How does Trendshare evaluate DAR as a worked example?

This example shows how we apply the Trendshare checklist to DAR: earnings power, cash generation, valuation, and margin of safety. We look at business quality, free cash flow trends, price to earnings, and whether there is a reasonable margin of safety at the current price of 54.02.

Darling Ingredients Stock Price and Value Analysis

Darling Ingredients (NYSE:DAR) in our automated value investing analysis, with the cash flow history and price comparison below.

Key Facts

Ticker: DAR (NYSE)
Current price: $54.02
Sector: Consumer Defensive
Industry: Packaged Foods

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Hold-time calculator

Estimate how long you need to hold Darling Ingredients to reach your target.

Target type Target price Target total return %

Current price

Expected annual return (compound annual growth rate, CAGR)

Margin of safety (%)

Target price (Trendshare FV)

Include dividend yield
N/A

DAR Free Cash Flow Trend

Free Cash Flow trendline for DAR — Free Cash Flow trendline for Darling Ingredients

CSV

Based on historical returns, we believe that Darling Ingredients can grow its free cash at a rate of about 2%. That's positive!

This company pays no dividend.

Advantages	Disadvantages	Neutral
This company is solid.	This company is making money at a modest rate. This company has wild ups and downs.	This stock looks fairly priced.

Inside the DAR Numbers

	DAR Price (Darling Ingredients stock price per share)	$54.02
× Present Value/Intrinsic Valuation 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. Close ^[?]	DAR Fair Price (based on intrinsic value)	$56.06
× Safety Margin Price The safety margin of a stock helps you avoid risk. 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. Close ^[?]	DAR Safety Price (based on a variable margin of safety)	$36.44
	Try your own return 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. Discount rate (%) Terminal growth (%) Value per share:
× PE Ratio Versus Sector 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. Close ^[?]	PE Ratio versus Sector	148% higher than other Consumer Defensive stocks
× PE Ratio Versus Industry 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. Close ^[?]	PE Ratio versus Industry	38% lower than other Packaged Foods stocks
× Cash Yield 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. Close ^[?]	Cash Yield	5.48%
× Free Cash Flow Jitter 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. In general, the lower this number, the better. Close ^[?]	Free Cash Flow Jitter	37%

Insider Activity Summary

No open-market insider buys or sells are recorded for the last 12 months.

Recent Insider Activity

Open-market buys and sells reported by Darling Ingredients's officers, directors, and 10% owners on SEC Form 4. Routine transactions (tax withholding, option exercises, and stock grants) are excluded -- these are discretionary trades only.

Date	Insider	Type	Shares	Price
2023-11-20	MANZI JOSEPH (Chief Accounting Officer)	Buy	1,025	$43.38
2023-11-16	Day Robert W (EVP Chief Strategy Officer)	Buy	1,950	$41.77
2023-11-15	JANSEN MATTHEW J (COO North America)	Buy	11,113	$44.80
2023-11-13	Adair Charles L	Buy	500	$41.00
2023-11-13	McNutt Patrick (EVP Chief Admin Officer)	Buy	1,200	$41.88
2023-11-10	Adair Charles L	Buy	500	$42.14
2023-09-01	STUEWE RANDALL C (Chairman and CEO)	Sell	100,000	$62.43
2023-09-01	Bullock John (EVP Chief Strategy Officer)	Sell	11,532	$61.67
2023-08-30	Bullock John (EVP Chief Strategy Officer)	Sell	14,133	$63.13
2023-08-15	van der Velden Jan (EVP Int Rendering&Specialties)	Sell	1,339	$65.00

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 5,682,172 shares shorted. With 155,642,594 shares available for purchase and an average trading volume over the past 10 trading days of 2,369,840, it would take at least 2.4 days for all of the short holders to cover their shorts.

Estimate Intrinsic Value (DCF)

Project future free cash flow and discount it back to today to compare market price vs intrinsic value. See how compound returns work over time.

📊 Intrinsic Value Calculator (DCF Method)

Calculate the present value of future cash flows to determine stock intrinsic value.

Annual Free Cash Flow ($):

Current or most recent year free cash flow (operating cash - capex)

Expected Annual Growth Rate (%):

Conservative estimate (3-7% for mature companies, 10-20% for growth)

Discount Rate (%):

Required rate of return (8-10% stable, 12-15% growth, 15%+ speculative)

Projection Period (Years):

Longer projections are less certain but may reveal more value

Terminal Value Multiple:

Exit multiple for terminal value (10-15x typical for mature companies)

Calculation Results

Total Intrinsic Value:

Discounted Cash Flows:

Terminal Value (PV):

Year	Future CF	Present Value

How to use this result: Compare the intrinsic value to the current stock price. If intrinsic value is significantly higher than market price (30-50% margin of safety), the stock may be undervalued. Remember, these are estimates based on your assumptions.

Learn to Evaluate DAR

Learn how to evaluate stocks, understand expected returns, and build a value investing strategy.

See How Returns Compound →

Free Cash Flow by Fiscal Year

Each year names the SEC filer that reported it, so a change of filer shows up here.

Fiscal year	SEC filer (CIK)	Free cash flow (USD millions)
2008	916540	60.9
2009	916540	51.9
2010	916540	55.1
2011	916540	206.0
2012	916540	198.6
2013	916540	142.3
2014	916540	165.7
2015	916540	270.4
2016	916540	203.8
2017	916540	191.5
2018	916540	138.9
2019	916540	76.8
2020	916540	328.8
2021	916540	402.5
2022	916540	488.4
2023	916540	527.2
2024	916540	472.6
2025	916540	672.9

Download the yearly data as CSV.

Price Versus Our Estimated Value

Every one of the 18 fiscal years we have for Darling Ingredients under its current filer shows positive free cash flow.

The price of $54.02 is above our safe value ($36.44) but still below the fair value estimate of $56.06 for Darling Ingredients.

The latest three years average $557.6 million in free cash flow against $56.0 million for the earliest three, which is a sharp rise.

Year-to-year variability in free cash flow is volatile, measured at 37%.

No dividend yield is recorded for Darling Ingredients in our data.

Our value investing guide explains how to test these numbers against the filings themselves.

Compared With Its Sector and Industry

Its trailing P/E ratio is 148% above the average for stocks in the Consumer Defensive sector.

Its trailing P/E ratio is 38% below the average for stocks in the Packaged Foods industry.

A P/E ratio depends on trailing earnings, which one-time items can distort, so a lower P/E is not by itself evidence of value.

SEC Filer History

Every fiscal year on this page is reported by one SEC filer, CIK 916540.

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.

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Questions to Answer Before You Invest in DAR

Does Darling Ingredients 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.

Step 1 — Snapshot
- Price: 54.02
- Market cap: $8.5B
- EPS: 5.26
Step 2 — Valuation checks
- P/E: 10.27
- FCF yield: 5.5%
- Date checked: Nov 3, 2026
Step 3 — Margin of safety
- Compare price to fair value and safety price.
- Look for durable cash generation and reasonable leverage.
- Decide if it passes your personal checklist.