Why this page exists
Most valuation sites ask you to trust the number. This page exists so you can check the work instead: what the calculators actually compute, where the example figures come from, which standards the writing follows, and what the site deliberately does not do. If something here reads as a claim you cannot verify, treat that as a defect and write in.
One fictional company, used everywhere
Every worked example on this site uses the same hypothetical company, Stetron Industries, and its fictional peer Kestrel. Stetron's numbers are: revenue $1,800m, net income $130m, EBIT $216m, depreciation and amortisation $150m, EBITDA $366m, free cash flow $100m, net debt $200m, 50m shares, a $37.60 price, $2.60 of EPS and $13.00 of book value per share. Total assets are $2,050m against $1,400m of liabilities, leaving $650m of equity. The discount rate is 9% — built from a 4.3% risk-free rate, a beta of 1.1 and a 5.0% equity risk premium — and terminal growth is 4%. Return on equity of 19.9% decomposes into a 7.2% net margin, 0.88x asset turnover and 3.15x leverage. Kestrel trades at $24.20 on $2.20 of EPS, an 11.0x multiple, an 11.0% ROE, $20.00 of book value and 2.4x net debt to EBITDA.
None of these are real companies, and each page labels them as hypothetical where they first appear. The reason is maintenance rather than convenience. A real company's figures change every quarter, and a site that chases filings is a site whose examples go stale between updates. One invented company with stable numbers lets you follow a single thread from a DCF page to the discount rate guide to the Graham test and confirm that the arithmetic agrees from one page to the next.
What the calculators actually compute
Each calculator runs in JavaScript inside your browser. The formula is printed on the page above the tool, every input is named, and the output can be reproduced on an ordinary calculator. There is no hidden model, no proprietary adjustment and no server-side step. Where a formula is a simplification, the page says so: the Gordon model assumes growth that never changes, a single-stage DCF assumes one terminal rate forever, and the Graham number is a screen rather than a valuation.
Where the assumptions come from
This site does not produce forecasts. The growth rate, discount rate and margin inputs come from the person using the tool. The job here is to make the consequence of those inputs visible — what a one-point move in the discount rate does to a DCF, what growth rate a current price implies, why a formula designed to find cheap stocks can end up preferring the weaker business. An output is arithmetic applied to your assumptions, and it is only as good as they are.
Editorial standards
- Every number in an article can be recalculated from the figures printed on that page.
- No performance claims, no model portfolios and no stock recommendations. The site has no view on any individual security.
- No credential is claimed that cannot be documented. ValueCalc is written and maintained by one private investor, not by a registered adviser or a research department, and the About page states that plainly. Where a biographical detail cannot be substantiated, it is left out rather than rounded up.
- Where a question is genuinely open — the right margin of safety, sustainable terminal growth, whether a low multiple is justified — the article gives the range and the reasoning instead of a single confident answer.
- Publication dates reflect when a page was actually published. Pages that are revised keep their original date, and the sitemap's lastmod changes only when the rendered content changes.
What this site refuses to publish
- "Best stocks to buy" lists. The site does not know your circumstances, your tax position or your time horizon.
- Guaranteed-return language, or backtested performance presented as though it predicts the future.
- Invented author biographies. Filling a team page with fictional analysts is the fastest way to lose a reader's trust, and in a YMYL subject it is worse than saying nothing.
Sources and rules of thumb
The arithmetic is the standard material taught in finance courses and used in practice: discounted cash flow, the Gordon growth model, the capital asset pricing model, DuPont decomposition and Graham's defensive formula. Where a rule of thumb appears — net debt below 2x EBITDA, capital expenditure at 30-60% of operating cash flow, goodwill above 30% of equity — it is presented as a working band drawn from common practice, not as a law of nature. A utility and a cyclical miner do not deserve the same leverage, and the pages say so rather than quoting a single threshold.
Corrections
If a formula returns a wrong number, an example does not reconcile, or a sentence is imprecise, write to hello@stockvalcalc.com with the page address and what you expected. Arithmetic errors are fixed once confirmed, and the correction is noted on the page rather than quietly rewritten. That address reaches the person who wrote the page, which is the main advantage of a one-person site and the reason the contact page stays short.
How the site is funded
Advertising, served through Google AdSense. There is no paywall, no account and no data sale, and no affiliate arrangement recommending a specific security. Ads are selected by Google rather than by this site; an advertisement appearing beside an article is not an endorsement of the advertiser or of any product. The privacy policy sets out what is and is not collected, and the disclaimer states the limits of what any output here can be used for.
Three checks to run on anything you read here
- Check the inputs. A valuation inherits every assumption behind it. If the growth rate is unrealistic, the output is decoration.
- Check the units. The calculators are currency-agnostic, so the result carries whatever unit you typed in — millions in, millions out.
- Check the date. A figure taken from a filing is true as of that filing, not as of today.
If you want the reasoning behind a specific tool, start with intrinsic value versus market price, the DCF method and the discount rate, or browse the full guide index.