Is China Automotive Systems, Inc. (CAAS) a good stock to buy?
Everything we have tested points the right way. That is a reason to look closer, not a reason to buy — these are frequencies about groups of companies in the past, not a statement about this one.
What each rating means, in numbers
Business quality — Strong. Passes 7 of the 9 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? — Calm. The share price swings about 30% in a typical year, which puts it in the below average. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 0.7 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.0% to 1.6%.
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, DCF applicability). 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 CAAS — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read CAAS
A profitable, cash-generating business — our discounted-cash-flow estimate is the primary lens, cross-checked against what growth the price implies and against peers.
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1
The verdict + intrinsic value (our DCF) ↓
Our estimate of what a share is worth, versus today's price.
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2
Reverse-DCF + the interactive calculator ↓
See the growth the price assumes, then flex every assumption yourself to pressure-test it.
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3
Football field + peers ↓
A cross-check across methods and against comparable companies.
Is China Automotive Systems, Inc. (CAAS) overvalued?
Macro: Neutral / mid-cycleYes, by our measure: the price is about 16% above what we think the business is worth.
CAAS trades at $4.41 vs an estimated
intrinsic value
of $3.82
— a +15.6% premium to model IV.
Today's price is consistent with CAAS's owner-earnings free cash flow per share growing about 7.4% per year 5-YR · SCENARIO PATH over the next 5 years (the
price-implied growth rate).
Our DCF projects
modeled growth
of 8.0% per year based on history + sector defaults
(analyst consensus estimates not yet integrated).
TESTED · OURS HAS BEEN CLOSER
When we and the market have disagreed about growth, our number has been the closer one — a median miss of 4.8 points a year against the market's 8.3, measured on 3,279 past filings. That does not make a large gap a sell signal: we tested that too, and companies where the market expected far more than we did went on to return within 1.5 points of everything else. Treat the gap as a description of what the price assumes, not as a prediction. How this was tested →
Note: this is a 5-year, per-share view. The Reverse-DCF section below asks the same question over the same five years on a free-cash-flowFree 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 → basis, as a single flat rate — so its number is close but not identical.
▾ Exactly how this 5-year figure is computed
Current price: $4.41 (live)
Discount rate: 10.5%; terminal growth: 2.5%
Forecast: 5 years explicit growth, then a linear fade to terminal; end-of-period cash flows discounted to today
Growth path: the model's scenario-weighted path (conservative 40% / base 35% / optimistic 25% — assumed weights, not measured probabilities) — see the "Three Scenarios, Weighted" table below for the three IVs
Method: solve for the constant 5-year per-share growth rate that, run through this same structure, makes the intrinsic value equal today's price. (The figure below solves the same five years as a single flat rate with no scenario weighting — hence a slightly different number.)
Not investment advice. The model can be wrong. Verify the assumptions in the sections below and consider consulting a licensed advisor for significant decisions.
What return would CAAS pay as a bond?
Not measurable here. Only 2 years of positive owner earnings in the record (we require 3) — not enough history to treat the cash flow as a coupon. For the record, today's owner-earnings yield is 10.6% on the model's starting cash flow. See the cross-company ranking →
Who owns CAAS, 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.
15 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end.
What cash-flow improvement 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
Reverse DCF treats today's price as correct and solves for the cash-flow path that justifies it. For a cyclical, read the result as the annual improvement in through-cycle free cash flow the price requires — which could come from stronger pricing, margin recovery, lower input costs (fuel, materials, labour), more volume, or reduced capex, not just organic growth. The starting base is our normalized mid-cycle median, not last year's number.
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 improve by:
▾ Exactly how this 5-year figure is computed
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: 2.5%
Discount rate: 10.5% (the rate the model used)
Price used: $4.41 — 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.
Within range of what a quality mature business delivers over five years. Not demanding.
For reference: Reasonable — sustainable for a quality business over time.
▾ How we computed this · Reality check thresholds · Assumptions
- Starting FCF/share: $0.26 (mid-cycle estimate (median operating cash flow less estimated maintenance capex and stock compensation — by design NOT the table's FCF, which deducts every year's full capex))
- 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 →: 10.5% — standard 8-12%; 9-10% matches S&P 500 historical return - Terminal Growth RateTerminal 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 →: 2.5% — matches long-term GDP growth - Forecast horizon: 10 years explicit + terminal perpetuity
| ≤ 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.
What this rating means
What the rating says — Methods disagree. Methods disagree: the price is BELOW 1 of 3 method ranges (Priced like 7 similar companies (their EV / Sales, p25→p75)), while remaining inside the If FCF grew -5%/yr → 14%/yr (flat 10-yr DCF sweep; model assumes 8.0%) and Our model's scenarios (conservative → optimistic; ◆ base, ● weighted 40/35/25) bands. That makes the read assumption-sensitive, not "fairly valued" — the verdict depends on which lens you trust.
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.
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.
Industry multiples sourced from: broad market average (sector unknown). See the Peer Basket section below for the peer comparison and its limited-comparables caveat.
How does CAAS stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 7 same- or closely-related-industry companies closest in size to CAAS and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If CAAS 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.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
0.3x / 0.5x / 0.9x |
| EV / Gross ProfitEV / Gross Profit — Enterprise value divided by gross profit — the multiple paid for what each dollar of sales contributes after direct costs. Why it matters: More refined than EV/Sales for high-margin businesses (software, marketplaces) where gross margin is the real economic engine. Reference: 8–15x for SaaS · 15–25x for hypergrowth software · >30x demanding Full explanation → |
1.4x / 2.6x / 6.8x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 7 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/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVGI | Commercial Vehicle Group, Inc. | Motor Vehicles | $114M | 0.3x | 3.2x | — | 16.7% |
| LIDR | AEye, Inc. | Motor Vehicles | $93M | 397.6x | — | — | 0.5% |
| INVZ | Innoviz Technologies Ltd. | Motor Vehicles | $87M | 1.6x | 6.8x | — | 2.5% |
| SRI | STONERIDGE INC | Motor Vehicles | $211M | 0.5x | — | — | 1.3% |
| MPAA | MOTORCAR PARTS OF AMERICA INC | Motor Vehicles | $212M | 0.3x | 1.4x | 5.3x | 14.4% |
| MCRP | Micropolis AI Robotics | Motor Vehicles | $80M | — | — | — | — |
| KNDI | Kandi Technologies Group, Inc. | Motor Vehicles | $69M | 0.9x | 2.0x | — | 7.9% |
| ECXJ | CXJ GROUP CO., Ltd | Motor Vehicles ·fallback | $133M | 250.1x | 373.2x | — | 0.8% |
Bankruptcy + quality screens
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 — Strong. Passes 7 of the 9 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% 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".
Bankruptcy score (Altman Z) — Strained. Altman Z is 1.34. It combines working capital, retained earnings, operating profit and market value against total assets into one bankruptcy score. Above 3.0 is the safe zone, 1.8 to 3.0 is grey, below 1.8 is the distress zone. It was calibrated on manufacturers in 1968, so it reads asset-light and heavily-financed businesses badly — which is why it is one input here and never the verdict.
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 →
Distress zone under the classic Altman thresholds — scores here have historically preceded a high rate of financial distress within ~2 years. This is a warning signal, not a direct bankruptcy probability, and its reliability varies by industry. Be very skeptical of any "cheap" valuation on this name.
The classic Z-score was calibrated on manufacturers. It is less reliable for asset-light or non-manufacturing businesses (broadcasters, media, software, services) and not applicable to banks, REITs, or insurers — for those the coefficients and the asset-turnover term distort the result. Read it as one screening input, not a verdict.
Read with caution for this industry. Automakers (and airlines) run a large captive finance arm, which inflates total assets and liabilities and depresses Altman Z — it routinely reads "distress" even for investment-grade names with full access to capital markets. Treat it as one input, not a literal bankruptcy probability. Weigh it against the company's cash position, near-term debt maturities, and where it sits in the economic cycle.
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 →
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✓ Positive net incomeNet income $42.8M in FY2025.
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✓ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow $111.6M (was $9.8M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $111.6M vs net income $42.8M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets 4.3% vs 3.5% a year ago.
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✗ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 0.6% of assets vs 0.0% a year ago ($5.7M of $1,001.7M assets).Why this matters: Rising debt relative to assets means more risk and more cash going to interest instead of shareholders. Falling debt is a sign of strengthening.
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✓ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 1.36x vs 1.32x a year ago.
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✓ Share count (dilution)Share count held roughly flat (30.2M → 30.2M year-over-year).
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✓ Pricing power (gross margin)Gross margin 19.0% vs 16.8% a year ago.
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✗ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 0.76x vs 0.77x a year ago.Why this matters: Asset turnover measures how much revenue each dollar of assets generates. Rising = more productive use of the asset base.
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.
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 10.5%, the figure our model used for CAAS. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: the calculator opens at our published value of $3.82 — 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.
8.5% — beta-based (CAPM), from this stock's BetaBeta — 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 0.58. The safe Treasury rate plus a premium scaled by how much more (or less) volatile the stock is than the market.
12.5% — 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 10.5% — the mid-point of the two (we use the more conservative sector/quality rate when model applicability is limited or the balance sheet is stretched). Drag the slider to the other rate to see the full range.
+15.6%
At the default assumptions the flat path lands near our published value of $3.82. Move any slider to recompute it with your own.
Move any slider above to recompute this against your own assumptions.
⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
CAAS is fairly valued, with the price being 15.6% above intrinsic valueIntrinsic 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 15.6% premium). The market appears to be paying for the company's recent revenue growth of 15.3% per year over two years and consistent positive operating cash flow. The biggest risk to our model's base assumptions proving too high is that the long-term debt, which is currently rising, continues to increase, potentially impacting future free cash flowFree 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 →.
As of 6 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.
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.
- Revenue growth rate in upcoming quarters
- Trends in operating cash flow
- Changes in long-term debt levels
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 +18% to $765.7M.
- Free cash flow turned positive at $74.4M.
- Gross margin improved to 19% (+2 pts).
- Net income grew +43% to $42.8M.
Nothing was clearly worsening year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Wu Qizhou serves as the Chief Executive Officer, and Jie Li is the Chief Financial Officer. Other key executives include Haimian Cai and Henry (Jingzhou) Chen, both Vice Presidents, and Tse Yiu Wong, Senior Vice President. These individuals are responsible for the company's operational and financial management.
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer
What They Make
China Automotive Systems, Inc. manufactures and sells power steering components and systems for the automotive industry. Their primary customers are original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the automotive sector.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
The market prices CAAS at a premium of +15.6% to the model's intrinsic valueIntrinsic 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 premium likely reflects the company's recent revenue growth of 14.2% per year over two years, from $576M to $765.7 million, and its consistent profitability, with net income being positive for 3 out of 3 years. The market is paying for this demonstrated growth and stable financial health, despite the company's low franchise/durability score of 1/5.
Three Scenarios, Weighted
| Scenario | IV | Upside from today's price | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $3.30 | -25.2% | 40% |
| Base | $3.88 | -12.1% | 35% |
| Optimistic | $4.56 | 3.3% | 25% |
| Weighted | $3.82 | -13.5% | 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.
What has to be true (historical comparison)
To justify today's price, CAAS's owner-earnings cash flow must grow to roughly 1.4× its current level over 5 years. If profit margins and share count stay roughly constant, that is equivalent to about the same multiple of revenue. Each card below is a real company that grew revenue at a comparable magnitude — possibly in a different industry; the point is the growth magnitude required and its historical base rate, not that CAAS resembles these businesses. The green/amber line shows whether that company cleared or fell short of the bar, and the tag on the right shows how it actually fared afterward (succeeded, faded, or wiped out).
Lost $720M on $1.6B revenue. The market priced in dominance of online retail. Took 9 years for the share price to make a new high but ultimately compounded 170x in revenue.
Still losing money producing Model 3 at scale. Vehicle margins were below 20%. Stock 15x'd over the next four years as margins crossed into autos' best-in-class range.
What 'scale' looked like in 1999 for comparison purposes. Big and profitable. Revenue actually declined over the next 20 years.
Anchors are hand-curated 10-K snapshots. We surface the three whose 5-year revenue growth most-closely brackets the rate required to justify the current price. Source: SEC EDGAR.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
Normalized FCF Medium
Cyclical/commodity sector (Motor Vehicles): normalized FCF uses 5-year median to smooth peak/trough distortions.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 15.3% |
| Eps Growth | 6.7% |
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
| Sector Default Source | Consumer Cyclical sector default |
| Best Estimate | 10.2% |
| Method | blend(30% revenue_cagr, 70% sector) |
| Growth Basis | total |
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
Moat Signals
Revenue has been growing at 15.3% per year over the last two years, from $576M to $765.7 million.
Geography & Markets
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)28.4OversoldHeavily sold off recently — sometimes a bounce setup, sometimes a falling knife.
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 (4 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (3)
- Median OCF: $19.91M, est. maintenance capex: $11.94M, normalized owner-earnings FCF: $7.96M.
- Growth capped at 8.0%/yr for this normalized-cyclical model (the blended estimate was 10.2%). Through-cycle cash flow of a cyclical business does not compound at peak-year rates, so this route caps stage-1 growth at 8% by rule.
- Illiquidity discount 15% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From China Automotive Systems, Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 765.7M | 42.8M | $1.42 |
| 2024 | 650.9M | 30.0M | $0.99 |
| 2023 | 576.4M | 37.7M | $1.25 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 111.6M | 37.2M | — | 74.4M |
| 2024 | 9.8M | 43.7M | — | -33.9M |
| 2023 | 19.9M | 18.2M | — | 1.7M |
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 mid-cycle estimate (median operating cash flow less estimated maintenance capex and stock compensation — by design NOT the table's FCF, which deducts every year's full capex), not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 1.0B |
| Total Liabilities | 551.0M |
| Equity | 401.3M |
| Total Debt | 87.0M |
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The questions people ask about CAAS
Is China Automotive Systems, Inc. (CAAS) a good stock to buy?
China Automotive Systems, Inc. (CAAS) looks expensive against its own cash flows: the price is about 16% above our $3.82 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 China Automotive Systems, Inc. (CAAS) overvalued?
Yes, by our measure. China Automotive Systems, Inc. (CAAS) trades at $4.41, about 16% above our estimate of $3.82 for what the business is worth. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
What is CAAS's intrinsic value?
Our model estimates CAAS is worth about $3.82 per share, built from the cash the business is expected to generate, taken from its SEC filings. The market price is $4.41.
What growth is priced into CAAS?
Working backwards from today's price, the market expects CAAS's cash flow per share to grow by roughly 7.4% 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 China Automotive Systems, 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.