United States Brent Oil Fund, LP (BNO) Stock Analysis
United States Brent Oil Fund, LP
▾ What's in the 32/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
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.
How to read BNO (bank / insurer)
Banks and insurers are valued on what they earn on their capital, not on free cash flow — a normal DCF misleads here.
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Bank / Insurance lens (P/TBV + ROE) ↓
Price-to-tangible-book versus return-on-equity is how analysts actually judge a bank cheap or rich.
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Financial-health screens ↓
Watch the trend in profitability and asset quality, not the (not-applicable) bankruptcy score.
Standard DCF doesn't fit BNO 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 investment banking. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
How does BNO stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same-industry companies most similar to BNO (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If BNO 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.
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GSG | iShares S&P GSCI Commodity-Indexed | Investment Banking | $991M | 28.9x | 5.8% |
| SVIX | VS Trust | Investment Banking | $1.2B | — | — |
| HODL | VanEck Bitcoin ETF | Investment Banking | $1.2B | — | — |
| SPPP | SPROTT PHYSICAL PLATINUM & PALLADI | Investment Banking | $650M | — | 44.7% |
| ETHE | Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF | Investment Banking | $1.6B | — | — |
| ETHB | iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF | Investment Banking | $561M | — | — |
| FXF | Invesco CurrencyShares Swiss Franc | Investment Banking | $520M | — | — |
| FGDL | Franklin Templeton Holdings Trust | Investment Banking | $498M | — | 6.9% |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
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 banks or insurers — their balance sheets are dominated by loans/securities, not working capital. See the Bank Valuation Lens above for P/B, ROE and ROA — the metrics regulators and analysts actually use to assess bank solvency.
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, current ratio all assume an industrial cost structure). For banks, the equivalent quality signals are efficiency ratio, net interest margin, and provision coverage — see the Bank Valuation Lens above.
Plain English: the company holds about $87M in cash and is burning roughly $4M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 23.2 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.
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 BNO because it is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) and its latest operating cash flow is negative. Investors are primarily betting on the future direction of Brent crude oil prices, as the fund's performance directly tracks this commodity. The number one quantifiable risk is the volatility and unpredictable nature of global oil markets.
As of 3 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.
- Changes in global oil supply and demand forecasts
- Geopolitical events impacting oil production
- Movements in the Brent crude oil futures curve
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.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$3.7M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Swung to a loss of -$4.1M (from a profit the prior year).
Nothing was clearly improving year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
BNO is managed by United States Commodity Funds LLC, which serves as the general partner. The fund does not have a traditional CEO or executive team in the same sense as an operating company, as its purpose is to track a commodity index.
What They Make
BNO is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that aims to track the daily changes in the price of Brent crude oil. It sells shares to investors who want exposure to oil price movements without directly owning the physical commodity.
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 prices BNO based on the current and expected future prices of Brent crude oil, as well as investor sentiment towards the energy market. Its latest operating cash flow is negative, indicating that its value is not derived from traditional business operations but from its underlying commodity holdings and market expectations for oil prices.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
As an ETF, BNO does not pay dividends or conduct buybacks; it funds itself through the sale of shares to investors and manages its portfolio of futures contracts.
Residual Income
Balance-sheet financial (Investment Banking): 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 net interest income and fee-income lines 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
Net income was negative latest, though profitable in 3 out of the last 5 years.
Geography & Markets
BNO operates globally through its investments in Brent crude oil futures contracts, which are traded on international exchanges. Its performance is tied to the global Brent crude oil market, with no specific geographic revenue mix available for the fund itself.
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)40.9NeutralMomentum 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 (7 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (7)
- Financial sector: using residual income model. IV = Book Value + PV(excess earnings).
- Discount rate floored from 7.5% to 9.0% (financial sector minimum).
- 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 7% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Model mismatch: residual income inappropriate for asset-light financial (BVPS $0.00 not meaningful vs price $51). 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 United States Brent Oil Fund, LP's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | — | -4.1M | $-0.26 |
| 2024 | — | 10.6M | $0.67 |
| 2023 | — | -4.1M | $-0.26 |
| 2022 | — | 82.6M | $5.24 |
| 2021 | — | 157.5M | $10.00 |
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 | -3.7M | — | — | -3.7M |
| 2024 | 7.0M | — | — | 7.0M |
| 2023 | 12.1M | — | — | 12.1M |
| 2022 | 83.6M | — | — | 83.6M |
| 2021 | 143.6M | — | — | 143.6M |
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 | 100.7M |
| Total Liabilities | 300,205 |
| Equity | — |
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