01 — Executive summaryA perfect business at an imperfect price
ASML reported net sales of €11.66 billion for the quarter ended 27 September 2026, up 55.2%, net income of €4.96 billion, up 133.4%, and a 57.5% gross margin, five points above a year earlier. Full-year guidance was raised for the third time, to €44.0–45.0 billion at about 56%.
The company also said something rarer. Customers are discussing delivery slots for 2029 and 2030. The capacity ASML plans to add in 2027 and 2028, roughly 30% in each year, will not be enough; management is now studying a further increase.
This report applies a value-investing framework, which asks two questions rather than one: does the business have a durable advantage a competitor cannot buy, and does the price compensate for the risk that it does not? ASML answers the first more convincingly than any company we have covered, and the second badly.
The advantage is structural. ASML is the only commercial supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography, the step that defines every leading-edge node. It earned a 50.5% return on equity in 2025, holds €12.7 billion of cash against €4.5 billion of borrowings, and spends about 5% of revenue on capex.
The price is the problem. At $1,717.76 the company is capitalised at $647 billion, or 42.5 times trailing earnings. Our base case, a discounted cash flow on €15.5 billion of 2026 free cash flow, values the shares at $1,333 — 22% below the market; weighted across our scenarios the value is $1,371. We rate them Reduce with a $1,333 target.
02 — The macro backdropA capital-expenditure cycle with a schedule
A top-down read of ASML starts with what its customers have committed to spend. That number is now published with unusual precision, which is why the company can talk about 2029.
SEMI expects 300mm wafer fab equipment spending to reach $133 billion in 2026 and $151 billion in 2027, then $155 billion in 2028 and $172 billion in 2029. Twenty new 300mm fabs or lines start construction in 2026 and eighteen more in 2027.
Two features of this cycle differ from the last one. It is funded by the operating cash flow of the largest companies in the world rather than by a consumer replacement cycle, and it is geographically dispersed, with the United States, Japan, Korea and Taiwan all building at once. The framework's caution is that this makes it discretionary: a fab is the easiest large capital project in the world to delay by a quarter, and ASML's revenue is recognised on delivery.
03 — Industry structureThe only step with one supplier
The framework's industry test asks whether entry barriers are real and competition rational. Semiconductor equipment is a consolidated industry; lithography is not consolidated, it is a monopoly with a supply chain attached.
There is one qualified supplier of EUV scanners, one supplier of the optics inside them, and two of immersion DUV; deposition and metrology each carry six to eight. That difference in supplier count is the difference between a 57.5% gross margin and the roughly 45% a diversified equipment peer earns.
The barrier is not a patent that expires; it is twenty years of systems integration that Nikon abandoned in 2018 and Canon has never attempted at the leading edge. The framework prefers a barrier a competitor cannot buy; ASML's is one a competitor cannot build.
04 — The business modelThe machine is the beginning, not the sale
ASML sells two things. The first is a lithography system: an EUV scanner at roughly €200–250 million, a High-NA model at around €350 million, or an immersion DUV tool at a fraction of that. The second, and more interesting, is the service and upgrade annuity attached to every machine ever shipped.
Installed base management — service contracts, spare parts, field options and performance upgrades — was €3.29 billion in the third quarter, 28% of revenue. It carries a higher gross margin than a new tool, needs no factory slot, and grows with the installed base rather than the order book. In the fourth quarter it is guided to about €3.7 billion, more than 70% higher than a year earlier.
This matters for the quality of the earnings, not just their size. A systems-only business is a capital-goods business with a cycle; one where a third of revenue is a recurring, upgradeable annuity on equipment that costs more to replace than to maintain is closer to an infrastructure asset.
05 — Revenue qualityThree jurisdictions, two end markets
Revenue quality is about where the money comes from and how durable the source is. ASML's answer is concentrated on both dimensions, and the concentration is rising.
Taiwan and Korea supplied 63% of third-quarter system revenue between them, the United States 13%, and China 23%. Five customers account for the large majority of the order book — the price of a monopoly in a market with only a handful of qualified buyers.
The end-market split has changed in a way that matters. Logic was 54% of system sales and memory 46%. Memory used to be the counterweight: when logic slowed, DRAM and NAND investment took up the slack. That has broken, because the newest DRAM and HBM nodes now need EUV where they once needed only immersion DUV. The memory cycle no longer diversifies ASML's revenue; it amplifies it.
06 — The moatTwenty years to build, and no second bidder
The framework ranks competitive advantages by durability, and the strongest kind is a position a competitor cannot reach at any price; brand and scale are the weakest. ASML sits at the top of that ranking, with two rows that sit at the bottom.
EUV is the only lithography technology that can pattern the smallest features on a leading-edge chip, and ASML is the only company that sells it. The optics come from a single supplier, Zeiss SMT, with which ASML co-develops rather than orders; the light source comes from Cymer, which ASML owns. A foundry that qualifies a process on ASML equipment cannot move it to a rival, because there is no rival; it can only decide not to build the node.
The two weak rows are the honest part of the chart. ASML sells to roughly five buyers, so it has no pricing relationship it fully controls; its value-based pricing talks have met resistance at TSMC. Canon's nanoimprint lithography remains a substitute never proven at a leading-edge node. A monopoly is not the same as a free hand.
07 — Demand visibilityOrders into 2030, capacity into 2028
ASML stopped reporting quarterly net bookings. In their place it discloses delivery capacity, a better measure of what the business can earn: an order is only as good as the factory slot behind it.
On the third-quarter call management said the plan for 2027 and 2028 — roughly 30% more Low-NA EUV capacity in each year, and the same again for immersion DUV — will not fully meet customer demand, and that it is studying a larger increase for 2028. Some customers are already discussing 2029 and 2030 slots. Immersion DUV, which the company expected to decline in 2026, is now expected to hold flat.
The shipment line shows the same thing from the other side. New lithography systems sold went from 67 in the first quarter to 86 in the second to 113 in the third, with another step up implied for the fourth. Low-NA EUV deliveries go from about 43 units in 2025 to about 65 in 2026.
The constraint on ASML's growth is its own engineering and supply chain, not demand. The framework's objection is not that the demand is unreal. It is that the market has already paid for it.
08 — Management & allocationExcellent operators, expensive buyers
The framework assesses management on strategic vision, capital allocation and integrity. On the first and third ASML's record is strong: no restatements, no governance scandals, a coherent twenty-year technology bet, and a 2030 model set at the 2024 investor day of €44–60 billion of revenue at a 56–60% gross margin.
Capital allocation is more mixed. ASML returned €8.5 billion to shareholders in 2025 — 88% of net income — and repurchased €4.1 billion of stock in the third quarter of 2026 alone, under a €12 billion programme to the end of 2028. Nothing here is reckless.
But a buyback is a purchase, and the framework asks what price is being paid. The shares were repurchased through 2026 at somewhere between 30 and 40 times earnings. That is defensible if the 2030 model is raised and the cycle runs; it is a transfer of value from continuing holders to selling holders if it is not. Management is not obliged to be a value investor in its own stock; it has not been one.
09 — Profitability: ROEFifty per cent returns, and where they come from
The framework treats a sustained return on equity as the best summary of business quality. ASML's five-year average is 55%, a level almost no capital-intensive manufacturer reaches and most software companies do not.
DuPont decomposition explains it and also qualifies it. The 2025 figure of 50.5% is built from a 29.4% net margin, an asset turnover of just 0.66, and a 2.6 times equity multiplier. So the return comes from margin, not asset efficiency — and the leverage is not bank debt, only 9% of equity, but the mechanical effect of returning so much cash that the equity base stays small.
The return on invested capital of 66% in 2025 is the cleaner number and says the same thing: this business does not need much capital to grow. That is the property the framework pays the most for, and it is present.
10 — Margin structureFive points of gross margin, and one empty bar
Gross margin is the cleanest evidence of pricing power. ASML's went from 52.2% in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 57.5% in the third quarter of 2026 — five points in three quarters, while adding capacity and hiring.
Volume and factory absorption contributed 1.5 points, product mix 0.6, and the installed-base line 1.1. Value-based pricing contributed zero: management is explicit that price increases agreed with customers begin to show in 2027 and are fully reflected in 2028. The company has also notified Korean customers of a 10% increase in consumable and spare-part prices from January 2027.
That is the most interesting asymmetry in the investment case. The pricing lever has been negotiated and not yet pulled. If it works, a 5% price increase across the book would add roughly 8% to profit, because the incremental cost of a price rise is close to nothing. If it does not, the 2026 margin expansion is already in the numbers and the multiple is being paid for it.
11 — Cash conversionCash arrives before the machine does
The framework's core test of profit quality is whether operating cash flow matches net income over consecutive years. ASML passes it, with one instructive exception.
Operating cash flow has exceeded net income in every year since 2021 except 2023, when a €3.7 billion working-capital outflow during the memory downcycle pushed conversion to 0.69 times. The last twelve months converted 1.08 times. ASML takes customer advances against future deliveries, so part of its growth is funded by the people buying from it — a quality advantage most capital-goods manufacturers do not have.
The 2023 exception is worth keeping in view: it shows how fast the cash reverses when orders slow.
12 — Capital intensity & FCFA franchise that grows without much capital
Free cash flow determines a company's ability to pay dividends, buy back stock and fund expansion without borrowing. ASML generates it in quantity, but not in a straight line.
Free cash flow has averaged €8.4 billion over the last five years, ranging from €3.3 billion in 2023 to €11.1 billion in 2025. Capital expenditure was €1.6 billion in 2025, about 5% of revenue — which is why the return on invested capital is 66%.
The pattern is worth naming. When the cycle turns down, free cash flow falls twice — profit falls and working capital reverses — and when it turns up, it rises twice. That is the opposite of a capital-intensive business, where capex destroys cash in a downturn. ASML's constraint is engineering headcount and supplier capacity, not money.
13 — The balance sheetTwelve billion of cash and no net debt
Solvency is the least interesting part of the ASML story, which is itself the point. The framework excludes companies whose growth depends on leverage; ASML's does not.
Cash and short-term investments ended the third quarter at €12.7 billion, up 68% in three months, against borrowings of roughly €4.5 billion. Net debt to equity is minus 0.26. Debt is 9% of equity and 0.15 times EBITDA.
The current ratio of 1.33 and the quick ratio of 0.72 look tight for a manufacturer, but they sit on a model in which customers prepay: a company holding other people's money against future deliveries can run a lower current ratio than one that extends credit. The framework asks whether the leverage is real; here it is not.
14 — The China questionA policy variable, not a demand variable
China was ASML's largest market in 2024 at 41% of revenue. It is guided to about 20% for 2026. The path between those numbers is not a demand curve; it is a series of export-control decisions made in The Hague and Washington.
The sequence is instructive. China was 41% of revenue in 2024 as customers pulled forward orders against the threat of restrictions, 33% in 2025, 19% in the first quarter of 2026 and 14% in the second, then back to 23% in the third. What China buys is not what it wants: the most advanced tools are not permitted to ship, and the rest is mature-node DUV.
ASML's chief executive has publicly argued against further tightening, warning that sustained restriction will produce a self-sufficient Chinese alternative. That is a commercial argument and should be read as one. The framework's treatment is simpler: the 2026 guidance range was widened to accommodate the outcome of export-control discussions, and the good news is that the 2026 revenue increase is happening with China at 20%, not 41%.
15 — The cyclicality questionOne flat year inside the AI boom
The most useful discipline in this report is remembering that ASML is a capital-goods company. The framework's warning about cyclicality is not theoretical here.
In FY2024, while the market was describing an unprecedented AI boom, ASML's revenue grew 2.6% and net income fell 3.4%, because memory customers had stopped ordering. The AI accelerator demand that dominated the headlines was real, and it did not reach the lithography order book because the leading-edge logic fabs that buy EUV were digesting capacity already installed.
The current cycle is broader and better funded, and the memory end market has re-joined rather than offsetting it. But the framework does not ask whether the good part is real; it asks what happens if the cycle turns, and this franchise has a documented answer: revenue goes flat, net income falls, working capital reverses, and the multiple compresses.
16 — Intrinsic value: DCFWhat the price already assumes
Intrinsic value is the framework's center of gravity, and the discount rate is where most of the judgment sits. We use a two-stage model: FY2026 free cash flow of €15.5 billion, 0.96 times net income — below the 1.15 times conversion of 2025, to allow for the working-capital drag of a capacity ramp. Growth of 26%, 20%, 15%, 12% and 10% over five years, then 8%, 6.5%, 5%, 4% and 3.5%, with a 3% terminal rate.
Across a 9% to 11% cost of capital and a 2% to 3% terminal growth rate, every cell in the grid sits below the market price. The base case at a 10% cost of capital and 3% terminal growth is $1,333 a share. The most generous cell — 9% and 3%, a discount rate barely above the company's cost of equity on a 1.8 beta — reaches $1,566.
The gap between $1,333 and $1,718 is not a rounding difference. It is the value of three assumptions: that the cycle extends through 2028 uninterrupted, that the 2030 revenue model is raised rather than merely reached, and that a monopoly with no net debt deserves a discount rate closer to 9% than 11%. Any could be right; the price requires all three.
17 — Relative value & safetyA narrower premium, and no discount
A discounted cash flow is a set of assumptions in a table. Two cross-checks guard against being wrong by accident: how the shares are priced against peers, and against their own history.
On indicative forward multiples for 2026, ASML trades at about 35 times against 26 to 30 times for Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA and Tokyo Electron. The premium is earned: ASML is the only one of the five with a sole-source monopoly, and the only one whose growth is limited by its own capacity rather than by its customers' willingness to spend. Morgan Stanley notes it has narrowed toward a decade low.
Against its own history the picture is more uncomfortable. ASML has traded between 34 and 49 times trailing earnings over five years, with a median near 36. At 42.5 times trailing it sits in the upper half of that range but not at an extreme — an argument against calling the shares a bubble, and an argument for nothing else.
The framework's margin-of-safety rule is the operative test: buy at 20% to 50% below calculated intrinsic value. A base case of $1,333 puts the buy zone at $667 to $1,066; the bull case of $2,146 puts it at $1,073 to $1,717. The market price sits at the very top of the bull-case buy zone and 29% above the base case. On this framework the shares are not merely unattractive; they are outside the zone in which a purchase is permitted at all.
18 — ScenariosThree futures, and only one of them pays
Scenarios discipline a valuation by forcing the assumptions apart. Ours differ on one question: whether the AI capital-expenditure cycle is a level shift in demand or the top of a very large cycle.
The bear case assumes the cycle turns in 2028, free cash flow falls that year, and the market applies a mid-cycle multiple: $671. The base case assumes capacity is added as planned, growth fades from 26% to 3.5%, and the shares settle at 12 times free cash flow: $1,333. The bull case assumes the 2030 revenue model is raised, pricing compounds from 2027, and the multiple holds: $2,146.
Weighted 25/50/25, the value is $1,371 — 20% below the price. The distribution is the finding: the bull case clears the price by 25%, the bear case is 61% below it. For a stock at 42.5 times trailing earnings, the asymmetry is on the wrong side of the framework.
19 — The bull caseIn one page
The monopoly is not a metaphor. There is one supplier of EUV, one supplier of the optics inside it, and no qualified alternative at any price. Every leading-edge logic node and, now, every advanced DRAM and HBM node depends on a machine only ASML can build. That is a 57.5% gross margin with no visible ceiling.
Demand is booked, not hoped for. Customers are discussing 2029 and 2030 delivery slots; the capacity ASML plans for 2027 and 2028 is already insufficient, and management is studying a further increase. Immersion DUV, expected to decline in 2026, is holding flat.
The pricing lever has been negotiated but not pulled. Value-based pricing agreements carry no 2026 benefit and arrive in 2027 and 2028; spare parts prices to Korean customers rise 10% in January 2027. A 5% price increase would lift profit by roughly 8%.
The financial quality is exceptional. A 50.5% return on equity, a 66% return on invested capital, capex at 5% of revenue, €12.7 billion of cash, no net debt, and cash conversion above one times. Almost nothing in this report needs to be taken on trust.
20 — The bear caseIn one page
The price assumes the cycle does not turn. At 42.5 times trailing and 35 times estimated 2026 earnings, the market is paying today for capacity built in 2028. ASML's own history contains a flat year inside the current boom: revenue grew 2.6% in 2024 and net income fell 3.4% while AI was the story of the year.
Five customers, three jurisdictions. Taiwan and Korea supplied 63% of third-quarter system revenue and the United States 13%. A single customer delaying a fab, or a single tightening of export rules, moves the whole model. China has already gone from 41% of revenue to a guided 20% on policy alone.
The AI buildout has a financing constraint. Broadcom's chief executive has said that funding, not silicon, is the binding limit on AI expansion. If customers' capital budgets meet a higher cost of capital, the 2028 delivery slots are the first thing that gets pushed — and the multiple does not wait for the revenue.
Capital is being returned at a high price. €4.1 billion of stock was repurchased in the third quarter alone at 30 to 40 times earnings. If the cycle is closer to its top than its middle, that cash was worth more inside the business.
21 — Risk screeningWhat could break the thesis
The framework screens fundamental, financial, external and governance risks before a position is built.
| Risk | Type | Probability | Impact | How it would show up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valuation compression without an earnings miss | External | High | High | Multiple falls from 35 times to 25 times on unchanged estimates; the shares fall a third |
| AI capital expenditure is deferred, not cancelled | External | Medium | High | 2028 delivery slots move right; revenue growth undershoots the capacity plan by a year |
| Export controls tighten further on China | External | Medium | High | China falls below the guided 20%; the 2027 revenue base starts lower |
| Memory investment rolls over | Fundamental | Medium | High | Memory's 46% of system sales reverts to a downcycle; EUV orders pause as they did in 2023 |
| Customer concentration | Fundamental | Medium | High | A single fab delay at one of five buyers moves group revenue by several points |
| Value-based pricing is rejected | Fundamental | Medium | Medium | The 2027 margin step does not arrive; gross margin plateaus near 56% |
| Capacity expansion slips on components | Fundamental | Medium | Medium | Low-NA EUV deliveries miss 65 units in 2026; the 2027 base is lower than planned |
| Zeiss or Cymer single-source failure | Fundamental | Low | High | Optics or light-source supply constrains shipments for more than a quarter |
| Working capital reverses | Financial | Medium | Medium | Cash conversion falls toward the 0.69 times of 2023; free cash flow undershoots profit |
| Tariffs and trade friction | External | Medium | Medium | Landed costs rise; the guidance range widens further |
| High-NA adoption is slower than promised | Fundamental | Low | Medium | TSMC pushes its 2030 High-NA introduction right; the next product cycle arrives later |
| Buyback executed at a high multiple | Governance | High | Low | Share count falls but intrinsic value per share does not rise |
22 — The holding decisionWhat we would need to see
The framework is explicit: buy in batches at low valuations, hold while the fundamentals hold, and sell when the price exceeds intrinsic value. ASML fails the first condition on price alone, and the second is not in question.
Buying criteria — not met
The framework requires a 20–50% margin of safety, a durable moat, healthy cash flow and no major hidden risks. ASML meets three of the four in the strongest terms and fails the first decisively: its base case is 22% below the market price, rather than the market price below its base case. We would not initiate at $1,717.76.
What would change our mind
A price near $1,070, which restores a 20% margin of safety on the base case, or a material increase to the 2030 revenue model — the current one is €44–60 billion, and 2026 revenue of €44.5 billion already sits at the bottom of it — with evidence that pricing is landing. Either moves the base case, not just the price.
If already held — trim into strength
An investor who owns the shares is not holding a broken business, but a magnificent one at a full price. The framework's answer is to reduce toward a position size a 40% drawdown would not disturb, and to hold while the demand visibility lasts. The trigger to exit is a downgrade to the 2027 capacity plan.
The two events that matter
First, the fourth quarter, guided to €14.2–15.2 billion at a 57% gross margin: execution matters more than the headline. Second, the 2027 guidance in January, which will show whether the 30% capacity increase is matched by orders and whether value-based pricing appears in the margin. Watch the installed-base line and the gross margin, not the order book the company no longer publishes.
23 — ConclusionThe best business we cover, at a price we cannot pay
ASML is the clearest example in the compute stack of a business whose advantage is not a narrative. One company makes the machines that make every leading-edge chip, and no second bidder has emerged in twenty years. The third quarter of 2026 was its best: €11.66 billion of net sales, a 57.5% gross margin, €4.96 billion of net income, and guidance raised for the third time.
What the framework adds is not skepticism about any of that, but a question about price. A value approach does not ask whether a company is excellent; it asks whether the excellence is available at a discount to what it is worth. At $1,717.76 and 42.5 times trailing earnings, it is not.
The arithmetic is not subtle. Our base case values the shares at $1,333; across a 9–11% cost of capital and a 2–3% terminal growth rate, no cell in the sensitivity grid reaches the market price. The bull case reaches $2,146, the bear case $671, and the probability-weighted value of $1,371 is still 20% below where the shares trade.
None of this makes ASML a short. Demand visibility is real, the pricing lever is unpulled, and the company is executing a capacity ramp its customers want accelerated. A stock like this can stay expensive for years. But the framework is a discipline, not a forecast, and it says the same thing about a magnificent business at a full price as about a mediocre one: the risk is no longer in the company, it is in the price.
Reduce · $1,333 target
A sole-source monopoly with a 57.5% gross margin, a 50% return on equity and demand booked into 2030 — priced at 42.5 times trailing earnings and 29% above our base-case intrinsic value. We would become constructive below roughly $1,070, which restores the framework's margin of safety, or on a material increase to the 2030 revenue model. We would turn negative on a downgrade to the 2027 capacity plan or a second consecutive quarter of falling memory orders.
24 — AppendixFinancial summary
| EUR millions unless stated | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | FY2026E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total net sales | 21,173 | 27,558 | 28,263 | 32,667 | 44,500 |
| Net sales growth, % | +13.8 | +30.2 | +2.6 | +15.6 | +36.2 |
| Gross margin, % | 49.9 | 51.3 | 51.3 | 52.8 | 56.0 |
| Net income | 5,624 | 7,839 | 7,572 | 9,609 | 16,200 |
| Net income growth, % | −4.4 | +39.4 | −3.4 | +26.9 | +68.6 |
| Net margin, % | 26.6 | 28.4 | 26.8 | 29.4 | 36.4 |
| Basic EPS, EUR | 14.14 | 19.91 | 19.25 | 24.63 | 42.00 |
| Return on equity, % | 59.4 | 70.4 | 47.4 | 50.5 | — |
| Return on invested capital, % | 82.9 | 87.1 | 66.5 | 85.8 | — |
| Operating cash flow | 8,487 | 5,443 | 11,166 | 12,659 | ~17,000 |
| Capital expenditure | 1,282 | 2,156 | 2,067 | 1,574 | ~2,000 |
| Free cash flow | 7,205 | 3,288 | 9,099 | 11,085 | ~15,500 |
| Cash conversion, times | 1.51 | 0.69 | 1.47 | 1.32 | — |
| Installed base management revenue | — | — | — | ~6,800 | ~12,200 |
| Low-NA EUV units delivered | — | — | — | 43 | ~65 |
| Buybacks | 4,640 | 1,000 | 500 | 5,950 | ~7,000 |
| Dividends paid | 2,560 | 2,348 | 2,453 | 2,550 | ~3,100 |
| Cash and short-term investments | — | — | — | 13,322 | 12,735 |
| Debt / equity, times | 0.53 | 0.37 | 0.27 | 0.24 | 0.09 |
| China share of net sales, % | — | — | 41 | 33 | ~20 |
FY2022–FY2025 figures are reported under US GAAP. FY2026E is our estimate: revenue at the midpoint of the 14 October guidance range, gross margin at the guided ~56%, and net income built from the nine months reported plus a fourth quarter at the guided €14.2–15.2 billion of revenue and a 57% gross margin. FY2026E operating cash flow, free cash flow and the capital-return lines are Farstar estimates, as is installed base management revenue for FY2025, derived from the four reported quarters. Cash and short-term investments for FY2026E are the 30 September 2026 balance. Market data as of the 13 October 2026 close.
25 — SourcesPrimary and secondary references
| Reference | Date | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| ASML, Q3 2026 results press release, investor call and video interview (asml.com) | 14 Oct 2026 | Q3 net sales, gross margin, net income, EPS, installed base management revenue, systems sold, regional and end-market splits, Q4 and FY2026 guidance, buyback and dividend, capacity and High-NA commentary |
| ASML, Q2 2026 results press release and investor call (asml.com) | 15 Jul 2026 | Q2 net sales and net income, installed base management revenue, 2026 guidance at that date, capacity plan and China share |
| ASML, Q1 2026 results press release (asml.com) | 15 Apr 2026 | Q1 net sales, gross margin, net income, EPS, installed base management revenue, systems sold, cash position, dividend and buyback detail |
| ASML, FY2025 results and 2026–2028 share buyback announcement (asml.com) | 28 Jan 2026 | FY2025 net sales of €32.7 billion and net income of €9.6 billion, initial 2026 guidance, the €12 billion buyback programme, the €7.50 dividend |
| ASML, Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025 (SEC) | Feb 2026 | Risk factors, export-control and trade exposure, accounting policies, customer concentration |
| S&P Global Market Intelligence financial data via stockanalysis.com | 14 Oct 2026 | Cash flow history FY2021–FY2025 and trailing twelve months, ROE, ROIC, debt ratios, historical and current valuation multiples |
| SEMI, 300mm fab equipment spending forecast, and SEMICON West 2026 data | Apr 2026 / Oct 2026 | 300mm wafer fab equipment spending 2025–2029, fab construction spending, new fab starts |
| 21st Century Business Herald, “光刻机供需持续紧张，ASML单季业绩创新高” | 14 Oct 2026 | Chief executive and chief financial officer commentary, regional and end-market splits, NXE:3800F and YieldStar 550B roadmap, High-NA customer commitments, value-based pricing |
| 36Kr, “单季117亿欧元，光刻机爆单，ASML CEO：需求排到2030年” | 14 Oct 2026 | Quarterly EPS, buyback and dividend amounts, cash balance, Korean spare-parts pricing, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley observations, financing-constraint argument |
| Economic Daily (经济日报), ASML Q3 2026 results report | 14 Oct 2026 | Quarterly record confirmation, guidance, chief executive quotations |
| Financial Times interview with Christophe Fouquet | Oct 2026 | Export-control commentary and the argument on the Chinese market |
| TSMC and ASML joint announcement on a 12-inch mask pilot line | Sep 2026 | High-NA industry alliance and 2031–2033 timeline |
| Nasdaq market data | 13 Oct 2026 | Closing price, market capitalisation, share count |
26 — DisclosureConflicts, positions and method
Positions and compensation. Farstar Capital holds no position in ASML Holding N.V. (Nasdaq: ASML) or in any company named in this report, and receives no compensation from ASML or any party with an interest in the securities discussed. Coverage is selected by us; the company did not preview this report.
Every figure traces to a filing, an earnings release, a company announcement, an industry forecast, a market-data provider or a named press report, each identified above; derived numbers are stated as such. ASML is incorporated in the Netherlands, reports in euros under US GAAP, and its Nasdaq line is an American depositary share; the price and target here are for that line. The FY2026 estimates, the peer and historical multiples, the scenario values and the discounted cash flow are ours and are labelled indicative where they are not reported figures. Reduce means we expect a negative total return over twelve months. Our valuation is unusually sensitive to the discount rate because most of the value sits in the terminal period; the sensitivity grid in section 16 is the honest expression of that. We do not have access to ASML's order book, so the demand analysis rests on the capacity disclosures the company publishes in place of quarterly bookings.
Not investment advice. This report is published for informational purposes only and is not an offer, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures are believed accurate as of the publication date but are not warranted.