Intrinsic value calculator

1. 01

   Start from the filings

   The base year comes from the company’s own annual filing wherever one exists. An assumption we chose rather than read is labelled ESTIMATE.

2. 02

   Forecast the cash

   We project the free cash flow the business can produce over a forecast horizon, from its revenue growth, margins and reinvestment.

3. 03

   Discount it to today

   Each year’s cash is discounted at the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), and a terminal value carries the business past the forecast at a fixed long-run growth rate.

4. 04

   Blend, then check the price

   The DCF is one lens. The published fair value blends the lenses that fit the business, or is a range when they disagree too widely. The reverse DCF solves for the growth today’s price implies.

Read the full methodology

• AAPL AppleHardware and services
• MSFT MicrosoftSoftware and cloud
• KO Coca-ColaConsumer staples
• JPM JPMorgan ChaseA bank, valued with justified price-to-book in place of a DCF

• Is this intrinsic value calculator free?

  Reading is free. Every company we cover is free to read and unmetered, with no account, and a ticker we haven’t modelled yet is valued live: one a day signed out, five a day with a free account. Changing the model’s inputs yourself is part of Pro, which is $99 a year or $14.99 a month.

• How is intrinsic value calculated?

  We forecast the cash the business can produce, discount each year back to today at its weighted average cost of capital (WACC), and add a terminal value that grows at a fixed long-run rate. That DCF is one lens: the published fair value blends the lenses that fit the business, such as peer multiples and book value, or is a range when they disagree too widely.

• What is a reverse DCF?

  It runs the model backwards. Instead of asking what the business is worth, it solves for the growth rate today’s price already implies, so you can set the market’s assumption beside ours. It is free on every company page where a cash-flow model fits.

• Can I change the assumptions?

  With Pro, which is $99 a year or $14.99 a month: change growth, margin, horizon and the discount rate yourself, and the engine recomputes the fair value. On the free tier every input is shown and none can be changed, except on Apple’s page, where every paid section is open to everybody.

• Why doesn’t a bank get a DCF?

  A bank’s debt is its raw material rather than its financing, so a cash-flow model is the wrong lens. Banks and insurers get a bank model (justified price-to-book) instead, and rate-regulated utilities get no DCF fair value.

• Is the result investment advice?

  No. It is a model’s estimate of what a business is worth, not advice, a price target or a recommendation. Every price beside it is delayed.