Zebra Technologies (ZBRA)
Technology · NASDAQ · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
Zebra Technologies trades at $265.04, which is 56% above the $117.58 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure it screens as expensive, which is not the same as saying it will fall.
Our moat model scores it 58 out of 100, which is a moat, but not a deep one. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 32.9 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About Zebra Technologies
Zebra Technologies Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates in the automatic identification and data capture solutions industry worldwide. It operates in two segments, Connected Frontline, and Asset Visibility and Automation. The company designs, manufactures, and sells printers that produce labels, wristbands, tickets, receipts, and plastic cards; dye-sublimination thermal card printers that produce images, which are used for personal identification, access control, and financial transactions; radio frequency identification device (RFID) printers that encode data into passive RFID transponders; accessories and options for printers, including carrying cases, vehicle mounts, and battery chargers; stock and customized thermal labels, receipts, ribbons, plastic cards, and RFID tags for printers; and electronic sensors and temperature-monitoring labels. It also provides various maintenance, technical support, repair, and managed and professional services; fixed readers, RFID enabled mobile computers, and RFID sleds; tags, sensors, exciters, middleware software, and application software; and physical inventory management solutions; rugged and enterprise-grade mobile computing products and accessories, as well as real-time location systems and services. In addition, the company offers barcode scanners and imagers, RFID readers, industrial machine vision cameras, and fixed industrial scanners; point-of-sale solutions, self-serve kiosks, and interactive touchscreen displays; workflow optimization solutions, such as workforce management, workflow execution and task management, and prescriptive analytics, and communications and collaboration solutions; and cloud-based software. The company serves retail and e-commerce, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, healthcare, public sector, and other industries through direct sales force and network of channel partners. The company was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois.
ZBRA passes 1 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Smart money ownership
5 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- John Rogers, ARIEL INVESTMENTS, LLC$325.06M · 1.9% of book
- Arrowstreet Capital, ARROWSTREET CAPITAL, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP$104.67M · 0.1% of book
- Renaissance Technologies, RENAISSANCE TECHNOLOGIES LLC$60.28M · 0.1% of book
- D. E. Shaw, D. E. Shaw & Co., Inc.$56.26M · 0.0% of book
- Ken Griffin, CITADEL ADVISORS LLC$35.15M · 0.0% of book
A word of warning on reading these figures: a 13F reports the market value of a holding, so a fund that traded nothing at all still appears to have sold when the price fell. We found 102 companies where the standard reading gives the opposite answer. Only the share count is honest.
Common questions
Is Zebra Technologies (ZBRA) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of $117.58, ZBRA at $265.04 is 56% above fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
Which funds own ZBRA?
5 of the institutions we track reported a position in ZBRA in their most recent SEC 13F filing. A 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so it tells you what a fund held then, not what it holds now.
What is ZBRA's P/E ratio?
ZBRA trades at 32.9 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
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Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.