Want to find your lens? Five questions, no jargon — they tell you which of four reads fits how you already think.
A wonderful business — priced for growth it hasn't delivered.
A great company, but no margin of safety at this price. Worth watching, not worth buying here.
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 ~$149 vs $269 — trading 45% above what the math supports.
- Good:Price is in line with its recordPriced for ~12%/yr, roughly what it has delivered (11.8%/yr).
- Good:Revenue still growingUp 0.9% last year — demand isn't the problem.
- Good:Cash flow compoundingFree cash flow up ~11.8%/yr — the engine is growing.
- Caution:Manageable net debtNet debt of $8B — about 3.0× annual free cash flow. Normal for a mature company.
How this was built. Every figure is computed from Illinois Tool Works Inc.'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. 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 Illinois Tool Works that is about $8B, or $28 per share. Fundamentals are from the FY25 annual report and change only when a new one is filed. Price of $268.69 taken 2026-09-08 (Google Finance, manual entry, 2026-09-08) — 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 →