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Quote this valuation with its source: Fair value, Potential value and the price at analysis.
FAQ
CDW — frequently asked questions
Is CDW Corporation overvalued?
In our latest published analysis dated 2026-10-11, CDW looks modestly undervalued. The price recorded at analysis is USD 142 versus our fair value of USD 157; the high endpoint is presented separately as potential value of USD 197. That implies roughly 10.2% upside to fair value at that date.
Our latest published report, analyzed 2026-10-11, gives CDW a fair value of USD 157 and a potential value of USD 197. The conclusion is triangulated across multiple valuation models and weighted by reliability for CDW Corporation's archetype; it is a dated research output, not a live price.
Should I buy CDW now?
Our latest published rating for CDW, analyzed 2026-10-11, is Hold. CDW Corporation looks modestly undervalued at the analysis-date price of USD 142 versus fair value of USD 157; potential value is USD 197. This is research for educational purposes, not personalized investment advice.
What are the biggest risks for CDW?
The dedicated bear-case section in our report analyzed 2026-10-11 documents CDW Corporation's material risks, evidence, thresholds, and thesis-invalidation conditions. Scenario-specific explanations remain in that section so the report does not repeat or decontextualize them elsewhere.
What is CDW's rating?
Our latest published rating for CDW, analyzed 2026-10-11, is Hold, with a published moat assessment of 6.8/10 (Narrow). It reflects our fair value of USD 157, the potential value of USD 197, and the price recorded at analysis (USD 142).
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§1 Resumo executivoEN
Resposta em 30 segundosHold
Preço versus valor
Preço
$142.17
Valor justo
$156.65
Valor potencial
$196.79
Em
2026-10-09
Por que pode funcionar
Acceleration of enterprise AI infrastructure adoption pulling through complex networking, security consulting, and high-margin recurring managed services.
O que mudaria nossa visão
Second-half 2026 gross margin compressing due to infrastructure product mix and tier-1 volume deals.
CDW Corporation offers steady enterprise compounding through client endpoint refreshes and AI infrastructure adoption, though near-term gross margindilution and a balanced risk-reward warrant a Hold rating at current levels.
CDW generated $22.42B in FY2025 revenue and $1.66B in operating income, driven by its core Corporate ($9.44B) and Public ($8.54B) segments.7,8
Management raised its full-year 2026 outlook on strong written bookings and elevated backlog, expecting to outperform the U.S. IT addressable market by 200 to 300 basis points. However, heavy mix shift toward enterprise infrastructure hardware will compress second-half gross margins.
With a compositefair value of $156.65 representing 10.18% upside from $142.17, the stock is fairly valued, supporting the committee's Hold recommendation.4
Market-Leading IT Aggregation Scale
Over $22B in revenue and relationships with 1,000+ vendors secure preferred OEM pricing tiers and durable customer switching costs.5,7
Secular AI Infrastructure and Refresh Tailwinds
Enterprise device refresh cycles and AI inferencing deployments sustain mid-single digit revenue growth and high single-digit EPS expansion.5
Disciplined Capital Return Framework
Consistent free cash flow generation ($1.09B in FY2025) funds a targeted ~25% dividend payout and regular share repurchases.5,6,7
Recomendação da casa
Hold: CDW's fair value of $156.65 offers 10.18% upside from $142.17 as of October 9, 2026. Investors should maintain existing allocations and monitor second-half margin trends and inventory rationalization.4
Visão geral da empresa
CDW Corporation (NASDAQ: CDW) is a Fortune 500 provider of information technology solutions to business, government, education, and healthcare customers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
The company acts as a multi-vendor aggregator, offering more than 100,000 products and services from over 1,000 hardware, software, and cloud providers, spanning endpoint devices, data center infrastructure, cybersecurity, and recurring managed services.
§2 Cenário pessimistaEN
Under simultaneous pressures of a 300 bps operating margin compression and revenue deceleration below 3.0% YoY, CDW's cash flow would contract significantly. Fixed interest service on $6.33B of total debt would consume an expanded share of operating profit, restricting share repurchases and forcing capital preservation.
Management guided second-half 2026 gross margins below 2H 2025 levels due to heavy mix of enterprise infrastructure products and tier-1 volume deals. If services attachment lags and operating expenses fail to leverage, operating margin falls from 7.38% toward 5.5%.5,7
FV impact
Sinais de alerta antecipado para monitorar
Os cinco desenvolvimentos que enfraqueceriam a nossa tese de investimento.
CDW possesses a narrow economic moat underpinned by enterprise customer switching costs and scale-driven procurement advantages. The company aggregates more than 100,000 products from over 1,000 commercial hardware and software vendors, serving as a unified integration partner for complex multi-vendor IT estates.
While gross margins reflect distribution dynamics, CDW consistently achieves solid operating profitability ($1.66B operating income in FY2025) and high returns on equity (44.0%), demonstrating economic value creation above its 9.12% moderate cost of equity.
Moat durability is bounded because CDW operates in a cost-plus distribution framework without proprietary intellectual property pricing power. OEM direct-sales initiatives and cloud marketplace catalogs present ongoing competitive tension, preventing a wide moat designation.
Lucro econômico
CDW generates returns on invested capital well above its moderate cost of equity of 9.12% and WACC of 7.87%, enabled by low annual capital intensity ($117.1M capex on $22.42B revenue).2,7
6.8/ 10
Narrow
Sources of advantage
01Customer Switching Costs — Enterprise clients rely on CDW for integrated multi-vendor procurement, configuration staging, and ongoing lifecycle asset management, embedding CDW systems deep into client operational workflows.Moderate
02Distribution Scale Advantage — Aggregating $22.42B in consolidated revenue grants CDW premier tier-1 OEM pricing status, volume rebate tiers, and priority inventory allocation over smaller regional value-added resellers.Wide
Ameaças conhecidas à vantagem competitiva
Ameaça
Gravidade
Cronograma
Mitigação
OEM Direct-to-Enterprise Selling
medium
3 to 5 years
Deepening multi-vendor integration, vendor-neutral advisory, and expanding recurring managed services.5
The highlighted cell is Fair value when every assumption sits at its base level ($156.65). Each row and column shows what Fair value becomes when one assumption moves.
Free cash flow to the firm stays positive in the first projected year at $1.2B after modeled reinvestment of $108.1M, with terminal value at 79.9% of enterprise value. A sudden drop in free cash flow is not projected unless capital spending relative to revenue, reinvestment, or gross margin resets materially.
Demonstrates that high-margin security, cloud, and managed services are successfully attaching to hardware deployments, driving structural operating leverage.
Em linha
Maintain Hold; Maintain existing sizing, rebalance at quarterly checkpoints, and monitor inventory unwinding.
Consensus estimates post-Q2 earnings remained flat immediately following the release (FY2026 EPS at $10.76 on August 6) before edging up toward $10.97 in October, while FY2026 revenue consensus sits at $24.24B.1
In FY2025, CDW generated $1.21B in operating cash flow and $1.09B in free cash flow on capital expenditures of $117.1M. Free cash flow conversion temporarily dipped in first-half 2026 due to a $400M inventory build, but unwinding this inventory will re-accelerate conversion in the second half of 2026.5,6,7
Alocação de capital
CDW prioritizes disciplined capital returns through a targeted ~25% dividend payout ratio and substantial share repurchases ($653M in FY2025), which significantly exceed stock-based compensationdilution ($83.6M), while managing $6.33B in total debt.
CDW generates durable return on capital supported by an asset-light IT solutions aggregation model with low net capital expenditure needs ($117.1M capex in FY2025).
Economic returns comfortably exceed the estimated cost of capital (WACC of 7.87% and moderate Ke of 9.12%), generating positive economic profit.
Revenue growth re-acceleration driven by endpoint refresh and AI infrastructure
FY2026 consensus revenue of $24.24B reflects 8.11% growth over FY2025 revenue of $22.42B.
Top-line expansion confirms market share gains outperforming broader IT spending by 200-300 bps.
CDW Corporation (CDW) trades at 15.2x forward earnings against a peer median of 13.8x. Its EV/EBITDA of 11.7x compares with a peer median of 12.9x. The comparison uses 4 peers: International Business Machines Corporation, Fidelity National Information Services Inc., Skyworks Solutions Inc. and Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc., as of 2026-10-10 to 2026-10-11.
§10 Setor e cicloEN
Fase do ciclo
Expansion
Enterprise customers are actively expanding data center and edge hardware infrastructure, driving strong written bookings exceeding invoicing, while industry capex-to-depreciation stands at 0.35.5
Ciclo de alta
Accelerated enterprise digitalization, Windows 11 endpoint refresh cycles, and generative AI infrastructure upgrades expanding IT budgets beyond historical baseline growth.
Ciclo de baixa
Enterprise capex digestion following large-scale deployments, elongated corporate approval cycles, and public sector budget delays stalling hardware deliveries.
Tendências seculares
Tendência
Impacto
Nota
Enterprise AI Adoption and Edge Computing
positive
Inference workloads and edge computing demand full-stack infrastructure upgrades across compute, networking, and security.
Rising threat vectors and AI model risks drive ongoing demand for identity, endpoint, and perimeter security integration.
Posicionamento
As an authorized tier-1 aggregator for over 1,000 technology vendors, CDW occupies a critical intermediate position between fragmented enterprise IT buyers and major OEMs, capturing volume across corporate ($9.44B FY2025 revenue) and public sectors ($8.54B FY2025 revenue).5,8
§11 Gestão de posiçãoEN
Dimensionamento
2-3%
Reflects CDW's solid competitive position and steady compounding characteristics, balanced against a Hold rating, modest 10.18% upside to fair value, and near-term gross margindilution.
Risco
Cap exposure at 3% of aggregate equity portfolio. Hedge sector concentration risk via IT distributor or semiconductor peer pairs if enterprise hardware capex digestion broadens.
Tranches de entrada
Nível
Ação
Por quê
$130.00 - $135.00
Consider initiating or building position
$142.17
Hold existing allocation
Trading at $142.17 as of October 9, 2026 reflects fair pricing with a 10.18% upside, warranting patience for better risk-reward entry.
Tranches de saída
Nível
Ação
$156.65
Trim position as share price reaches the house fair value midpoint.
$175.00 - $190.00
Substantially reduce exposure as price approaches the upper valuation boundary ($196.79).
Re-evaluate inventory unwinding and reduce share repurchase expectations.
§12 Perspectivas dos investidoresEN
Value Investor
Hold
Trading at 15.15x forward P/E and a 9.2% discount to fair value of $156.65, the margin of safety is insufficient to warrant an aggressive overweight position.4
Growth Investor
Hold
Revenue growth projected at 8.11% in FY2026 before moderating to mid-single digits provides steady compounding but limited re-rating catalysts.1
Income Investor
Hold
Current dividend yield backed by a disciplined 25% payout ratio offers reliable income but remains secondary to share repurchases.5
§14 Recomendação finalEN
Ação
Manter
CDW Corporation is rated Hold with a compositefair value of $156.65, offering 10.18% upside from the current share price of $142.17.4
While CDW benefits from endpoint refreshes and AI infrastructure demand, second-half gross margindilution and working capital inventory normalization warrant a neutral stance until higher-margin services materialize.
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Sources
The records this analysis drew on, as they stood when it was run.
Not every cited input appears here: internal calculations and intermediate model outputs have no external record, and some citations could not be matched to one.
Corporate IT capex digestion and public sector procurement delays stall top-line growth
Corporate and Public segments generate $9.44B and $8.54B in revenue respectively. Post-refresh enterprise digestion and budget freezes could cause revenue growth to miss the projected 8.11% in FY2026 and fall below 3.0% YoY.1,8
FV impact
-6.1%
Revenue and EPS growth 5 points lower for five years
CDW trades at 15.15x forward P/E with a modeled terminal P/E of 15.0x. Slower EPS growth, lingering inventory overhang, and $6.33B total debt could derate the multiple by 20% toward peer levels (SWKS at 13.4x, FIS at 5.1x).3,4,5
FV impact
-7.8%
Terminal multiple 20% lower
Trigger
Within 24 months
Higher-for-longer refinancing costs lift cost of capital
Carrying $6.33B in total debt with pre-tax cost of debt at 5.87% exposes CDW to refinancing headwinds, lifting moderate Ke from 9.12% by 100 bps.2,4
FV impact
-9.1%
Cost of capital 1 point higher
Trigger
Within 12 months
Enterprise capex pause or public sector procurement delays stalling shipment volumes.
Discounted forecast-period cash flows (US$ 42,19) plus discounted terminal value (US$ 167) minus signed per current share (US$ 45,69) equals the US$ 164 lens value shown above. Negative net debt is , so subtracting it raises value.