Deere & Company (DE) ☆

Deere makes agricultural, turf, construction, forestry and roadbuilding equipment and finances it through John Deere Financial. Per its FY2025 Form 10-K, Production & Precision Agriculture generated $17,311 million of net sales (45% of equipment operations net sales), Small Agriculture & Turf $10,224 million (26%) and Construction & Forestry $11,382 million (29%), within net sales and revenues of $45,684 million. The core of the moat is large farm machinery. The FTC's January 2025 complaint calls Deere "the largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment in the United States" and alleges a dominant share of U.S. large tractor and combine sales, substantial barriers to entry, and significant costs to switch away from a Deere fleet, including losing machine data. The 10-K adds brand recognition, about 2,050 U.S. and Canadian dealer locations, proprietary parts and the Operations Center data platform. The same structure is under legal attack: the FTC with several states, and a separate multidistrict class action, allege that Deere unlawfully restrained the market for repairing its own farm equipment by limiting repair resources, including its fully functional Service ADVISOR tool, to its authorised dealers. On 2026-07-08 the FTC and Illinois, Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin announced a settlement (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/07/ftc-states-secure-settlement-deere-company-advancing-farmers-right-repair): a stipulated order, which has the force of law once the District Court approves it, requiring Deere for 10 years to make available to farmers and independent repair providers "repair resources equivalent to those Deere now makes available to Deere dealers". Item 1A also reports "slower than expected customer adoption of some of our precision technology solutions, and SaaS subscription services". Earnings are cyclical: the third-party data site stockanalysis.com shows gross margin falling from 30.63% in fiscal 2023 to 26.96% in fiscal 2025, and the 10-K reports PPA backlog down to about $4.0 billion from $5.2 billion as "demand has declined". An alleged dominant, high-barrier large-ag franchise, with repair-access litigation as the main threat to its aftermarket profits, supports a narrow moat. The dominance rests on a plaintiff's unproven allegations and covers one segment, and construction and forestry is a contested second leg.

Rating: narrow

The independent evidence is a regulator's complaint, not a finding. The FTC, Illinois and Minnesota complaint filed 2025-01-15 (https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/DeereCoREDACTEDComplaintCaseNo325-cv-50017.pdf) alleges that "Deere is the world's leading manufacturer of agricultural equipment like large tractors and combine harvesters, and Deere enjoys a dominant share of large tractor and combine sales in the United States", that Deere "possessed monopoly and market power in the sale of Large Tractors and Combines in the United States", and that "There are substantial barriers to entry into the Large Tractor and Combine markets." The share figures behind those claims are redacted in the public version. Deere's FY2025 Form 10-K (fiscal year ended 2025-11-02, filed 2025-12-18) adds the company's own side of the edge: "John Deere's brand recognition is a competitive factor in North America and many other parts of the world", about 2,050 independent dealer locations in the U.S. and Canada, and parts "many of which are proprietary". The limits are in the same 10-K: "The agricultural equipment industry continues to change and is becoming even more competitive through the emergence and global expansion of many competitors", the industry "is also attracting non-traditional competitors, including technology-focused companies and start-up ventures", and construction and forestry (29% of fiscal 2025 equipment net sales) faces Caterpillar, Komatsu, Volvo and others. That supports a narrow rating, not a wide one. The dominance and entry barriers are a plaintiff's allegations, not findings, and the share figures are redacted. They cover U.S. large tractors and combines, inside a segment that was 45% of fiscal 2025 equipment net sales. Deere's own filing describes agriculture as becoming more competitive and construction and forestry as a contested market.

Type: switching costs

The FTC complaint (2025-01-15) places the advantage in the cost of leaving the installed fleet: "Equipment owners cannot switch from Deere agricultural equipment to other manufacturers' equipment without incurring significant costs", including "the cost of acquiring replacement equipment (often hundreds of thousands of dollars per machine), the cost of learning how to operate new equipment, and the cost of losing data generated by existing Deere equipment", plus the cost of making "mixed fleets" interoperable. The FY2025 10-K describes the assets that create this lock-in: a dealer network of about 2,050 U.S. and Canadian locations, proprietary parts for current and past products, and the John Deere Operations Center, which Item 1A says "stores substantial volumes of data with respect to our customers' operations". Patents are not the main source: the 10-K says it does "not regard any of our businesses as being dependent upon any single patent or family of patents."

Leadership: clear leader

The independent evidence covers U.S. large farm equipment. The FTC complaint (2025-01-15) states "Deere is the largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment in the United States" and alleges that for each fiscal year from at least 2012 to 2021 Deere's share of large tractors sold in the United States exceeded a figure that is redacted in the public version; the FTC press release of the same day (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-states-sue-deere-company-protect-farmers-unfair-corporate-tactics-high-repair-costs) says Deere "maintains a dominant market share position across the large agricultural equipment market". These are a plaintiff's allegations. The band does not extend to construction and forestry, where the FY2025 10-K lists Caterpillar, CNH Industrial, Doosan Bobcat, Hitachi, Komatsu, Kubota, Liugong, SANY, Volvo and XCMG among global competitors and no independent share source was found.

Pricing power: moderate

The FTC complaint alleges pricing power in large tractors and combines, "shown directly through Deere's ability to raise prices, reduce output, and degrade quality in those markets", and says Deere's dealers "charge supracompetitive prices for restricted repairs". The reported numbers show a cyclical business: the third-party data site stockanalysis.com (https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/de/financials/) shows gross margin of 30.63% in fiscal 2023, 29.50% in fiscal 2024, 26.96% in fiscal 2025 and 25.18% for the twelve months to August 2026, and stored fundamentals from the 10-K show net income of $10,166 million (fiscal 2023), $7,100 million (fiscal 2024) and $5,027 million (fiscal 2025). Item 1A of the FY2025 10-K says Deere competes on "product performance, innovation, quality, distribution, sustainability, customer service, and price", that "Aggressive pricing or other strategies of competitors" or a failure "to price products competitively" hurt results, and that results suffer "if our customers are unwilling to accept price increases for our products". Alleged pricing power that still leaves margins falling with farm demand is moderate, not strong.

Curated moat judgment grounded in the cited source. source: sec.gov

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Value-chain position

Layer: AI-adopting incumbents

• Upstream (suppliers): NVIDIA
• Downstream (customers): —
• Competitors: —

An AI adopter, not an AI vendor: Item 1A of the FY2025 10-K says Deere uses "automation software, digital tools, applications, and analytics on the S7 Series Combines and our See & Spray targeted spraying solution", maintains the Operations Center data platform, and leverages generative AI in its business processes, and warns that falling behind competitors' AI advances could hurt its competitive position.

Derived from this company's mapped supply-chain edges and its industry layer.

Signal contribution editorial prior

The moat prior voted +0.20 on the long (~6-month) horizon at weight 0.20 — the swarm call there is neutral (score 0.10, conviction 0).

Editorial prior — subjective, not backtested. It is bounded (±0.6), low-confidence, and never votes on short/medium. See exactly how it voted →

Product lineup

Products & services with an editorial market-share band and technical barrier band — qualitative judgments tied to a cited basis, never invented figures.

What you're looking at

These charts plot Deere & Company's reported income statement, cash flow, and balance sheet from its SEC filings through 2026-08-27. Every figure is as-filed XBRL — none of it is an estimate.

Over the reported window, net income at $5.0B in FY2025.

Our model leans Low-confidence · Neutral on the stock over the medium horizon — a market-direction call, not an earnings forecast. See the Signal tab.

Filings

• 2025Q3 · filed 2026-08-27 source: sec.gov
• 2025Q4 · filed 2026-08-27 source: sec.gov
• 2026Q3 · filed 2026-08-27 source: sec.gov
• 2025Q2 · filed 2026-05-28 source: sec.gov
• 2026Q2 · filed 2026-05-28 source: sec.gov

Key ratios vs peers

Comparing against peers…

Institutional holders (13F, 2026Q2)

TradingPilot-computed columns (% of 13F, % shares out) are derived from as-filed 13F values; only name, shares and value are as-filed.