Is Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. (ARQT) a good stock to buy?

Price through Oct 12 market close · SEC data refreshed 11 days ago ⓘ · Not investment advice
Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc.
ARQT Healthcare Pharmaceuticals📄 SEC filings ↗ CUSIP 03969K108
Model suggests significant overvaluation
⚠ Low-confidence DCF estimate
More against than for ●●●●●

What we have tested leans negative. To like it anyway you need a reason our checks do not capture.

What each rating means, in numbers

Can it survive? — Middling. Safer than 39% 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 8 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? — Wild. The share price swings about 54% in a typical year, which puts it in the above average. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 3.7 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.9% to 5.7%.

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
Valuation (price vs model IV) (40%) 92/100 → +36.8
Smart money (short interest + insider buying) (30%) 79/100 → +23.7
Macro backdrop (VIX, curve, credit, fear/greed + week-over-week momentum) (30%) 33/100 → +9.9
early-warning: macro conditions deteriorating week-over-week
Total70/100

Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend, DCF applicability). It excludes the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.

💵 Price $26.22 · through Oct 12 market close 📄 Financials SEC EDGAR · refreshed 11 days ago
Business type Pre-profit / cash-burning company ⓘ Burning cash with a real revenue-generating business — valued on sales and gross profit, with runway and dilution as the risks.
8%
vs 14% normally
Low
The market, not this company tested

Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.

Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about ARQT — see the board for how it is measured.

📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first

How to read ARQT (pre-profit growth)

ARQT generates real cash flow, but the DCF here is a low-confidence estimate — the value is sensitive to how we normalize cash flow, cyclicality, and secular/industry risk. Treat the DCF as one input, then pressure-test it against the reverse-DCF, leverage, and the operating trends below.

Where to start — the sections that matter most for this stock
  1. 1 Reverse-DCF — the growth the price demands ↓
    It shows exactly how fast the business must grow to justify today's price. Compare that to what comparable companies have actually achieved.
  2. 2 Cash runway ↓
    Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
  3. 3 Interactive calculator ↓
    Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
Or — what are you trying to decide?
A note on process: fear-driven decisions — including fear of missing out — tend to be the expensive ones. A stock up 10% a day for three days is excitement, not evidence. Whichever reader you are, the data below is there to be checked before anything is decided.
🚀
"It's surging — should I chase it?"
The momentum / FOMO trade. Before you chase, see whether the people who know it best are quietly selling into the rally.
⚖️
"Is it worth what it costs?"
The valuation trade. Our DCF, the growth the price implies, and a calculator you drive yourself.
🏷️
"Is it a cheap bargain?"
The deep-value trade. How far below assets and our value it trades — and whether it's cheap for a reason.
ⓘ Why does ARQT trade at $26.22?

Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. has 127.2 million shares outstanding. At $26.22 per share, the market values all outstanding ARQT equity at $3.3 billion. That's market capitalization, not enterprise value — enterprise value also accounts for debt and cash — and it matters here because ARQT carries substantial debt. The share price by itself tells you almost nothing — a company can pick any share price by splitting or issuing more shares. What matters is the total value (Market Cap?Market Cap — The total dollar value the market is assigning to the entire company.
Why it matters: This is the number that actually matters when comparing companies. Two companies with the same business but different share counts have the same market cap.
Reference: Mega cap >$200B · Large $10–200B · Mid $2–10B · Small $300M–2B · Micro <$300M
Full explanation →
) compared to what the business actually produces. This page values ARQT in Per Share?Per Share — A company-level figure divided by total shares — what one share represents.
Why it matters: Per-share metrics are the only way to fairly compare two companies with different share counts.
Full explanation →
economics — what each share represents of the underlying business. Play with the share-price calculator on the homepage →

Loading insider & short-seller data…

Who owns ARQT, 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.

Held by institutions (funds filing Form 13F)
102%-4.7 pts over the last year
2020-06 · 90%2025-12
Held by officers and directors
2.3%-7.9 pts over the last year
2020-06 · 86%2026-03

279 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end. Above 100% is not a mistake in the filings: when a fund lends shares to a short seller, the fund and whoever buys the borrowed shares can both report them.

1.13×
Moves with the market
Over the last year, a 1% move in the S&P 500 came with about a 1.1% move in ARQT.
0.73×
Moves with its sector (Healthcare)
The same measure against the XLV sector fund over the last year.

Riskier than 61% of the stocks we cover

Failure risk
Middling
●●●●●
Rank 61 of 100
Went bankrupt within a year
0.2%
●●●●●
Average company: 0.6%
What this rating means, and what it does not

What this rank is — Middling. Riskier than 61% of the companies we cover. Out of every 100 companies ranked here, about 0.2% 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 monthsfell 80% or more (or failed) within 12 monthsfell 50% or more (or failed) within 6 months
All covered stocks (average) 0.59% 4.21% 8.51%
Healthcare (sector average) 0.94% 9.47% 17.69%
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) 1.6% 15.1% 27.3%
next 15% (75-90) 0.8% 8.5% 17.8%
next 25% (50-75) ← this stock 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 most recent SEC filing we had (dated 2026-05-07), which can be a quarterly report newer than the yearly figures used elsewhere on this page; scores last updated 2026-09-18. Within Healthcare: rank 42 of 100. Rough one-year odds for this stock alone: bankruptcy 0.1%, an 80% fall 3.9% (the model overstates the middle of the range). On the same data, the Altman Z score caught 26% of bankruptcies in its riskiest 5%; this rank caught 59%.

Takeover odds: higher than 66% of the stocks we cover. Companies ranked here were acquired within a year 4.8% of the time (average 4.6%).
▾ 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) ← this stock 4.8% acquired within a year
bottom half 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.

Checking filings for failure warnings…

What growth must the market believe? ?Reverse DCF — Instead of asking "what is this stock worth?", asks "what growth rate is the current market price already assuming?"
Why it matters: It crystallizes the bull thesis as a single number you can argue with. If the market expects 40% growth for 10 years and you do not believe that, the stock is overvalued.
Reference: 10–15% = sustainable for strong companies · 20–25% = exceptional · 30%+ = historically very rare

Traditional DCF asks "what is this stock worth?" Reverse DCF flips it: it treats today's price as correct and solves for the growth rate that justifies it. In plain terms — if our model is right about everything else, the company's cash flow would have to grow (or shrink) by this much every year for the next 5 years for today's price to make sense. If that required growth looks unrealistic, the price is stretched; if it looks easy to beat, the price may be cheap.

To justify today's $26.22 price, ARQT's free cash flow?Free Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation →
must grow at:
+23.9%
5-year FCF growth, then fading implied by today's price
A 5-year cash-flow growth rate, fading to terminal growth afterwards, implied by today's live price.
▾ Exactly how this 5-year figure is computed
Starting FCF/share: $0.60 (projected from revenue × terminal margin)
Forecast length: 5 years at the solved rate, then a linear fade to terminal growth over years 6-10 — the same shape the DCF above uses
Terminal growth after the fade: 3.0%
Discount rate: 10.2% (the rate the model used)
Price used: $26.22 — the live price shown on this page (not frozen)
Method: solve for the constant annual growth rate that makes the discounted 10-year FCF stream + terminal value equal today's price.
Exceptional

Sustaining 22-30% a year for five years is rare, and rarer still at large scale where the base is already enormous. The price is betting on a top-tier outcome.

For reference: Exceptional is not a compliment here — sustaining mid-teens cash-flow growth for ten straight years is rare at scale. The price is betting on a top-tier outcome.

▾ How we computed this · Reality check thresholds · Assumptions
Inputs:
  • Starting FCF/share: $0.60 (projected from revenue × terminal margin)
  • Discount Rate?Discount 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 →
    : 10.2% — standard 8-12%; 9-10% matches S&P 500 historical return
  • Terminal Growth Rate?Terminal Growth Rate — The growth rate we assume the company holds forever, after the explicit 10-year forecast period ends.
    Why it matters: It anchors the long-tail value. Cannot mathematically exceed long-term GDP growth or the company eventually becomes larger than the global economy.
    Reference: 2–3% (matches long-term US GDP growth) · Above 4% is mathematically problematic
    Full explanation →
    : 3.0% — matches long-term GDP growth
  • Forecast horizon: 10 years explicit + terminal perpetuity
Reality-check scale:
≤ 0%Priced for decline — likely undervalued OR dying business
5-12%Reasonable; sustainable for quality businesses
12-18%Demanding — strong execution required
18-25%Exceptional — few companies sustain for a decade
25-35%Heroic — historically very rare
35%+Borderline impossible at scale

Sustaining 30%+ cash-flow growth for a full decade at scale is exceedingly rare — the bar is brutally high.

Use the interactive calculator below to change the discount rate, growth and terminal-growth assumptions and watch the value move.

Price against our valuation methods
Methods disagree
●●●●●
3 methods compared
What this rating means

What the rating says — Methods disagree. Methods disagree: the price is ABOVE 1 of 3 method ranges while inside the rest — assumption-sensitive, not clearly fair.

What it does not say — Not a forecast. This shows where today's price sits against several different ways of valuing the business. Where the methods disagree, the spread itself is the useful part - it tells you how much the answer depends on which one you trust.

For this kind of company, trust Earnings yield (EBIT / EV) first. We tested every method inside this business type: the cheapest fifth on Earnings yield (EBIT / EV) went on to beat the typical company of the same type by 5.7 points over the following year, holding in every period we tested, and clear of the next best (EV / EBIT, 4.0 points). Pairing it with Operating cash flow yield did better still, at 8.5 points. That is against other companies of this type — not against an index fund.

Football field: where does the price sit?

Different valuation methods produce different fair-value ranges depending on assumptions. Plotting them together lets you see at a glance whether the current price is reasonable across approaches, or only one specific lens.

$4$11$19$26$34Current price $26.22If FCF grew -5%/yr → 21%/yr (flat 10-yr DCF sweep; model assumes 15.0%)$4.81$31.99EV / Sales (p25→p75)$6.87$29.04Our model's scenarios (conservative → optimistic; ◆ base, ● weighted 40/35/25)$3.96$8.67weighted $5.84base $5.97
Methods disagree: the price is ABOVE 1 of 3 method ranges while inside the rest — assumption-sensitive, not clearly fair.

Industry multiples sourced from: industry: Pharmaceuticals. See the Peer Basket section below for the peer comparison and its limited-comparables caveat.

How does ARQT stack up against its closest peers?

We take the 8 same- or closely-related-industry companies closest in size to ARQT and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If ARQT is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. 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.

What peers trade at (p25 / median / p75)

Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.

Peer-implied value check
Not enough clean peer EV/Sales multiples to derive a reliable median (some were dropped as implausible/outliers). The EV/EBIT and FCF-yield rows above are the better read here; also lean on the DCF.

⚠️ 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/Sales EV/GPEV/EBIT FCF Yield
TLX Telix Pharmaceuticals Ltd Pharmaceuticals $3.2B — 7.5x— —
TNGX Tango Therapeutics, Inc. Pharmaceuticals $3.2B 51.0x —— 0.4%
CPRX CATALYST PHARMACEUTICALS, INC. Pharmaceuticals $3.8B 6.5x —14.8x 4.6%
VKTX Viking Therapeutics, Inc. Pharmaceuticals $3.8B — —— —
XTLB XTL BIOPHARMACEUTICALS LTD Pharmaceuticals $2.7B 6,042.3x 908,362.1x— —
IRON Disc Medicine, Inc. Pharmaceuticals $2.5B — —— —
VRDN Viridian Therapeutics, Inc.\DE Pharmaceuticals $2.4B 34.3x —— 2.3%
VERA Vera Therapeutics, Inc. Pharmaceuticals $2.4B — —— —

Quality & solvency checks

Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.

Business quality
Middling
●●●●●
Passes 4 of 8 checks
What these health ratings mean, in numbers

Business quality — Middling. Passes 4 of the 8 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".

The workings
Altman Z-Score?Altman Z-Score — A bankruptcy-risk score combining 5 financial ratios into one number. Predictive of bankruptcy within 2 years.
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 →
n/a
Not reliably computable

We can't produce a trustworthy Altman Z here: retained earnings weren't separately reported in our data, so a core input would have to be fabricated. Rather than show a categorical "distress" verdict from an invented number, we mark it unavailable. Judge financial health from the leverage, cash position, and the measurable Piotroski checks instead.

Piotroski-style checks (partial — not a standard F-score)
4 passed · 4 failed · 1 n/a
Partial result, not a standard F-score: 4 of 8 measurable checks passed. 1 of the 9 standard checks couldn't be measured, so this is scored out of 8, not 9 — it isn't comparable to a published F-score.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
  • ✗ Positive net income
    Net income -$16.1M in FY2025.
    Why this matters: Does the company actually earn a profit? Sustained losses eventually force it to raise money — diluting you — or take on debt.
  • ✗ Positive operating cash flow
    Operating cash flow -$5.6M (was -$112.2M the prior year).
    Why this matters: Profit can be an accounting figure; cash from running the business is harder to fake. Negative operating cash flow means the core business consumes cash and must be funded externally.
  • ✓ Cash flow backs up reported profit
    Operating cash flow -$5.6M vs net income -$16.1M.
  • ✓ Return on assets improving
    Return on assets -3.7% vs -40.1% a year ago.
  • ✓ Debt load (vs assets)
    Long-term debt is 24.9% of assets vs 30.7% a year ago ($108.0M of $433.0M assets).
  • ✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)
    Current ratio 3.17x vs 4.15x a year ago.
    Why this matters: The current ratio compares assets it can turn to cash within a year against bills due within a year. Below 1.0 means it may struggle to cover near-term obligations.
  • ✗ Share count (dilution)
    Share count rose 5.2% (121.0M → 127.2M year-over-year).
    Why this matters: Issuing lots of new shares splits the pie into more pieces, shrinking your slice. Stable or falling share count protects existing owners.
  • · Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
  • ✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)
    Asset turnover 0.87x vs 0.56x a year ago.

Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.

Cash Runway
7.6 yrs
COMFORTABLE — 2+ years at the current burn

Plain English: the company holds about $43M in cash and is burning roughly $6M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 7.6 yrs before it must raise capital (diluting shareholders), take on debt, or cut spending.

Assumes constant burn and ignores financing/asset sales. For pre-profit biotech and growth companies, this matters more than a DCF — a great drug pipeline is worthless if they run out of money before approval.

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 Rate?Discount 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 10.2%, the figure our model used for ARQT. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.

Note: the calculator opens at our published value of $5.84 — it is initialised to the same scenario-weighted result, so the two match exactly on load. The moment you move a slider, the value below becomes a single-path what-if at your assumptions (not the three-scenario weighting), which is why it can differ from the headline once you've touched it.

Scenario-weighted model IV (40/35/25 assumed weights)
$5.84
It trades at
$26.22
Premium to model IV
+349.0%
Price is 349% above model IV — it looks overvalued. Change the assumptions below to see what would justify today's price.
We value this stock at two discount rates and report the range between them:
10.2% — beta-based (CAPM), from this stock's Beta?Beta — How much the stock moves when the overall market moves. 1.0 = moves with the market; 1.5 = moves 50% more than the market.
Why it matters: Higher beta = more volatile = should demand higher discount rate. Low beta stocks (utilities, consumer staples) move less.
Reference: Most stocks 0.5–1.5 · Defensives ~0.3 · High-vol tech ~1.5–2.0
Full explanation →
of 1.04.
The safe Treasury rate plus a premium scaled by how much more (or less) volatile the stock is than the market.
9.5% — sector/quality tier. A simpler hurdle set by industry and business durability: lower for stable, wide-moat companies; higher for speculative or micro-caps.
The headline value and this calculator start at 10.2% — the beta-based rate. Drag the slider to the other rate to see the full range.
4.5% (risk-free)9-10% normal18% (deep-risk)
0%2-3% (GDP)5% (rarely sustainable)
Value at your assumptions (opens at our published value; becomes a single-path what-if once you move a slider)
$5.84
vs today's $26.22
+349.0%

At the default assumptions the flat path lands near our published value of $5.84. Move any slider to recompute it with your own.

For comparison — the FCF growth today's price already assumes
+23.9%
at the default assumptions

Move any slider above to recompute this against your own assumptions.

⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
Where the discount rate comes from — discount rate = risk-free + beta × equity-risk-premium
What you'd earn risk-free from government bonds — the floor under every other rate. Slide it down to model the market expecting rate cuts (value rises); up for higher-for-longer.
The extra yearly return investors demand for owning stocks instead of safe bonds — the price of risk. History runs ~4.5–6.5%; we default to 5.5% (slightly conservative). It's an estimate, not a law — lower it if you think equities are less risky than that.
Inflation reduces the purchasing power of a nominal return: a 9% gain at 3% inflation is about 6% in real terms. The intrinsic value above is already in today's dollars (a nominal DCF carries inflation in both the growth and the discount rate), so this switch does not change the value — it restates the return in real terms.
Higher beta → higher discount rate (sets the rate above). 1.0 = moves with the market.
What you think ARQT can grow FCF for ~5 years, then fades to terminal.
All inputs start at the values our model used.

    Copy shareable link to this scenario →

    Price$26.22
    Model IV$5.84
    Premium to IV+349.0%
    DCF applicabilityLow
    ⚠️ Outlier ResultP/IV 4.5x — result dominated by model assumptions or data limits. Treat with caution.
    ⚠️ Outlier result (P/IV 4.5x) — this valuation gap is too extreme to produce reliable growth or return estimates. The model may not suit this company's profile.

    Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. is well above the model value; the price is 349.0% above intrinsic value?Intrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
    Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
    Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
    Full explanation →
    (a 349.0% premium). The market appears to be paying for future growth and potential catalysts not yet reflected in the company's negative net income and operating cash flow. The biggest risk to our model's base assumptions is that normalized cash flow continues to decline, given that operating cash flow was -$5.6 million in the latest fiscal year.

    ⚠️ FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.

    As of 11 days 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.

    ARQT Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. stock anatomy showing per-share revenue, operating expenses, free cash flow, and debt
    −4.3%
    loss
    Where each $1 of revenue goes
    For every $1 of revenue, ARQT currently loses 4.3¢ — costs exceed sales. A money-losing business can still be a good investment if losses are shrinking toward profitability; check the trend, not just the snapshot.
    Net margin = net income ÷ revenue (most recent fiscal year).
    Plain English: each share (at $26) represents $2.96 of revenue per share per year, $0.13 lost per share per year, and $-0.37 of owner-earnings free cash flow per current share (latest fiscal year) from the latest fiscal year. Each share carries $0.86 of total debt (interest-bearing borrowings, current + long-term). The DCF does not start from that single year — it instead starts from a projected from revenue × terminal margin of $0.60 per share to capture a full cycle.
    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.

    🐂 The Bull Case
    The most important operating factor for the bull case is that the company's pipeline drugs achieve regulatory approval and commercial success, leading to a stabilization and growth of underlying cash flow around the modeled business rate of +15.0%.
    🐻 The Bear Case
    The biggest operating risk is that revenue and margins continue to deteriorate, leading to further declines from the current negative operating cash flow of -$5.6 million and negative net income.
    📌 Signposts to watch — update your view as these print
    • Regulatory updates and approvals for pipeline drugs
    • Quarterly revenue growth from existing products
    • Trends in operating cash flow

    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.

    ✅ Improving
    • Revenue grew +91% to $376.1M.
    • Free cash flow is negative at -$46.7M — the cash burn narrowed vs last year.
    • Still unprofitable at -$16.1M — loss narrowing.

    Nothing was clearly worsening year-over-year.

    Management & Leadership

    Todd Watanabe serves as the Chief Executive Officer, and Latha Vairavan is the SVP Chief Financial Officer. Other key executives include Masaru Matsuda, Patrick Burnett, and Larry Todd Edwards.

    Todd Watanabe
    See Remarks — Chief Executive Officer (per SEC Form 4, 2026-08-05)

    Chief Executive Officer

    Latha Vairavan
    SVP Chief Financial Officer (per SEC Form 4, 2026-05-13)

    SVP Chief Financial Officer

    Masaru Matsuda
    See Remarks (per SEC Form 4, 2026-09-18)
    Patrick Burnett
    See Remarks (per SEC Form 4, 2026-08-21)
    Larry Todd Edwards
    See Remarks (per SEC Form 4, 2026-03-03)

    What They Make

    Arcutis Biotherapeutics develops and commercializes treatments for dermatological diseases. Patients use their products, while healthcare providers and potentially insurers are the primary payers.

    End Markets

    DermatologyBiopharmaceuticalsSpecialty Pharmaceuticals

    Revenue Drivers

    Product sales for dermatological conditions
    Future drug pipeline advancements
    Market penetration of new therapies
    Market Cap: 3.3BBeta: 1.04

    Why Is It Priced Like This?

    Why Customers Pay

    Addresses unmet medical needs in dermatology
    Offers novel treatment mechanisms
    Potential for improved patient outcomes
    Intrinsic Value$5.84
    Premium to IV +349.0%
    Outlier Result P/IV 4.5x — valuation gap too extreme for meaningful implied growth or return estimates.

    The market prices ARQT at a premium of +349.0% to the model's intrinsic value?Intrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
    Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
    Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
    Full explanation →
    . This suggests the market may be assigning value to the potential success of its drug pipeline catalysts, which is not in the model, or significant future margin expansion beyond what is indicated by the current negative net income and operating cash flow. The market may also be anticipating a turnaround from the current negative operating cash flow of -$5.6 million.

    Three Scenarios, Weighted
    ScenarioIVUpside from today's priceWeight
    Conservative$3.96-84.9%40%
    Base$5.97-77.2%35%
    Optimistic$8.67-66.9%25%
    Weighted$5.84-77.7%100%

    Reading the last column: it is the move from today's price to each value (IV ÷ price − 1). The headline "premium/discount to model IV" measures the same gap from the value's side (price ÷ IV − 1), so the two percentages differ in size and sign by construction — e.g. a price 8% above value is a value 7.4% below price.

    Business Model & Valuation

    How They Make Money

    Sales of prescription dermatological drugs
    Licensing agreements for drug candidates
    Research and development grants

    The company funds itself through equity raises and has seen long-term debt rising from $72M to $109.0 million, while operating cash flow is negative.

    Growth / Revenue DCF Low

    Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.

    ▾ Why is DCF applicability "Low" for ARQT?
    A "Low" score means an FCF-DCF is a weaker fit for this business — not that the number is wrong, but that it deserves more skepticism. The specific drivers here:
    • The latest single-year FCF sits materially below the normalized figure the model uses, a sign of cyclicality.
    • Individual business-segment drivers are not forecast separately — the model works off consolidated cash flow only.

    Because of this, we headline the more conservative discount rate and urge you to weight the reverse-DCF, leverage, and operating trends alongside the DCF.

    In plain English: we estimate ARQT's value by projecting its owner-earnings free cash flow (operating cash flow minus capital expenditure and stock-based compensation) into the future and converting it back to what it's worth today. We start from $0.60 per share (projected from revenue × terminal margin), assume it grows 15.0% per year for about 5 years (then gradually fades), and discount everything at 10.2% — the yearly return a buyer should demand for this much risk. After that it's assumed to grow 3.0% per year forever (roughly the long-run pace of the whole economy). A higher discount rate or slower growth means a lower value, and vice-versa — change any of these yourself in the calculator above.
    Owner-earnings FCF / share$0.60projected from revenue × terminal margin — smoothed, not the latest single year
    Growth (g₁) — 5yr15.0%Source: historical CAGR + sector defaults
    Discount Rate (r)10.2%
    Terminal Growth (gT)3.0%
    Show advanced inputs
    Revenue Growth15.0%

    What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings cash-flow model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments 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

    Growth-stage life sciences

    Moat Signals

    Proprietary drug formulations
    Regulatory approvals for new treatments
    Specialized market focus

    Net income and operating cash flow have been negative in the latest fiscal year, indicating a challenging financial track record.

    Geography & Markets

    Geographic Risks

    Concentration risk in the dermatology market
    Regulatory approval risk for new drug candidates

    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.

    Model bearish, tape bullish - divergence suggests timing risk.
    RSI?RSI — Relative Strength Index — a 0-100 momentum gauge. Above 70 = overbought; below 30 = oversold.
    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)
    54.0NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
    MACD?MACD — Moving Average Convergence Divergence — compares a fast and a slow price trend to gauge momentum direction.
    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 →
    BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
    50-Day Average$25.79Price above (+1.7%)Price above its 50-day average = near-term uptrend.
    200-Day Average$25.24Price aboveThe 200-day line is the long-term trend divider — above it is generally considered a bull market for the stock.
    50 vs 200 CrossGolden50-day above 200-dayA "golden cross" — the medium trend has overtaken the long trend (often read as bullish).

    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.

    Data Quality & Risk Flags (3 notes — click to expand/collapse)

    Guardrail Notes (3)
    • FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
    • Price is 4.5x model IV - market may be pricing optionality, narrative catalysts, or margin expansion beyond what trailing cash flows support.
    • Extreme valuation gap (P/IV 4.53): result may be dominated by model assumptions, share count issues, or sector-specific dynamics. Treat as low confidence.

    Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)

    From Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).

    Income (5yr)

    YearRevenueNet IncomeEPS
    2025376.1M-16.1M$-0.13
    2024196.5M-140.0M$-1.16
    202359.6M-262.1M$-3.78
    20223.7M-311.5M$-5.66
    2021—-206.4M$-4.18

    Cash Flow (5yr)

    YearOperating CFCapEx− SBCFree Cash Flow
    2025 -5.6M 686,000 40.4M -46.7M
    2024 -112.2M 143,000 41.7M -154.0M
    2023 -247.1M 428,000 38.8M -286.3M
    2022 -257.7M 333,000 32.7M -290.7M
    2021 -174.6M 995,000 23.9M -199.5M

    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). Latest year: -5.6M − 686,000 − 40.4M (stock-based comp) = -46.7M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a projected from revenue × terminal margin, not this single year.

    Balance Sheet

    Total Assets433.0M
    Total Liabilities243.5M
    Equity189.5M
    Total Debt109.0M

    Similar companies worth a look

    Same sector and industry, similar fundamentals shape. Verify everything yourself — this list is computed mechanically and does not reflect our judgment about whether any of these are a good investment.

    Methodology by Pouyan Golshani, MD — founder of Gighz. Savng was built by a physician for busy professionals: every number on this page comes from SEC filings (EDGAR) and FINRA data through transparent, rules-based models — no analyst opinions, no hidden inputs. How we calculate every number →

    The questions people ask about ARQT

    Is Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. (ARQT) a good stock to buy?

    Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. (ARQT) looks expensive against its own cash flows: the price is about 349% above our $5.84 estimate. Whether it is a good buy depends on whether the company can grow faster than that price assumes, on its financial health, and on what insiders are doing. All three are on this page. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.

    Is Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. (ARQT) overvalued?

    Yes, by our measure. Arcutis Biotherapeutics, Inc. (ARQT) trades at $26.22, about 349% above our estimate of $5.84 for what the business is worth. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.

    What is ARQT's intrinsic value?

    Our model estimates ARQT is worth about $5.84 per share, built from the cash the business is expected to generate, taken from its SEC filings. The market price is $26.22.

    What growth is priced into ARQT?

    Working backwards from today's price, the market expects ARQT's cash flow per share to grow by roughly 18.3% a year over the next five years. Compare that with the company's actual record on this page.

    Where do these numbers come from?

    From Arcutis Biotherapeutics, 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.

    ⚠️ Not investment advice. Automated model outputs, last refreshed 11 days ago (the analysis-refresh date, not the latest filing period). All models have blind spots. Full disclaimer →
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