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.
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 7,999,894 shares shorted. With 47,197,371 shares available for purchase and an average trading
volume over the past 10 trading days of 1,244,120, it would take at least 6.4 days for all of the short holders to cover their
shorts.
None of the 14 fiscal years we have for Freshpet under its current SEC filer shows positive free cash flow.
Year-to-year variability in free cash flow is volatile, measured at 331%.
We do not estimate a fair value for Freshpet while its free cash flow growth is not positive, so there is no value comparison here.
We do not have a dividend yield for Freshpet.
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 1611647.
Each figure on this page comes from that filer.
Risks to This Analysis
Free cash flow was negative in 14 of the 14 years we have.
Free cash flow is volatile from year to year, so the estimates depend heavily on which years are included.
We have no value estimate for this stock, so no price comparison is made.
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 Freshpet 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: FRPT
This example shows how we apply the Trendshare checklist to FRPT: 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: 67.35
Market cap: $3.3B
EPS: 2.64
Step 2 — Valuation checks
P/E: 25.511
FCF yield: -0.8%
Date checked: Nov 9, 2026
Step 3 — Margin of safety
Compare price to fair value and safety price.
Look for durable cash generation and reasonable leverage.