Yahoo Finance Calculating The Intrinsic Value Of Canadian Solar Inc (NASDAQ:CSIQ)
How far off is Canadian Solar Inc (NASDAQ:CSIQ) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, I am going to take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced using the discounted cash flows (DCF) model. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model. Also note that this article was written in June 2018 so be sure check the latest calculation for Canadian Solar here.
Is CSIQ fairly valued?
I use what is known as the 2-stage model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company’s growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have perpetual stable growth rate. To begin, I pulled together the analyst consensus forecast of CSIQ’s levered free cash flow (FCF) over the next five years and discounted these figures at the cost of equity of 17.05%. When estimates weren’t available, I’ve extrapolated the average annual growth rate over the previous five years, capped at a reasonable level. This resulted in a present value of 5-year cash flow of -US$52.41M. Keen to know how I calculated this value? Read our detailed analysis here.
The graph above shows how CSIQ’s top and bottom lines are expected to move going forward, which should give you an idea of CSIQ’s outlook. Now we need to determine the terminal value, which is the business’s cash flow after the first stage. It’s appropriate to use the 10-year government bond rate of 2.8% as the perpetual growth rate, which is rightly below GDP growth, but more towards the conservative side. Discounting the terminal value back five years gives us a present value of US$666.58M.
The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next five years and the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is US$614.17M. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. This results in an intrinsic value of $10.48, which, compared to the current share price of $12.2, we see that Canadian Solar is fair value, maybe slightly overvalued and not available at a discount at this time.
Next Steps:
Whilst important, DCF calculation shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company.
For CSIQ, I’ve put together three essential factors you should look at:
Financial Health: Does CSIQ have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.
Future Earnings: How does CSIQ’s growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart.
Other High Quality Alternatives: Are there other high quality stocks you could be holding instead of CSIQ? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!
PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow for every stock on the NASDAQ every 6 hours. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.
