing also warns of cyclical risks including "increased risk of excess and obsolete inventories" in a demand reversal, the classic components-industry trap of building for a surge that fades.
Competition and execution add to the fragility at this price. The filing concedes that if Vicor "fails to develop and commercialize leading-edge technologies and products that are cost effective" and on time, its position erodes, and the AI-power-delivery prize it is chasing will attract the largest semiconductor and power players, all with deeper resources. The valuation gives no room for any of this: with every method far below the price and the implied bet resting on decades of sustained, AI-driven growth, the risk is profoundly asymmetric. The business is excellent and the AI demand is real, but the bear case is that the price has already capitalized a perfect, multi-year outcome, so anything short of perfection, a backlog wobble, a lost design win, a demand pause, resets a stock the conservative methods say is worth a fraction of where it trades.
Valuation
Vicor is the clearest example in this group of a price that no conventional method can reach. Sorted by what they measure, every family lands far below today's price near $332: asset value, trailing earnings power, peer multiples, and even forward growth. The block's characterization is unambiguous, that the price is a bet beyond what any standard frame supports. Some of that is the nature of a sharp inflection, since trailing methods cannot see a backlog that just doubled, but the magnitude here is extreme, and after a roughly 145% run it is a genuine warning rather than a method artifact.
The inversion quantifies how stretched the assumption is. Read against current economics, the price implies the company sustaining elevated growth and margins for an extraordinarily long horizon, on the order of decades, which is why the model's own fair-value range carries low reliability: no method it trusts can anchor a price this far above demonstrated earnings. That low reliability is itself the message. The price is not supported by what Vicor earns today, around $113 million of quarterly revenue and a 21% operating margin; it is supported by conviction that the AI power-delivery cycle compounds for years. The $301 million backlog and the 2:1 book-to-bill are the forward evidence the trailing methods cannot capture, and the entire distance between that order momentum and the modest current earnings is what a buyer is paying for.
Solvency is genuinely strong and keeps the risk to the multiple rather than the balance sheet. Vicor holds about $404 million in cash with zero debt, so it can fund the capacity to chase the backlog without financial strain, and it is already profitable. That strength is why the asset-value cheapness reflects a modest tangible book rather than distress, and why the company can invest through any pause in demand. The relevant comparison is other specialized power and semiconductor-component makers riding AI demand, where Vicor's distinction is its vertical power-delivery IP. The bet reconciles to paying a price no standard method supports for a debt-free, high-IP power-module specialist, on the singular condition that the AI-driven backlog surge converts into many years of sustained, high-margin growth, with little room for the order book or the design wins to disappoint.
Catalysts
The backlog surge is the catalyst that re-rated the stock. Vicor reported that its one-year order backlog jumped about 70% quarter over quarter and 75% year over year to $301 million, with book-to-bill above 2:1, on record demand for its power solutions in AI data centers. First-quarter revenue was about $113 million with net income near $21 million, and management highlighted growing demand for its vertical power-delivery and advanced packaging technologies in AI accelerators and next-generation GPU power systems.
Guidance points to the ramp beginning. Management guided second-quarter 2026 revenue to roughly $126 million and full-year 2026 revenue to nearly $570 million, framing AI and high-performance computing as the demand engine. The sequential step-up is the first proof point that the backlog is converting into shipped revenue rather than sitting as orders.
Sentiment is strongly positive but the setup is demanding. Analysts hold a Strong Buy consensus with targets ranging into the low $300s, and the stock has risen over 145% year to date. The variables to watch are backlog conversion, the durability of orders from a concentrated set of large AI customers, and the pace of design wins in next-generation GPU power architectures. The next checkpoint is the second-quarter print, which will show whether revenue tracked toward the guided $126 million and whether the backlog held or kept building.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Vicor (power modules) (reported)
- MPWR (MONOLITHIC POWER SYSTEMS INC)
- FY2025 10-K: …of such products. We consider our primary competitors to include Analog Devices, Infineon Technologies, NXP Semiconductors, ON Semiconductor, Power Integrations, Renesas Electronics, ROHM Semiconductor, Semtech, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments. 9 Table of Contents We expect continued competition from…
- FY2025 10-K: …partners utilize prior to shipping to our customers. The manufacturing facilities we utilize in Asia enable us to benefit from shorter manufacturing cycle times and lower labor and overhead costs. We have expanded our product testing capabilities in these facilities and are able to take advantage of the rich pool of…
- AEIS (ADVANCED ENERGY INDUSTRIES INC)
- FY2025 10-K: …to our global customers. We design, manufacture, sell and service precision power products that transform, refine, and modify the raw electrical power coming from either the utility or the building facility and convert it into various types of highly controllable, usable power that is predictable, repeatable, and…
- FY2025 10-K: Energy generates revenue from the sale of a broad range of advanced and system power products and services to global original equipment manufacturers ("OEMs"), distributors, and end customers. Our customers select our products based on various performance metrics such as high power conversion efficiency, high power…
- POWI (POWER INTEGRATIONS, INC.)
- FY2025 10-K: …with alternatives from such companies as Infineon, Mitsubishi Electric, Fuji Electric, Semikron and Hangzhou Firstack Technology Co., as well as driver circuits made up of discrete devices. Our motor-driver ICs compete with power modules from such companies as ON Semiconductor, Infineon, STMicroelectronics,…
- FY2025 10-K: …IGBT modules, as well as "driver cores," which provide more basic driver functionality that customers can customize to their own specifications after purchase. In 2016 we introduced the SCALE-iDriver ™ family of standalone ICs, which enables us to address applications ranging from a few kilowatts up to about 100…
- ALGM (ALLEGRO MICROSYSTEMS, INC.)
- FY2025 10-K: …our customers to design safer, smaller and more power-efficient systems. We employ embedded algorithms that simplify system-level design, reduce audible noise, and increase start-up reliability in brushless DC ("BLDC") motors and fans. Our portfolio of power ICs includes the following: • Motor Driver ICs : Motor…
- FY2025 10-K: …voltage and application needs for our customers. Current sensor ICs are used to improve energy efficiency in a broad range of applications, including on-board chargers, DC-DC converters, inverters, industrial motors, solar inverters, robotics, data center power supplies and EV charging infrastructure. • Position…
- NVTS (Navitas Semiconductor Corporation)
- FY2025 10-K: …as GaN-based and SiC-based power semiconductors. Our competitors include both global semiconductor companies with diversified product portfolios and smaller semiconductor companies with a narrow product or market focus. Similarly, our competitors include companies that outsource manufacturing and foundry services…
- FY2025 10-K: …these markets depends on factors including our ability to (i) develop and scale semiconductor solutions that meet demanding power, efficiency, and performance requirements of our customers; (ii) compete against established incumbents with substantial R&D and manufacturing resources; (iii) anticipate rapidly evolving…
- DIOD (DIODES INC /DEL/)
- FY2025 10-K: …the Company's growth initiatives in the automotive and industrial end-markets. This U.S.-based facility, together with the Company's existing wafer fabrication facilities in Asia and Europe, further enhances the Company's global manufacturing operations; • In 2020, we acquired Lite-On Semiconductor ("LSC") and its…
- FY2025 10-K: …in diverse end-use applications. OUR COMPETITIVE STRENGTHS We believe our competitive strengths include the following: Flexible, scalable, and cost-effective manufacturing - Our manufacturing operations are a core element of our success, and we have designed our manufacturing base to allow us to respond quickly to…
- MTSI (MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc.)
- FY2025 10-K: …We match our opto-electronic components to our laser and photodetector products enabling our customers to buy more complete solutions for their opto-electronic systems. For optical communications applications, we utilize a proprietary combination of GaAs, InP and Silicon Germanium ("SiGe") technologies to obtain…
- FY2025 10-K: Shifters Transimpedance Amplifiers GaN Power Amplifiers Phase Detectors True Time Delays Hybrid Amplifiers Photodiodes Varactor Diodes Integrated IC & Modules Photoreceivers Sales and Marketing We employ a global multi-channel sales strategy and support model intended to facilitate customers' evaluations and…
- SMTC (SEMTECH CORP)
- FY2025 10-K: …these market trends by providing solutions that are ultra-low power thereby extending battery life, small form factor enabling smaller more autonomous and connected devices, highly integrated enabling more functionality within devices, and high-performance enabling product differentiation within our customer base.…
- FY2025 10-K: Segment Information, to our Consolidated Financial Statements). Signal Integrity. We design, develop, manufacture and market a portfolio of optical and copper data communications and video transport products used in a wide variety of infrastructure and industrial applications. Our comprehensive portfolio includes…
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
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
Q1 2026 earnings call, May 2026 · analyst notes, 2026