Is Chimera Investment Corp (CIM) a good stock to buy?
Our tested checks disagree with each other, so the answer depends on something further down the page rather than on any one measure.
What each rating means, in numbers
Can it survive? — Safe. Safer than 79% of the companies we cover, judged on the warning signs that came before companies that really did fail.
Business quality — Weak. Passes 2 of the 6 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? — Very calm. The share price swings about 22% in a typical year, which puts it in the calmest fifth. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 0.3 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.1% to 0.7%.
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
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.
Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about CIM — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read CIM (REIT)
REITs pay out most of their cash, so judge them on cash distributions and the value of their property — not on earnings or a standard DCF.
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1
REIT lens (P/AFFO + dividend yield) ↓
Price-to-AFFO and the dividend yield are the real cheap/expensive gauges for real estate.
Standard DCF doesn't fit CIM well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The REIT Valuation Lens below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value reits. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
Who owns CIM, 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.
195 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end.
Safer than 79% of the stocks we cover
What this rating means, and what it does not
What this rank is — Safe. Safer than 79% of the companies we cover. Out of every 100 companies ranked here, about <0.1% went bankrupt within the year, against 0.6% for the average company we cover. The rank comes from a model trained on every US filing since 2012, including 823 companies that really did fail, and scored each year by a version that had not seen that year.
What it is not — Not a trade. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010-2025. Every version lost money: the market already prices the distress and the survivors squeeze. A high rank is a reason to read the filings and to size for a total loss, not a reason to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.
▾ The numbers, the logic, and why not to trade on it
The logic. A model trained on every US filing since 2012 — including 823 companies that went bankrupt or stopped trading under a dollar — ranks each covered stock by its chance of failing in the next year, from its latest filing, price history and credit conditions. The rank is a position among peers; the table is a count of what happened to stocks in each position, scored each year by a model that had not seen that year.
| Rank band | went bankrupt within 12 months | fell 80% or more (or failed) within 12 months | fell 50% or more (or failed) within 6 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| All covered stocks (average) | 0.59% | 4.21% | 8.51% |
| Finance (sector average) | 0.13% | 1.25% | 3.09% |
| riskiest 1% | 16.4% | 33.0% | 45.5% |
| next 2% (97-99) | 5.9% | 24.9% | 38.2% |
| next 2% (95-97) | 3.4% | 21.2% | 33.8% |
| next 5% (90-95) | 1.6% | 15.1% | 27.3% |
| next 15% (75-90) | 0.8% | 8.5% | 17.8% |
| next 25% (50-75) | 0.2% | 2.7% | 6.2% |
| safest half ← this stock | <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 2026-05-08), which can be a quarterly report newer than the yearly figures used elsewhere on this page; scores last updated 2026-09-18. Within Finance: rank 29 of 100. Rough one-year odds for this stock alone: bankruptcy 0.1%, an 80% fall 0.3% (the model overstates the middle of the range).
▾ The logic, and why not to buy on it
The logic. Trained on 2,900 acquisitions since 2012, the model leans on size (small), age, retained earnings, asset growth, volatility and how many deals the sector has just seen. Announcement = the day the stock jumped, not the day the paperwork was filed.
| top 1% | 15.4% acquired within a year |
| next 2% (97-99) | 10.3% acquired within a year |
| next 2% (95-97) | 9.0% acquired within a year |
| next 5% (90-95) | 7.3% acquired within a year |
| next 15% (75-90) | 6.4% acquired within a year |
| next 25% (50-75) | 4.8% acquired within a year |
| bottom half ← this stock | 3.0% acquired within a year |
Why not to buy on it. A takeover paid a median +22% on the day — but even in the top band about 6 in 7 companies are not bought, and those lag. Buying the whole top list returned what the S&P 500 did (2012–2023), and adding "cheap" or "beaten-down" filters did not change that. Read it as context for a thesis you already have, never as the thesis.
How does CIM stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same- or closely-related-industry companies closest in size to CIM and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If CIM 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 → |
8.2x / 9.9x / 11.2x |
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/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSTL | Postal Realty Trust, Inc. | REITs | $708M | 11.2x | — | 31.1x | 4.1% |
| RWT | REDWOOD TRUST INC | REITs | $679M | — | — | — | 14.0% |
| VMET | Versamet Royalties Corp | REITs | $899M | — | — | — | 3.0% |
| PMT | PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust | REITs | $912M | 8.2x | — | — | 15.3% |
| WSR | Whitestone REIT | REITs | $981M | 10.1x | — | — | 2.7% |
| UHT | UNIVERSAL HEALTH REALTY INCOME TRU | REITs | $575M | 9.6x | — | 27.3x | 7.1% |
| TPTA | Terra Property Trust, Inc. | REITs | $554M | 20.7x | — | — | 2.1% |
| PDM | Piedmont Realty Trust, Inc. | REITs | $1.0B | 5.8x | — | — | 3.0% |
Leveraged bond portfolio dressed up as real estate
Despite the "REIT" label, this is not an equity REIT (which owns buildings). It\'s a leveraged mortgage-backed-securities (MBS) portfolio — borrow short-term, buy long-term mortgages, pocket the spread. Valued on P/Book + dividend yield + Net Interest Margin. AFFO doesn\'t apply.
- Yield curve shape — steep curve = wide net interest margin = healthy dividend. Flat/inverted curve crushes earnings.
- Prepayment speeds — refinancing waves shrink high-yield holdings; the mREIT has to reinvest at lower rates.
- Hedge book — most mREITs hedge interest-rate risk with swaps; hedging gains/losses can swing earnings dramatically.
- Leverage (debt-to-equity) — typically 5-9×. Amplifies BOTH returns and losses on the MBS portfolio.
- Distributable yield vs current yield — the dividend can outpace earnings for several quarters before being cut.
Warning: mREIT dividends are historically among the most likely to be cut during stress periods (2008, 2020, 2022). High current yield is NOT a reliable forecast.
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
What these health ratings mean, in numbers
Business quality — Weak. Passes 2 of the 6 health checks we can measure — making a profit, turning it into cash, not piling on debt, not issuing shares. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% within a year against 1.4% for the strongest, and that held in every era and all twelve sectors. It says "less likely to break", not "likely to beat the market".
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
REITs deliberately carry high leverage backed by long-life real estate and pay out 90%+ of taxable income — both inputs that Altman Z flags as distress. See the REIT Valuation Lens above for P/AFFO, dividend yield and payout ratio.
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's checks (operating cash flow, gross-margin trend, current ratio, asset turnover) assume an industrial cost structure, so they misread asset-heavy or financial businesses like this one — a healthy REIT, utility, pipeline, BDC/fund or holding company can score low for reasons that aren't weakness. See the sector lens above for the metrics that actually matter.
The market is likely discounting CIM due to its negative operating cash flow of -$251.5 million in the latest fiscal year and rising long-term debt from $0M to $251.5 million. The biggest risk to our model's base assumptions is that 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 → after stock comp, which was -$1.9 billion in the latest fiscal year, continues to decline rather than stabilizing or growing at the modeled rate.
As of today
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Stabilization or improvement in operating cash flow in upcoming quarters
- Reduction in total debt or stabilization of debt-to-asset ratios
- Consistency in dividend payouts and growth
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.
- Net income grew +31% to $230.5M.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$1.92B — the cash burn widened vs last year.
Management & Leadership
Phillip John Kardis II serves as the President and CEO, while Subramaniam Viswanathan is the Chief Financial Officer. Jack Lee Macdowell Jr. holds the position of Chief Investment Officer, and Miyun Sung is the Chief Legal Officer & Secy.
President and CEO
Chief Financial Officer
What They Make
Chimera Investment Corp is a real estate investment trust (REITREIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) — A company that owns income-producing real estate and is required to pay out about 90% of its profit to shareholders as dividends.
Why it matters: Because they pay out almost everything, REITs are judged on the cash they distribute (price-to-AFFO and dividend yield), not on ordinary earnings — a normal P/E or DCF misleads here.
Reference: Dividend yields often 3–6%; valued on price-to-AFFO, not P/E.
Full explanation →) that invests in a diversified portfolio of mortgage assets. Its primary payers are typically institutional investors and financial counterparties.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B), dividend yield & payout — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is pricing in the negative operating cash flow of -$251.5 million in the latest fiscal year and the significant increase in long-term debt from $0M to $251.5 million, which suggest deteriorating fundamentals. Separately, the reverse DCFReverse 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
Full explanation → implies the price is consistent with an implied annual decline in per-share cash flow, given the current valuation and health signals.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company declared a dividend of $1.48 per share in the last fiscal year, with a 5-year dividend growth rate of 3.5% per year. It funds its operations and investments through a mix of debt and equity, with total debt at $251.5 million and cash at $278.6 million.
Dividend Discount
REIT (REITs): dividend discount model - GAAP earnings distort REIT valuations.
Show advanced inputs
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated dividend-discount 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 has been positive in 4 out of the last 5 years, while operating cash flow has been positive in 4 out of the last 5 years.
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)16.2OversoldHeavily 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 (4)
- Dividend: last fiscal-year DECLARED dividend per share from the filing ($1.48/yr, us-gaap:CommonStockDividendsPerShareDeclared).
- Dividend growth from the declared-DPS series: 3.5%/yr over 5 years.
- Illiquidity discount 7% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Dividend data sparse; DDM using estimated yield. Confidence reduced.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Chimera Investment Corp's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | — | 230.5M | $1.72 |
| 2024 | — | 176.1M | $1.10 |
| 2023 | — | 126.1M | $0.68 |
| 2022 | — | -513.1M | $-7.53 |
| 2021 | — | 670.1M | $2.44 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
CapEx is approximated. This filer reports capital expenditure under a company-specific tag our parser cannot read, so the CapEx column uses total investing outflow instead. That includes acquisitions and investment purchases, so the free cash flow shown is a conservative (lower-bound) figure in years with large deals.
| Year | Operating CF | Investing outflow (capex proxy) | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -248.9M | 1.7B | 9.7M | -1.9B |
| 2024 | 205.7M | — | 10.1M | 195.6M |
| 2023 | 213.3M | — | 9.6M | 203.7M |
| 2022 | 325.7M | — | 8.2M | 317.5M |
| 2021 | 519.2M | — | 6.5M | 512.7M |
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). Latest year: -248.9M − 1.7B − 9.7M (stock-based comp) = -1.9B. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a TTM dividend, not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 15.8B |
| Total Liabilities | 13.2B |
| Equity | 2.6B |
| Total Debt | 251.5M |
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.
The questions people ask about CIM
Is Chimera Investment Corp (CIM) a good stock to buy?
We do not publish a single fair value for Chimera Investment Corp, because one number would not be reliable for this business (the page explains why). Judge it on what today's price assumes, its financial-health checks and what insiders are doing, all shown here from SEC filings. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Is Chimera Investment Corp (CIM) overvalued?
A single fair-value number is not reliable for Chimera Investment Corp, so we do not call it overvalued or undervalued. The page shows what growth today's price assumes and how the company's finances look instead. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Where do these numbers come from?
From Chimera Investment Corp'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.