Is Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (SWBI) a good stock to buy?
Nothing we have tested argues against it, and one check argues for it.
What each rating means, in numbers
Can it survive? — Middling. Safer than 51% of the companies we cover, judged on the warning signs that came before companies that really did fail.
Business quality — Strong. Passes 8 of the 9 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? — Average. The share price swings about 39% in a typical year, which puts it in the middling. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 1.5 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.2% to 3.0%.
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). 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 SWBI — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read SWBI
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.
Our models couldn't converge on an intrinsic value for SWBI they trust, given its current filings. We show no number rather than a misleading one.
What to use instead: Use the Reverse-DCF, the peer multiples in the Football Field, and the financial statements below as your signal.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — SWBI's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
Who owns SWBI, 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.
165 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end.
Safer than 51% of the stocks we cover
What this rating means, and what it does not
What this rank is — Middling. Safer than 51% of the companies we cover. Out of every 100 companies ranked here, about <0.1% went bankrupt within the year, against 0.6% for the average company we cover. The rank comes from a model trained on every US filing since 2012, including 823 companies that really did fail, and scored each year by a version that had not seen that year.
What it is not — Not a trade. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010-2025. Every version lost money: the market already prices the distress and the survivors squeeze. A high rank is a reason to read the filings and to size for a total loss, not a reason to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.
▾ The numbers, the logic, and why not to trade on it
The logic. A model trained on every US filing since 2012 — including 823 companies that went bankrupt or stopped trading under a dollar — ranks each covered stock by its chance of failing in the next year, from its latest filing, price history and credit conditions. The rank is a position among peers; the table is a count of what happened to stocks in each position, scored each year by a model that had not seen that year.
| Rank band | went bankrupt within 12 months | fell 80% or more (or failed) within 12 months | fell 50% or more (or failed) within 6 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| All covered stocks (average) | 0.59% | 4.21% | 8.51% |
| Manufacturing (sector average) | 0.36% | 2.56% | 5.85% |
| riskiest 1% | 16.4% | 33.0% | 45.5% |
| next 2% (97-99) | 5.9% | 24.9% | 38.2% |
| next 2% (95-97) | 3.4% | 21.2% | 33.8% |
| next 5% (90-95) | 1.6% | 15.1% | 27.3% |
| next 15% (75-90) | 0.8% | 8.5% | 17.8% |
| next 25% (50-75) | 0.2% | 2.7% | 6.2% |
| safest half ← this stock | <0.1% | 0.5% | 2.1% |
Why not to trade on it. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010–2025: every version lost money. The market already prices the distress, and the survivors squeeze. Use a high rank to read the filings and to size for a total loss — not to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.
Scored from the most recent SEC filing we had (dated 2026-06-18), which can be a quarterly report newer than the yearly figures used elsewhere on this page; scores last updated 2026-09-18. Within Manufacturing: rank 59 of 100. Rough one-year odds for this stock alone: bankruptcy 0.1%, an 80% fall 0.5% (the model overstates the middle of the range). On the same data, the Altman Z score caught 26% of bankruptcies in its riskiest 5%; this rank caught 59%.
▾ The logic, and why not to buy on it
The logic. Trained on 2,900 acquisitions since 2012, the model leans on size (small), age, retained earnings, asset growth, volatility and how many deals the sector has just seen. Announcement = the day the stock jumped, not the day the paperwork was filed.
| top 1% | 15.4% acquired within a year |
| next 2% (97-99) | 10.3% acquired within a year |
| next 2% (95-97) | 9.0% acquired within a year |
| next 5% (90-95) | 7.3% acquired within a year |
| next 15% (75-90) | 6.4% acquired within a year |
| next 25% (50-75) | 4.8% acquired within a year |
| bottom half ← this stock | 3.0% acquired within a year |
Why not to buy on it. A takeover paid a median +22% on the day — but even in the top band about 6 in 7 companies are not bought, and those lag. Buying the whole top list returned what the S&P 500 did (2012–2023), and adding "cheap" or "beaten-down" filters did not change that. Read it as context for a thesis you already have, never as the thesis.
⚠ We found no genuine same- or closely-related-industry (Ordnance & Accessories,) comparables at all — fewer than the 4 we require for a reliable median. The 1 name in the table below therefore includes 1 broader Industrials name marked fallback, whose business models and margins differ — which is why any median below is computed over that wider set, not over true comparables. So we do not derive a peer-implied share value here. Read the multiples as rough context only.
How does SWBI stack up against its closest peers?
Ideally we compare SWBI only to same-industry peers, but too few exist in our universe right now, so the basket below mixes in broader-sector names. Treat the multiples as rough context, not a valuation. For a leveraged business, FCF yield (in the table) is usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Based on the single available name (broad — see caveat) we could price — with one company there is no median, so read it as a single data point.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (1)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AXON | AXON ENTERPRISE, INC. | Ordnance & Accessories, ·fallback | $33.6B | 12.7x | 21.3x | — | 0.0% |
Bankruptcy + quality screens
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 8 of the 9 health checks we can measure — making a profit, turning it into cash, not piling on debt, not issuing shares. 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".
Bankruptcy score (Altman Z) — Very safe. Altman Z is 2,819.20. It combines working capital, retained earnings, operating profit and market value against total assets into one bankruptcy score. Above 3.0 is the safe zone, 1.8 to 3.0 is grey, below 1.8 is the distress zone. It was calibrated on manufacturers in 1968, so it reads asset-light and heavily-financed businesses badly — which is why it is one input here and never the verdict.
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 →
Safe zone under the classic Altman thresholds — companies scoring here have historically gone bankrupt only rarely within ~2 years. A screening signal, not a guarantee.
The classic Z-score was calibrated on manufacturers. It is less reliable for asset-light or non-manufacturing businesses (broadcasters, media, software, services) and not applicable to banks, REITs, or insurers — for those the coefficients and the asset-turnover term distort the result. Read it as one screening input, not a verdict.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✓ Positive net incomeNet income $18.5M in FY2026.
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✓ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow $114.2M (was -$7.2M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $114.2M vs net income $18.5M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets 3.6% vs 2.4% a year ago.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)The filing reports no interest-bearing debt in either year (total assets $512.8M).
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 3.20x vs 4.16x a year ago.Why this matters: The current ratio compares assets it can turn to cash within a year against bills due within a year. Below 1.0 means it may struggle to cover near-term obligations.
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✓ Share count (dilution)Share count held roughly flat (44,484.0M → 44,420.0M year-over-year).
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✓ Pricing power (gross margin)Gross margin 26.9% vs 26.8% a year ago.
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 1.02x vs 0.85x 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.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for SWBI. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.
A full intrinsic value isn't shown for SWBI because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
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 Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (SWBI) because its 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 → after stock compensation, at $82.1 million, is less than 0.5% of its share price, making DCF outputs unreliable. Investors are likely focused on the company's ability to stabilize its revenue and gross margins, which have been declining. The biggest risk to our assumptions is the continued revenue decline, which has been -11.8% per year over the last four years.
As of 19 days 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's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
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.
- Stabilization or increase in quarterly revenue
- Improvement in gross margin percentage
- Consistent positive operating cash flow
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2025 → FY2026, 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 $523.8M.
- Free cash flow turned positive at $82.1M.
- Net income grew +38% to $18.5M.
Nothing was clearly worsening year-over-year.
Roughly flat: Gross margin held to 27% (+0 pts).
Management & Leadership
Mark P. Smith serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer, while Deana L. McPherson is the Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Assistant Secretary. These executives lead the company's operations and financial strategy.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Assistant Secretary
What They Make
Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells firearms. Their primary customers are distributors and retailers who then sell to individual consumers, law enforcement agencies, and military personnel.
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), dividend yield & payout — 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's pricing for SWBI is likely driven by expectations for future stabilization or modest growth in its core firearms business, given that revenue has been declining at -11.8% per year over the last four years. Investors may be betting on the company's ability to manage its cash flow, which was positive at $82.1 million in the latest fiscal year, despite the revenue contraction.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
Free Cash Flow DCF
Owner-earnings FCF DCF: positive free cash flow (operating cash flow − capex − stock-based comp) in a sector suited for cash-flow-based valuation. FCF negative in 2/5 years.
▾ Exactly how the $— normalized FCF/share is computed
2026: 82.1M
2025: -36.4M
2024: 10.3M
Sum ÷ 3 = 18.7M average total FCF
÷ 44,933.0M current diluted shares = $0.00/share
We divide the multi-year total-FCF average by today's share count (not each year's own share count), so the buyback effect is captured once, via the current denominator.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | -11.8% |
| Eps Growth | -90.0% |
| Sector Default | 6.0% |
| Sector Default Source | Industrials sector default |
| Best Estimate | 0.7% |
| Method | blend(30% revenue_cagr, 70% 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 been declining at -11.8% per year over the last four years, from $864 million to $523.8 million.
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)58.2NeutralMomentum 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 (7)
- Latest FCF ($0.1B, net of stock-based compensation) is 4.4x net income ($0.0B) - using 3yr average FCF to reduce one-time inflation.
- Base metric ($0/sh) is <0.5% of price ($14) - FCF DCF output will be unreliable. Growth/revenue model would be more appropriate for this stock.
- Terminal growth set to 0.5% — the lowest of the applicable caps (binding: 80% of near-term growth (0.7%)). We use one effective terminal rate everywhere on the page.
- INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
- Illiquidity discount 7% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Extreme valuation gap (P/IV withheld — see the note above): result may be dominated by model assumptions, share count issues, or sector-specific dynamics. Treat as low confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 523.8M | 18.5M | $0.41 |
| 2025 | 474.7M | 13.4M | $0.30 |
| 2024 | 535.8M | 41.4M | $0.89 |
| 2023 | 479.2M | 36.9M | $0.80 |
| 2022 | 864.1M | 194.5M | $4.08 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 114.2M | 23.7M | 8.4M | 82.1M |
| 2025 | -7.2M | 21.6M | 7.6M | -36.4M |
| 2024 | 106.7M | 90.8M | 5.7M | 10.3M |
| 2023 | 16.7M | 89.6M | 5.1M | -77.9M |
| 2022 | 137.8M | 24.0M | 4.5M | 109.3M |
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: 114.2M − 23.7M − 8.4M (stock-based comp) = 82.1M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a trailing 3-year average, not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 512.8M |
| Total Liabilities | 136.2M |
| Equity | 376.6M |
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 SWBI
Is Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (SWBI) a good stock to buy?
We do not publish a single fair value for Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., 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 Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. (SWBI) overvalued?
A single fair-value number is not reliable for Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., 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.
What growth is priced into SWBI?
Working backwards from today's price, the market expects SWBI's cash flow per share to grow by roughly 138.5% a year over the next five years. Compare that with the company's actual record on this page.
Where do these numbers come from?
From Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.'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.