For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. Not only can it impact your investment portfolio, but it can also help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in Woodward (WWD) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to WWD for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
Woodward's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at Woodward's main business drivers.
Headquartered in Fort Collins, CO, Woodward, Inc is an independent designer, manufacturer and service provider of energy control and optimization solutions for the aerospace and industrial markets.
Apart from serving original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), it also engages in aftermarket repairs, replacements and other service support operations for installed products.
Woodward serves the aerospace and energy markets through two reportable segments: Aerospace and Industrial.
The Aerospace segment’s products include metering units, actuators, air valves, fuel pumps, fuel nozzles, specialty valves, , and thrust reverser actuation systems for turbine engines and nacelles, flight deck controls, actuators, servocontrols, motors, and sensors for aircraft.
These segment’s products are utilized for commercial and private aircraft and rotorcraft. These are also widely deployed on military fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft, guided weapons, and other defense systems. This segment generated revenues of $494 million in first-quarter fiscal 2025, representing 63.9% of total revenues.
The company faces tough competition from companies like Honeywell, Moog, Eaton, Parker Hannifin, and RTX Corporation in this space.
The Industrial segment’s products portfolio includes solenoids, actuators, valves, pumps, fuel injection systems, ignition systems, control systems, electronics and software, and sensors.
The products are widely used in steam turbines, industrial gas turbines (like heavy frame, aeroderivative and small industrial gas turbines), compressors, and reciprocating engines (like low speed, medium speed, and high-speed engines, that operate on variety of fuels). Segmental revenues of $279 million in first-quarter fiscal 2025, represented 36.1% of total revenues.
Woodward’s primary competitors in this space include Heinzmann GmbH & Co., Emerson, EControls, Hoerbiger, Meggitt, Robert Bosch AG, and Triconix.
Bottom Line
Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For Woodward, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in December 2015 would be worth $5,982.65, or a gain of 498.27%, as of December 1, 2025, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.
In comparison, the S&P 500's gained 227.69% and the price of gold went up 279.23% over the same time frame.
Going forward, analysts are expecting more upside for WWD.
Woodward's fourth-quarter fiscal 2025 performance gained from strength in the Aerospace segment and Core Industrial (power generation, oil & gas and marine transportation) units. In the fourth-quarter fiscal 2025, Aerospace benefited from strength across commercial services and defense OEM. Also, the company is gaining from a strong Industrial business segment. For fiscal 2026, Woodward expects consolidated net sales to rise 7% to 12%, with Aerospace projected to grow 9% to 15% and Industrial anticipated to increase 5% to 9%. Technology upgrades and disciplined capital allocation support long-term growth. The company has announced a new three-year authorization for up to $1.8 billion in stock repurchases. However, volatile China on-highway natural-gas truck market, supply-chain woes within Aerospace, global macro uncertainty and rising costs remain concerns.
The stock is up 14.47% over the past four weeks, and no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 3 higher, for fiscal 2025. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.
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Woodward, Inc. (WWD): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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