QS Research · Michael Burry's Scion Capital analyst template · 2006
Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI)
As of 2026-11-06 · 12/15 boxes filled from SEC filings and market data
Conclusion: LONG
Conviction low · base case +37% · downside -25% · upside +62%
At $28.76 the market is pricing SMCI as a cash-burning, governance-impaired hardware vendor, not for the TTM-to-2026-09-30 $53.99B revenue, $4.65B EBIT, $4.71B EBITDA and $3.29B net income; the quoted 3.4x EV/EBITDA and 5.8x P/E sit against 11.9x-13.5x for HPE, FLEX, CLS and DELL while TTM operating cash flow is -$6.33B and FCF is -$6.50B. My base case uses the same TTM EBITDA at 5.0x: $4.71B x 5.0 = $23.55B EV, plus $2.40B net cash = $25.95B equity / 659.23M shares = about $39.4, +36.9% from $28.76. The downside is section 13's 2.5x EBITDA case at about $21.5 (-25%) and the upside its 6.0x case at about $46.5 (+62%), so the rule is met for a long. This is a low-conviction long: the re-rating needs working-capital reversal and stable AI-mix gross margin, not just a higher multiple.
Key numbers
- Share price: $28.76
- Market cap: $18.96B
- Latest financial period: TTM to Sep 30, 2026
- Revenue (TTM): $53.99B
- EV / EBITDA (TTM): 3.4x
- P/E (TTM): 5.8x
- Price / book: 1.18x
The 15 boxes
- ✓ 1. Long-form business notes
SMCI makes money selling server and storage systems, subsystems/accessories, and attached software/services, increasingly as rack-scale DCBBS AI infrastructure through direct and indirect channels. From FY2021 to FY2026 revenue rose from $3.56B to $39.06B, gross profit from $534.5M to $4.23B, and operating income from $123.9M to $2.77B. FY2026 operating cash flow was -$6.81B versus $1.66B in FY2025, with capex of $162.0M and cash of $7.52B, so the growth came with heavy cash use. The oldest 10-K (FY2021) was a server/storage systems business with over 1,800 R&D staff; the latest (FY2026) is a total data center infrastructure/DCBBS provider with over 3,500 R&D staff and 29.1% international sales.
- ✓ 2. Competitive advantage
The FY2026 10-K describes a highly competitive server market against Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and ODMs Foxconn, Quanta Computer and Wiwynn; SMCI's claimed edge is execution—rack-scale TCO, first-to-market at a competitive price, cost-effective design and manufacturing—not a durable brand, network, licence or switching-cost moat. FY2021-FY2026 data show positive operating income and gross profit rising from $534.5M to $4.23B, but revenue rose from $3.56B to $39.06B and operating cash flow was -$2.49B in FY2024, $1.66B in FY2025 and -$6.81B in FY2026. Customer concentration and purchase-order component buying further weaken pricing power.
- ✓ 3. 10-Q takeaways
The supplied 10-Q materials do not give sales, margin, inventory, cash, buyback or guidance numbers; the only substantive quarterly text is the Item 1A update. That update says the risk factors are unchanged from the FY2026 10-K. The MD&A section is present in the filing, but its body and financial tables are not in the source set, so no quarterly trend can be quantified.
- ✓ 4. Corporate governance
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 5. Overview of the prior 3 years of 8-K filings
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 6. Other significant filings
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 7. Chronology of significant news and events
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 8. Comparables valuation interpretation
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 9. Insider trading interpretation
Filled; members read this box.
- ○ 10. Earnings-call notes
- ○ 11. Impression of the shareholder letter
- ○ 12. Scuttlebutt overview
- ✓ 13. Valuation and risk/reward summary
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 14. Current price suppression and potential catalysts
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 15. Conclusions
The call above.
Sign in with a QuantSignals Premium or Gold plan to read every box: each point linked to the SEC filing it came from, the bull and bear case, and the comparables. QS Research powers the signals behind FST, our autonomous trading agent.