Is Mbia Inc (MBI) a good stock to buy?
Two or more of our tested checks point the wrong way. When the survival check is one of them, no price makes that acceptable.
What each rating means, in numbers
Can it survive? — Very risky. Safer than 9% of the companies we cover, judged on the warning signs that came before companies that really did fail.
Business quality — Middling. Passes 4 of the 7 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, in every era and all twelve sectors.
How wild is the price? — Average. The share price swings about 39% in a typical year, which puts it in the middling. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 1.5 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.2% to 3.0%.
What "tested" means here, and why there is no score out of 100
Tested means the read was measured against what actually happened afterwards, on a history that keeps the companies that were later delisted, using only figures that had been filed on the day they are used. Survival was ranked on companies that really did fail. What an owner keeps was tested across the universe from 2011 to 2025.
The full record of everything we have tested is on the research pages.
Which benchmark. Over the period we tested, the median listed company returned +5.8% a year while the S&P 500 returned about +13.9% — the index is weighted by size and was carried by a handful of enormous winners. So "beats the index" and "beats the other companies you could have bought" are different questions. Where a read says it picks better companies, it means the second one. None of these gets you an index fund's return, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.
The quality read is the strongest thing we have tested: 131,000 company-quarters across 5,300 companies, where the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, holding in every era and all twelve sectors. It still says less likely to break, not likely to beat the market — every band in that study lost to the index at the median, because the median listed company does.
Each read is shown on its own rather than merged into a single score, so you can see which part is strong and which is weak instead of taking an average on trust.
▾ What goes into the smart-money reading
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.
Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about MBI — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read MBI (bank / insurer)
Banks and insurers are valued on what they earn on their capital, not on free cash flow — a normal DCF misleads here.
-
1
Bank / Insurance lens (P/TBV + ROE) ↓
Price-to-tangible-book versus return-on-equity is how analysts actually judge a bank cheap or rich.
-
2
Financial-health screens ↓
Watch the trend in profitability and asset quality, not the (not-applicable) bankruptcy score.
Standard DCF doesn't fit MBI well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The Bank / Insurance Valuation Lens below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value specialty insurance. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
Who owns MBI, and how it moves
From the SEC's own filings: every fund manager over $100M reports its holdings each quarter, and every officer and director reports theirs. Each point is what was public at the time.
130 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end.
Riskier than 91% of the stocks we cover
What this rating means, and what it does not
What this rank is — Very risky. Riskier than 91% of the companies we cover. Out of every 100 companies ranked here, about 1.6% went bankrupt within the year, against 0.6% for the average company we cover. The rank comes from a model trained on every US filing since 2012, including 823 companies that really did fail, and scored each year by a version that had not seen that year.
What it is not — Not a trade. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010-2025. Every version lost money: the market already prices the distress and the survivors squeeze. A high rank is a reason to read the filings and to size for a total loss, not a reason to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.
▾ The numbers, the logic, and why not to trade on it
The logic. A model trained on every US filing since 2012 — including 823 companies that went bankrupt or stopped trading under a dollar — ranks each covered stock by its chance of failing in the next year, from its latest filing, price history and credit conditions. The rank is a position among peers; the table is a count of what happened to stocks in each position, scored each year by a model that had not seen that year.
| Rank band | went bankrupt within 12 months | fell 80% or more (or failed) within 12 months | fell 50% or more (or failed) within 6 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| All covered stocks (average) | 0.59% | 4.21% | 8.51% |
| Finance (sector average) | 0.13% | 1.25% | 3.09% |
| riskiest 1% | 16.4% | 33.0% | 45.5% |
| next 2% (97-99) | 5.9% | 24.9% | 38.2% |
| next 2% (95-97) | 3.4% | 21.2% | 33.8% |
| next 5% (90-95) ← this stock | 1.6% | 15.1% | 27.3% |
| next 15% (75-90) | 0.8% | 8.5% | 17.8% |
| next 25% (50-75) | 0.2% | 2.7% | 6.2% |
| safest half | <0.1% | 0.5% | 2.1% |
Why not to trade on it. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010–2025: every version lost money. The market already prices the distress, and the survivors squeeze. Use a high rank to read the filings and to size for a total loss — not to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.
Scored from the filing of 2026-05-08; table generated 2026-09-18. Within Finance: rank 95 of 100. Rough one-year odds for this stock alone: bankruptcy 1.1%, an 80% fall 1.0% (the model overstates the middle of the range).
▾ The logic, and why not to buy on it
The logic. Trained on 2,900 acquisitions since 2012, the model leans on size (small), age, retained earnings, asset growth, volatility and how many deals the sector has just seen. Announcement = the day the stock jumped, not the day the paperwork was filed.
| top 1% | 15.4% acquired within a year |
| next 2% (97-99) | 10.3% acquired within a year |
| next 2% (95-97) | 9.0% acquired within a year |
| next 5% (90-95) | 7.3% acquired within a year |
| next 15% (75-90) | 6.4% acquired within a year |
| next 25% (50-75) | 4.8% acquired within a year |
| bottom half ← this stock | 3.0% acquired within a year |
Why not to buy on it. A takeover paid a median +22% on the day — but even in the top band about 6 in 7 companies are not bought, and those lag. Buying the whole top list returned what the S&P 500 did (2012–2023), and adding "cheap" or "beaten-down" filters did not change that. Read it as context for a thesis you already have, never as the thesis.
⚠ We found only 1 genuine same-industry (Specialty Insurance) comparable — fewer than the 4 we require for a reliable median. The 8 names in the table below therefore include 7 broader Financial Services names marked fallback, whose business models and margins differ — which is why any median below is computed over that wider set, not over true comparables. So we do not derive a peer-implied share value here. Read the multiples as rough context only.
How does MBI stack up against its closest peers?
Ideally we compare MBI only to same-industry peers, but too few exist in our universe right now, so the basket below mixes in broader-sector names. Treat the multiples as rough context, not a valuation. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 peers (broad — see caveat); implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OSG | OCTAVE SPECIALTY GROUP INC | Specialty Insurance | $247M | — | — |
| WEAT | Teucrium Commodity Trust | Investment Banking ·fallback | $182M | — | — |
| WNEB | Western New England Bancorp, Inc. | Banks ·fallback | $275M | — | 5.5% |
| WHG | WESTWOOD HOLDINGS GROUP INC | Asset Management ·fallback | $166M | 33.4x | 8.3% |
| WENC | West Enclave Merger Corp. | SPACs ·fallback | $160M | — | — |
| ZSQR | Z Squared Inc. | Financial Services ·fallback | $157M | — | 3.3% |
| XFLH | XFLH Capital Corp | SPACs ·fallback | $138M | — | — |
| WSBF | Waterstone Financial, Inc. | Banks ·fallback | $378M | — | 7.1% |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
What these health ratings mean, in numbers
Business quality — Middling. Passes 4 of the 7 health checks we can measure — making a profit, turning it into cash, not piling on debt, not issuing shares. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% within a year against 1.4% for the strongest, and that held in every era and all twelve sectors. It says "less likely to break", not "likely to beat the market".
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
Altman Z was calibrated on industrial firms and doesn't apply to insurers — the balance sheet is dominated by investments held against policy liabilities, not working capital. See the Insurance Valuation Lens above for price-to-book, return on equity, book-value growth and the combined ratio — the measures analysts in that industry actually use.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
Piotroski F was built for non-financial firms (gross margin, asset turnover and current ratio all assume an industrial cost structure). For insurers the equivalent quality signals are the combined ratio, reserve development and investment-portfolio credit quality — see the Insurance Valuation Lens above.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for MBI. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.
A full intrinsic value isn't shown for MBI because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.
—
⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → valuation is not meaningful for MBIA Inc. due to its declining revenue and inconsistent profitability, with net income negative in the latest period. Investors are likely focused on the company's ability to manage its legacy insurance portfolios and generate consistent positive operating cash flow. The primary quantifiable risk is the continued revenue decline, which has been -19.3% per year over the last four years.
As of 4 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Stabilization or growth in net earned premiums
- Consistent positive net income
- Further positive operating cash flow quarters
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Revenue grew +90% to $80.0M.
- Free cash flow turned positive at $38.0M.
- Swung to a loss of -$177.0M (from a profit the prior year).
Management & Leadership
Adam Landy serves as the Chief Executive Officer of MBIA Inc., a position he has held since January 2023, following a long tenure with the company. He previously served as President and Chief Financial Officer.
What They Make
MBIA Inc. provides financial guarantee insurance and other specialized insurance services, primarily to public finance and structured finance sectors. Its customers are typically municipalities and financial institutions seeking to enhance the credit quality of their debt.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value & return on equity (P/TBV + ROE — how banks are actually judged) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is pricing MBIA Inc. based on its status as a financial institution managing legacy insurance portfolios, with a focus on its book value and the present value of excess earnings. The declining revenue trend of -19.3% per year over four years and inconsistent profitability suggest investors are weighing the company's ability to stabilize its operations and generate sustainable positive operating cash flow, which has been positive in the latest period but only in 2 of the last 5 years.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
Residual Income
Balance-sheet financial (Specialty Insurance): residual income model - book value is meaningful anchor.
Show advanced inputs
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project premium growth, underwriting (combined ratio) and investment income independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has been declining at -19.3% per year over the last four years, from $189M to $80M.
Geography & Markets
MBIA Inc. is headquartered in the United States and primarily operates within the U.S. public finance market, though it has historically had exposure to international structured finance markets. Specific geographic revenue mix is not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)46.4NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BearishLine below signalThe fast trend is below the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently downward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (9 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (9)
- Financial sector: using residual income model. IV = Book Value + PV(excess earnings).
- Discount rate floored from 8.5% to 9.0% (financial sector minimum).
- INVARIANT: scenario ordering inverted (conservative > optimistic). Results may be unreliable.
- INVARIANT: sensitivity table not monotonic - higher discount rate shows higher IV. Check model.
- INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
- Illiquidity discount 15% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Model mismatch: residual income inappropriate for asset-light financial (BVPS $-45.40 not meaningful vs price $6). Consider FCF model.
- DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Mbia Inc's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 80.0M | -177.0M | $-3.58 |
| 2024 | 42.0M | 435.0M | $-9.43 |
| 2023 | 7.0M | 477.0M | $-10.18 |
| 2022 | 154.0M | -195.0M | $-3.92 |
| 2021 | 189.0M | -445.0M | $-8.99 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
Capital expenditure isn't tagged in this filer's machine-readable data (the CapEx column shows "—"). The free-cash-flow column is therefore operating cash flow less stock-based compensation only — an upper bound on true owner earnings, not the real figure. Companies that report capex under a custom label (some large IFRS filers do) look better here than they are.
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 38.0M | — | — | 38.0M |
| 2024 | -176.0M | — | — | -176.0M |
| 2023 | -195.0M | — | — | -195.0M |
| 2022 | -418.0M | — | — | -418.0M |
| 2021 | 511.0M | 1.0M | — | 510.0M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a EPS basis (residual-income model), not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 2.0B |
| Total Liabilities | 4.2B |
| Equity | -2.2B |
The questions people ask about MBI
Is Mbia Inc (MBI) a good stock to buy?
We do not publish a single fair value for Mbia Inc, because one number would not be reliable for this business (the page explains why). Judge it on what today's price assumes, its financial-health checks and what insiders are doing, all shown here from SEC filings. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Is Mbia Inc (MBI) overvalued?
A single fair-value number is not reliable for Mbia Inc, so we do not call it overvalued or undervalued. The page shows what growth today's price assumes and how the company's finances look instead. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Where do these numbers come from?
From Mbia Inc's own SEC filings (10-K and 10-Q), Form 4 insider filings and daily market prices. Every figure on the page links to how it was calculated, and the model's weak spots are listed next to its results.