# 374Water Inc. Common Stock (SCWO.US)

Canonical: https://gigainvestors.com/s/SCWO

Analysis as of: 2026-10-16T07:31:49.259Z. Financial observations: FY2011–FY2025.

Listing currency: USD. Reporting currency: USD.

## Verdict

Not a wonderful business

Quality tests for Buy: not passed (profit record: fail; earnings resilience is evidence only). Published buy qualification: no.

Share price: $2.49 per share; close as of 2026-10-15.

## Checklist

### understandable: fail

- 5 revenue declines in the last 10 years (informational)

- more than 2 net loss years

- negative average operating margin

- operating margin variation exceeds 0.35

- Financial history: 10 years

- Years with declining revenue: 5

- Years with a net loss: 9

- Operating margin variation: 1.32×

Chart: Operating margin; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: -0.10×

- FY2017: 0.51×

- FY2018: -3.58×

- FY2019: -17.18×

- FY2020: -9.96×

- FY2021: -65.82×

- FY2022: -1.58×

- FY2023: -11.62×

- FY2024: -28.74×

- FY2025: -98.34×

### moat: fail

- Years with nonpositive invested capital use equity plus debt and leases; positive earnings with no positive capital are shown above 100%.

- ROIC median below threshold

- ROIC worst years below threshold (more than 1 bad year allowed)

- Recent gross margin fell 1193.5pp below the typical margin (limit 4pp)

- ROIC, median of available years: -172.0%

- ROIC, second-lowest year: -351.7%

- Typical minus recent gross margin: 1193.5 pp

- Typical gross margin (annual median): 100.0%

- Recent gross margin (lower of latest and 3-year median): -1093.5%

- Years with nonpositive capital: 1

- Capital spending / revenue: 2.2%

- ROIC including acquisitions, ten-year median: -204.0%

Chart: ROIC excluding acquisitions; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: -17.4%

- FY2017: 97.7%

- FY2018: -950.1%

- FY2019: 0.0%

- FY2020: -69.1%

- FY2021: -209.1%

- FY2022: -179.5%

- FY2023: -164.5%

- FY2024: -184.7%

- FY2025: -351.7%

### economics: fail

- owner earnings cash conversion below threshold

- incremental invested capital return below threshold

- working capital as a share of revenue rose more than 10pp and ends positive

- Cash conversion uses consolidated totals: No

- Owner earnings, five-year total: -$51M

- Net income, five-year total: -$49M

- Return on incremental invested capital: -678.4%

- Working capital / revenue, annual change: 76.2 pp

- Working capital / revenue, change between three-year averages: 516.0 pp

- Working capital / revenue, final three-year average: 526.8%

Chart: Owner earnings · five years; fiscal year observations.

- FY2021: -$3.1M

- FY2022: -$4.7M

- FY2023: -$8.1M

- FY2024: -$13M

- FY2025: -$22M

### management: fail

- Historical market-dollar context (not the management verdict): 2016 to 2025 (9 years)

- potential debt-funded buybacks (informational)

- buybacks unrelated to price (informational)

- ROIC first 3 years vs last 3 years: -17.4% vs -184.7%

- Per-share earnings: -0.04 to -0.92 (three-year endpoint medians)

- per-share value declined or ends nonpositive

- five-year and ten-year diluted share growth both above threshold

- acquired goodwill and intangibles (proxy) exceeds half of ten-year net income with low and deteriorating ROIC

- Management verdict uses per-share economic progress: Yes

- Ordinary dilution, 10-year annual growth: 17.0%

- Ordinary dilution, 5-year annual growth: 37.7%

- Market cap gain: $35M

- Cumulative retained earnings: -$38M

- Diluted shares, 10-year annual growth: 17.0%

- Diluted shares, 5-year annual growth: 37.7%

- $1 test, starting fiscal year: FY2016

- $1 test, ending fiscal year: FY2025

- Per-share value change: -$0.89

- Per-share value, starting three-year median: -$0.04

- Per-share value, ending three-year median: -$0.92

- Buybacks concentrated in cheaper years (correlation): -0.50

- Average buyback yield: 4.6%

- Buyback history: 3 years

- Debt-funded buybacks: Yes

- Acquisition spending: $82K

- Cumulative net income, 10 years: -$51M

- ROIC, first three-year median: -17.4%

- ROIC, last three-year median: -184.7%

Chart: Earnings per share; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: -$0.04

- FY2017: $0.13

- FY2018: -$0.21

- FY2019: -$0.16

- FY2020: -$0.22

- FY2021: -$0.34

- FY2022: -$0.37

- FY2023: -$0.62

- FY2024: -$0.92

- FY2025: -$1.38

### accounting: pass

- Sloan accruals: -58.3%

- Receivables to sales index (DSRI): 0.77×

- Restructuring years, last five: 0

- Earnings backed by cash: Yes

- Accounting red flags: 0

- Goodwill and intangibles / equity: 0.14×

Chart: Sloan accruals; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: -74.5%

- FY2017: 26.1%

- FY2018: -802.8%

- FY2019: -606.7%

- FY2020: -706.8%

- FY2021: -10.7%

- FY2022: 2.6%

- FY2023: 5.8%

- FY2024: -9.6%

- FY2025: -58.3%

## Holders

## Price story

Down 47% since Mar 2023 · sales -51.7%

Story as of 2026-10-16T09:59:33.668Z; price observation 2026-10-15.

- 2025-08-13: 374Water earnings missed, revenue fell short of estimates ([investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/earnings/374water-earnings-missed-revenue-fell-short-of-estimates-4186999))

- 2026-03-10: 374Water secures Orlando approval to launch waste destruction services at Iron Bridge ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/374water-secures-orlando-approval-launch-133400835.html))

### Sales · FY2024–2025

sales -51.7%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/933972/000165495426003094/scwo_10k.htm; observed 2026-03-31.

- FY2016: $588K 

- FY2017: $852K 

- FY2018: $190K 

- FY2019: $24K 

- FY2020: $40K 

- FY2021: $48K 

- FY2022: $3.0M 

- FY2023: $744K 

- FY2024: $445K 

- FY2025: $215K 

### Gross margin · FY2022

gross margin 11.2%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/933972/000165495426003094/scwo_10k.htm; observed 2026-03-31.

- FY2022: 11.2% 

## Owner memo

Memo as of 2026-10-16T08:06:05.509Z.

### How it makes money

Operates in pollution & treatment controls; annual sales are USD 215037.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/933972/000165495426003094/scwo_10k.htm (filed 2026-03-31); FY2025: revenue 215037; grossProfit -2351384; margin = grossProfit / revenue.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-04); SCWO.US: 374Water Inc. provides a technology that transforms wet wastes into recoverable resources in the United States. The company transforms wet wastes, including sewage sludge, biosolids, food waste, hazardous and non-hazardous waste, and forever chemicals. It offers AirSCWO systems, a waste stream treatment system based on supercritical water oxidation that are used to treat various hazardous and non-hazardous waste streams. It serves municipal, department of defense, department of energy, federal aviation agency, waste management, industrial manufacturing and compliance, and sanitation projects in developing countries. 374Water Inc. is based in Morrisville, North Carolina.

### Where the cash goes

Paid no dividends in 7 years; bought back USD 649980 of shares.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-03-31); FY2017: growth capex 0; upkeep 0; owner earnings 440799. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-03-31); Dividend observations: [[2019,0],[2020,0],[2021,0],[2022,0],[2023,0],[2024,0],[2025,0]]. Zero only counted when supported by a complete cash-flow statement.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/933972/000165495426003094/scwo_10k.htm (filed 2026-03-31); FY2025: cash repurchases 649980 USD.

### Are managers owners

Insiders own 43% of the company.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-04); SCWO.US SharesStats.PercentInsiders = 42.982 percentage points; cache date 2026-10-04.

### What the price says

The price is 176.4 times annual sales; cash earnings are negative.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-03-31); Closing price 2.49 USD; reporting-to-trading FX 1; FY2025 annual sales per share 0.014118252784067161; price multiple 176.3674328603915. FY2025 cash earnings/share -1.4523697316299626. Closing-price date 2026-10-15.

## Monthly share-price history (USD per share)

- 2016-10: $0.15 per share

- 2016-11: $0.12 per share

- 2016-12: $0.13 per share

- 2017-01: $0.20 per share

- 2017-02: $0.12 per share

- 2017-03: $0.11 per share

- 2017-04: $0.08 per share

- 2017-05: $0.11 per share

- 2017-06: $0.10 per share

- 2017-07: $0.09 per share

- 2017-08: $0.11 per share

- 2017-09: $0.13 per share

- 2017-10: $0.12 per share

- 2017-11: $0.09 per share

- 2017-12: $0.12 per share

- 2018-01: $0.12 per share

- 2018-02: $0.12 per share

- 2018-03: $0.11 per share

- 2018-04: $0.13 per share

- 2018-05: $0.14 per share

- 2018-06: $0.12 per share

- 2018-07: $0.12 per share

- 2018-08: $0.11 per share

- 2018-09: $0.11 per share

- 2018-10: $0.11 per share

- 2018-11: $0.08 per share

- 2018-12: $0.05 per share

- 2019-01: $0.09 per share

- 2019-02: $0.18 per share

- 2019-03: $0.09 per share

- 2019-04: $0.11 per share

- 2019-05: $0.08 per share

- 2019-06: $0.09 per share

- 2019-07: $0.08 per share

- 2019-08: $0.11 per share

- 2019-09: $0.10 per share

- 2019-10: $0.09 per share

- 2019-11: $0.16 per share

- 2019-12: $0.09 per share

- 2020-01: $0.14 per share

- 2020-02: $0.23 per share

- 2020-03: $0.19 per share

- 2020-04: $0.20 per share

- 2020-05: $0.24 per share

- 2020-06: $0.29 per share

- 2020-07: $0.35 per share

- 2020-08: $0.38 per share

- 2020-09: $0.35 per share

- 2020-10: $0.68 per share

- 2020-11: $0.70 per share

- 2020-12: $0.84 per share

- 2021-01: $0.65 per share

- 2021-02: $0.47 per share

- 2021-03: $0.60 per share

- 2021-04: $0.68 per share

- 2021-05: $0.95 per share

- 2021-06: $2.45 per share

- 2021-07: $2.28 per share

- 2021-08: $1.77 per share

- 2021-09: $2.08 per share

- 2021-10: $2.50 per share

- 2021-11: $2.27 per share

- 2021-12: $2.85 per share

- 2022-01: $4.50 per share

- 2022-02: $4.29 per share

- 2022-03: $4.05 per share

- 2022-04: $3.00 per share

- 2022-05: $2.56 per share

- 2022-06: $2.94 per share

- 2022-07: $2.25 per share

- 2022-08: $3.95 per share

- 2022-09: $2.83 per share

- 2022-10: $3.55 per share

- 2022-11: $3.10 per share

- 2022-12: $2.86 per share

- 2023-01: $3.19 per share

- 2023-02: $3.28 per share

- 2023-03: $4.72 per share

- 2023-04: $2.91 per share

- 2023-05: $2.59 per share

- 2023-06: $2.39 per share

- 2023-07: $1.99 per share

- 2023-08: $1.50 per share

- 2023-09: $1.24 per share

- 2023-10: $1.72 per share

- 2023-11: $1.15 per share

- 2023-12: $1.42 per share

- 2024-01: $1.20 per share

- 2024-02: $1.33 per share

- 2024-03: $1.26 per share

- 2024-04: $1.49 per share

- 2024-05: $1.28 per share

- 2024-06: $1.20 per share

- 2024-07: $1.21 per share

- 2024-08: $1.16 per share

- 2024-09: $1.36 per share

- 2024-10: $1.56 per share

- 2024-11: $0.98 per share

- 2024-12: $0.68 per share

- 2025-01: $0.52 per share

- 2025-02: $0.34 per share

- 2025-03: $0.34 per share

- 2025-04: $0.33 per share

- 2025-05: $0.43 per share

- 2025-06: $0.32 per share

- 2025-07: $0.25 per share

- 2025-08: $0.36 per share

- 2025-09: $0.29 per share

- 2025-10: $0.38 per share

- 2025-11: $0.31 per share

- 2025-12: $2.04 per share

- 2026-01: $3.11 per share

- 2026-02: $2.59 per share

- 2026-03: $2.84 per share

- 2026-04: $2.48 per share

- 2026-05: $2.47 per share

- 2026-06: $1.90 per share

- 2026-07: $2.18 per share

- 2026-08: $2.84 per share

- 2026-09: $2.90 per share

- 2026-10: $2.49 per share

## Annual estimated value (USD per share)

Historical values use today's bond yield for every fiscal year

Historical values use today's FX rate into trading currency for every fiscal year

Historical values use current restated fundamentals and current commodity classification; they are not point-in-time estimates

Prior published observations retained from 2026-10-15T06:37:34.427Z where newer inputs omit a numeric field or fiscal period.

## Sources

[Original 10-K filing](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/933972/000165495426003094/scwo_10k.htm); period 2025-12-31, filed 2026-03-31.

Estimates depend on assumptions and are not guarantees or investment advice. Underlying data remains subject to its source licenses; public reading does not grant bulk redistribution rights.