Is Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd (DDL) a good stock to buy?
Our tested checks disagree with each other, so the answer depends on something further down the page rather than on any one measure.
What each rating means, in numbers
Business quality — Strong. Passes 6 of the 7 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, in every era and all twelve sectors.
How wild is the price? — Wild. The share price swings about 54% in a typical year, which puts it in the above average. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 3.7 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.9% to 5.7%.
What "tested" means here, and why there is no score out of 100
Tested means the read was measured against what actually happened afterwards, on a history that keeps the companies that were later delisted, using only figures that had been filed on the day they are used. Survival was ranked on companies that really did fail. What an owner keeps was tested across the universe from 2011 to 2025.
The full record of everything we have tested is on the research pages.
Which benchmark. Over the period we tested, the median listed company returned +5.8% a year while the S&P 500 returned about +13.9% — the index is weighted by size and was carried by a handful of enormous winners. So "beats the index" and "beats the other companies you could have bought" are different questions. Where a read says it picks better companies, it means the second one. None of these gets you an index fund's return, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.
The quality read is the strongest thing we have tested: 131,000 company-quarters across 5,300 companies, where the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, holding in every era and all twelve sectors. It still says less likely to break, not likely to beat the market — every band in that study lost to the index at the median, because the median listed company does.
Each read is shown on its own rather than merged into a single score, so you can see which part is strong and which is weak instead of taking an average on trust.
▾ What goes into the smart-money reading
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.
Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about DDL — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read DDL
We are not publishing an intrinsic value for this one — the section below says exactly why. Everything on this page that comes straight from the filings and the tape is still here; treat the missing valuation as a known gap, not as a verdict on the business.
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1
Reported earnings & margins ↓
What the company actually reported — unaffected by the valuation being held.
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2
Balance sheet & book value ↓
Assets, liabilities and equity as filed.
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3
Who's selling & betting against it ↓
Insider and short-interest behaviour needs no valuation model.
The share count we read for DDL looks wrong — common for multi-class / founder-controlled filers that report shares per share-class. That makes per-share figures (including intrinsic value) misleading, so we suppressed them. The company's total financials below are sound.
What to use instead: Lean on the totals — revenue, net income, cash flow — and the balance sheet. Multi-class share counts are being corrected; once fixed, the per-share valuation returns automatically.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — DDL's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
Who owns DDL, and how it moves
From the SEC's own filings: every fund manager over $100M reports its holdings each quarter, and every officer and director reports theirs. Each point is what was public at the time.
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
What these health ratings mean, in numbers
Business quality — Strong. Passes 6 of the 7 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% within a year against 1.4% for the strongest, and that held in every era and all twelve sectors. It says "less likely to break", not "likely to beat the market".
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
The Z-score needs working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, sales and total assets from the latest balance sheet, and at least one of those isn't reported in machine-readable form here — common for foreign private issuers. We leave it blank rather than compute a distress verdict from an estimated input. It doesn't affect the reported figures in the financial tables below.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✓ Positive net incomeNet income $33.1M in FY2025.
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✓ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow $76.6M (was $127.3M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $76.6M vs net income $33.1M.
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✗ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets 3.3% vs 4.3% a year ago.Why this matters: Is the company squeezing more profit out of each dollar of assets than last year? Rising = getting more efficient; falling = the opposite.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)The filing reports no interest-bearing debt in either year (total assets $1,003.3M).
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✓ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 1.05x vs 1.02x a year ago.
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· Share count (dilution) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 3.47x vs 3.24x a year ago.
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd due to its cash-burning growth stage, as evidenced by stock-based compensation equaling 22% of pre-SBCSBC (Stock-Based Compensation) — Paying employees with company shares instead of cash.
Why it matters: It's a real cost — it dilutes your ownership — so we subtract it from free cash flow even though accounting rules add it back, which would otherwise flatter cash-heavy tech companies.
Reference: Can be 10–30% of revenue at high-growth software firms.
Full explanation → free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation →. Valuing this company would require a focus on its ability to sustain revenue growth and achieve consistent profitability. Investors are likely betting on its potential to scale its e-commerce operations in the competitive fresh grocery market. The #1 quantifiable risk is the significant stock-based compensation relative to free cash flow, indicating ongoing dilution.
As of 4 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Acceleration in revenue growth rates
- Further improvement in net income margins
- Reduction in stock-based compensation as a percentage of revenue
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Revenue grew +10% to $3.48B.
- Free cash flow fell to $39.9M.
- Net income fell -21% to $33.1M.
Management & Leadership
Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd is led by its founder and CEO, Changlin Liang, who has been instrumental in guiding the company's strategy in the online fresh grocery sector since its inception. The executive team focuses on operational efficiency and market expansion within China's competitive e-commerce landscape.
What They Make
Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd operates an on-demand e-commerce platform for fresh groceries and daily necessities, primarily serving consumers in China. It offers a wide selection of fresh produce, meat, seafood, and other household items delivered directly to customers.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing DDL based on its potential for future growth in the online fresh grocery market, rather than its current cash flow, which is impacted by significant stock-based compensation. Despite positive net income and operating cash flow in the latest period, the roughly flat revenue growth of 2.5%/yr over four years suggests investors are looking for re-acceleration and sustained profitability in a high-growth sector.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself primarily through its operating cash flow, which was positive in the latest period, and has seen its long-term debt fall to $0M, indicating a focus on deleveraging and internal funding.
Free Cash Flow DCF
This is the model the pipeline would normally apply to a company like this. Its output failed our checks here, so no intrinsic value is published; the notes below are context, not a valuation.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 2.5% |
| Historical Fcf Growth | -59.1% |
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
| Best Estimate | 4.1% |
| Method | blend(70% revenue_cagr, 30% sector) |
| Growth Basis | total |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings cash-flow model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has grown roughly flat at 2.5%/yr over the past four years, with net income positive in 2 out of 5 years.
Geography & Markets
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)44.4NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (7 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (6)
- Stock-based compensation equals 22% of pre-SBC free cash flow; FCF used here is net of SBC (a real shareholder-dilution cost), so it is lower than the headline GAAP cash-flow figure.
- Shares from unknown — per-share values may be less accurate.
- Illiquidity discount 25% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Shares/market cap missing or defaulted; per-share valuation unreliable.
- Shares defaulted to 1; IV is NOT meaningful — treat as data-unavailable.
- DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 3.5B | 33.1M | — |
| 2024 | 3.2B | 41.7M | — |
| 2023 | 2.8B | -12.9M | — |
| 2022 | 3.5B | -117.0M | — |
| 2021 | 3.2B | -1.0B | — |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 76.6M | 25.4M | 11.2M | 39.9M |
| 2024 | 127.3M | 13.5M | 16.2M | 97.6M |
| 2023 | -33.0M | 11.7M | 19.2M | -64.0M |
| 2022 | 12.7M | 18.4M | 34.2M | -39.9M |
| 2021 | -889.2M | 70.9M | 49.5M | -1.0B |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: 76.6M − 25.4M − 11.2M (SBC & adj.) = 39.9M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 1.0B |
| Total Liabilities | 835.1M |
| Equity | 148.8M |
Similar companies worth a look
Same sector and industry, similar fundamentals shape. Verify everything yourself — this list is computed mechanically and does not reflect our judgment about whether any of these are a good investment.
The questions people ask about DDL
Is Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd (DDL) a good stock to buy?
We do not publish a single fair value for Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd, because one number would not be reliable for this business (the page explains why). Judge it on what today's price assumes, its financial-health checks and what insiders are doing, all shown here from SEC filings. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Is Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd (DDL) overvalued?
A single fair-value number is not reliable for Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd, so we do not call it overvalued or undervalued. The page shows what growth today's price assumes and how the company's finances look instead. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Where do these numbers come from?
From Dingdong (Cayman) Ltd's own SEC filings (10-K and 10-Q), Form 4 insider filings and daily market prices. Every figure on the page links to how it was calculated, and the model's weak spots are listed next to its results.