The intrinsic value of
a company is how much cash it can generate over its lifespan. If a business
lasts for ten years and produces a million dollars of free cash profit every
year, its intrinsic value is ten million dollars.
The present value of an
investment is the price you must pay right now to earn that intrinsic value in
however many years you want to wait. This of course depends on the rate of
return you want for your investment.
You can't predict what a company will make in the future with perfect
accuracy, but a company with a history of increasing its free cash flow every
year is likely to do so over time. By projecting free cash flow into the
future, you can calculate a fair price for the stock right now.
While most stocks are priced fairly, sometimes they go on sale. This
calculation will help you decide that. You still have to figure out if it's a
good investment, but bargains exist.
Why? Because the discounted free cash flow analysis relies on estimates,
discounting the fair price by a further safety margin gives you some wiggle
room to be wrong about those estimates. Established companies with stable free
cash flow growth need a small safety margin. Smaller and newer and riskier
companies need a larger safety margin. A company with a lot of debt needs a
larger safety margin and a company with a lot of equity needs less.
By investing in multiple companies and keeping a sensible safety margin, you
can be pleasantly surprised by great companies outperforming your expectations
and minimize the possibility of stagnation (or even loss) by companies which
underperform.
The fair price above uses a 10.1% discount rate, the long-run US stock return (10.1% geometric, 1926 to 2025, from Bessembinder's working paper, updated 2026-11-09), and 2.5% terminal growth. A higher rate suits a higher return target and gives a lower value.
The PE ratio measures the
reported earnings of a company to its current stock price. While earnings are
easy to manipulate on the balance sheet, this ratio gives you a sense of what
buyers are willing to pay for the stock—what they believe it will do in
the future.
Comparing a stock's PE to the average PE of companies in its industry gives
you a sense of market sentiment about the stock and how well it fares
financially. It's not the only number, nor the most important, but comparing
similar companies is valuable. A ratio far above or below that of its peers is
significant.
Industries are more specific than sectors, so companies within most
industries are more similar than are companies within an industry. Be aware
that the size and customers of companies are important to their prospects.
The PE ratio measures the
reported earnings of a company to its current stock price. While earnings are
easy to manipulate on the balance sheet, this ratio gives you a sense of what
buyers are willing to pay for the stock—what they believe it will do in
the future.
Comparing a stock's PE to the average PE of companies in its sector gives
you a sense of market sentiment about the stock and how well it fares
financially. It's not the only number, nor the most important, but comparing
similar companies is valuable. A ratio far above or below that of its peers is
significant.
Be aware that sectors are very broad, with many types of companies in the
same sector.
The cash yield of a stock is
the ratio of free cash per share—real dollars available after bringing in
revenue and paying bills—to the current price of the stock. It's similar
to the PE ratio, but it's less prone to manipulation through accounting
practices.
In general, the less you have to pay to make more money, the better.
The free cash flow
jitter of a stock measures how much the company's free cash flow varies
from its historical trend, on average. While it's always nice to make more
money than you expected, a company with predictable free cash flow is stable
and good. A company with wild swings in its free cash flow warrants further
research.
The dividend yield of a
stock is the amount of money paid out in dividends every year divided by the
stock's current price. While not every stock pays a dividend, many solid
companies pay good dividends. In general, the higher this calculation, the
better—think of it like an interest rate of an investment—if the
company pays dividends consistently.
A high dividend payout rate may indicate that the share price has fallen
recently. Be sure that the company is worth investing in before you chase high
dividend yields!
No open-market insider buys or sells are recorded for the last 12 months.
This stock has short interest! This means that people have shorted it.
Why does that matter? They've made a bet that price will decrease from where
they bought it. Maybe there are financial problems, or maybe there's a value
play.
As of the latest analysis, there are 10,985,132 shares shorted. With 106,674,654 shares available for purchase and an average trading
volume over the past 10 trading days of 2,089,330, it would take at least 5.258 days for all of the short holders to cover their
shorts.
Every one of the 18 fiscal years we have for A. O. Smith Corporation under its current filer shows positive free cash flow.
Free cash flow from the first three years of data averaged $119.9 million, and from the last three $548.4 million: a sharp rise.
Free cash flow is volatile from year to year, with a variability measure of 39%.
At $64.55, A. O. Smith Corporation trades above our fair value estimate of $57.59.
The dividend yield for A. O. Smith Corporation is 2.16%.
Our value investing guide explains how to test these numbers against the filings themselves.
SEC Filer History
Every fiscal year on this page is reported by one SEC filer, CIK 91142.
Each figure on this page comes from that filer.
Risks to This Analysis
Free cash flow is volatile from year to year, so the estimates depend heavily on which years are included.
These figures are automated calculations from SEC filings and the recent price. They may contain errors, and they do not reflect lawsuits, management changes, or other events the filings do not show.
Does A. O. Smith Corporation have a coherent story? Does it have a plan to
continue to make money? Is it worth your time? Only you can decide where to go
from here. Our investment guide helps you ask the
right questions, including how to buy stocks.
Use these research links for more information.
Worked example: AOS
This example shows how we apply the Trendshare checklist to AOS: earnings power, cash generation, valuation, and margin of safety.
We check: business quality, free cash flow, P/E, and margin of safety.
Step 1 — Snapshot
Price: 64.55
Market cap: $8.7B
EPS: 3.58
Step 2 — Valuation checks
P/E: 18.031
FCF yield: 3.9%
Date checked: Nov 6, 2026
Step 3 — Margin of safety
Compare price to fair value and safety price.
Look for durable cash generation and reasonable leverage.