Want to find your lens? Five questions, no jargon — they tell you which of four reads fits how you already think.
Expensive and softening.
Trading above fair value while the fundamentals weaken — little to like right now.
Price against fair value
Free cash flow — 10-year history ($B)
What the math is really telling you. Watch whether cash flow is compounding — that, more than any single year, is what a value read hangs on.
The read — lights & verdict
- Warning:OvervaluedFair value ~$23 vs $53 — trading 56% above what the math supports.
- Warning:Price assumes a big accelerationYou'd need ~13%/yr free-cash-flow growth to justify today's price; it has done -20.6%/yr lately.
- Warning:Revenue shrinkingDown 3.1% last year — cheap may mean broken.
- Caution:Cash flow flat-to-downFree cash flow ~-20.6%/yr — big, but not compounding. The crux for a value buyer.
- Warning:Heavy debt loadNet debt of $18B — roughly 6× annual free cash flow. This changes the risk picture.
How this was built. Every figure is computed from CSX Corporation's SEC filings — no estimates, no AI. Two-stage DCF: 9% discount rate, 5% free-cash-flow growth for 10 years, 2.5% terminal. Free cash flow is operating cash flow less capital spending. Fair value is based on typical free cash flow over the last five years ($3.3B), not the latest year ($1.7B), which sat 48% below the company's own norm. Net cash is cash and marketable securities less borrowings, commercial paper and finance leases; operating leases are disclosed but never counted as debt. We subtract net debt from the value of the business — for CSX that is about $18B, or $10 per share. Fundamentals are from the FY25 annual report and change only when a new one is filed. Price of $53.23 taken 2026-07-24 (founder-supplied CSV, July 2026) — it is not live and does not move during the day.
TickerMath is an educational tool, not investment advice — it computes one model from SEC filings and can be wrong. How we compute this →