Is ClearSign Technologies Corp (CLIR) a good stock to buy?
Two or more of our tested checks point the wrong way. When the survival check is one of them, no price makes that acceptable.
What each rating means, in numbers
Can it survive? — Risky. Safer than 24% of the companies we cover, judged on the warning signs that came before companies that really did fail.
Business quality — Weak. Passes 3 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? — Very wild. The share price swings about 90% in a typical year, which puts it in the most volatile fifth. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 8.6 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 3.7% to 11.5%.
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). 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.
Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.
Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about CLIR — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read CLIR (speculative micro-cap)
No model can pin a precise fair value on a company this small — but that does not mean there is nothing to learn. The useful questions are what the price is betting on, and whether the company can survive long enough to deliver it.
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1
Reverse-DCF — what growth the price assumes ↓
The single most useful number here: it backs out the growth the market is paying for. If that figure is "historically unprecedented," the price is running on hype, not fundamentals.
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2
Cash runway ↓
A pre-profit micro-cap lives or dies on whether it can fund itself to profitability before running out of money and diluting you.
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3
The raw financial statements + the 10-K ↓
At this scale, the actual numbers, insider ownership, and share-count trend tell you more than any ratio.
Is ClearSign Technologies Corp (CLIR) overvalued?
Macro: Neutral / mid-cycleNo, by our measure: the price is about 11% below what we think the business is worth.
CLIR trades at $2.96 vs an estimated intrinsic value of $3.32 — a 10.9% discount to model IV.
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 CLIR pay as a bond?
Not measurable here. Pre-profit: the coupon is projected, not earned. An equity bond needs a coupon that exists today. See the cross-company ranking →
Who owns CLIR, 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.
25 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end.
Riskier than 76% of the stocks we cover
What this rating means, and what it does not
What this rank is — Risky. Riskier than 76% of the companies we cover. Out of every 100 companies ranked here, about 0.8% 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% |
| Technology & business equipment (sector average) | 0.43% | 3.59% | 8.34% |
| 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) ← this stock | 0.8% | 8.5% | 17.8% |
| next 25% (50-75) | 0.2% | 2.7% | 6.2% |
| safest half | <0.1% | 0.5% | 2.1% |
Why not to trade on it. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010–2025: every version lost money. The market already prices the distress, and the survivors squeeze. Use a high rank to read the filings and to size for a total loss — not to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.
Scored from the most recent SEC filing we had (dated 2026-05-18), which can be a quarterly report newer than the yearly figures used elsewhere on this page; scores last updated 2026-09-18. Within Technology & business equipment: rank 76 of 100. Rough one-year odds for this stock alone: bankruptcy 0.3%, an 80% fall 23.9% (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) ← 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.
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.
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:
▾ 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: 3.0%
Discount rate: 12.5% (the rate the model used)
Price used: $2.96 — 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.
The market is pricing in shrinking cash flow — often a sign of undervaluation, and sometimes of a dying business. Check leverage, the cash-flow trend and the health screens below to tell those apart.
For reference: The market is pricing in flat-to-slightly-declining cash flow — common for mature or out-of-favor companies, not a vote of confidence.
▾ How we computed this · Reality check thresholds · Assumptions
- Starting FCF/share: $0.41 (projected from revenue × terminal margin)
- 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 →: 12.5% — 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 →: 3.0% — 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 — Inside every range. The current price sits inside each method's range — roughly fair on this blended view.
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.
⚠ At today's price, the market values CLIR at about 1.4× its annual sales — a typical established company trades around 1–3×. Standard industry multiples (the bars below) collapse toward $0 at this scale, so they aren't the useful read. For a micro-cap with sales, lean on the Reverse-DCF (what revenue growth that price implies), the Momentum trend, and cash runway — see 📍 What to focus on.
Football field: where does the price sit?
Both bars below come from our own cash-flow model — one tries a range of growth rates, one shows our three scenarios. A third bar comparing CLIR with similar companies appears only when there are enough close peers to trust it, and there aren't here. So this shows how much the answer depends on growth, not a set of independent checks.
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 to read a company this small
CLIR is too small and/or too volatile for the valuation lenses we use on larger, more stable companies. The numbers shown below should be taken as rough orientation only.
- Market cap $16.4M — nano-cap territory (below $50M)
Growth percentages on tiny revenue bases (1000% going from $200K to $2M is not predictive). P/E and ROE swing wildly with small earnings changes. Peer comparisons fail because there often aren't comparable companies at this scale.
Start with the Reverse-DCF above — it backs out the growth the price is betting on; if that figure is "historically unprecedented," the price is running on hype, not fundamentals. Then the cash runway (can it fund itself to profitability before diluting you?). Then the raw Financials table and the 10-K on SEC EDGAR — at this scale, insider ownership and the share-count trend often matter more than any ratio.
Classified as Speculative Nano / Micro-cap (confidence 80%). Disagree? An admin can override via the post edit screen.
⚠ Genuine comparables are scarce at this size, so peer multiples are unreliable here. Treat as rough context only — see 📍 What to focus on above.
How does CLIR stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 6 same- or closely-related-industry companies closest in size to CLIR and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If CLIR 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 6 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ELSE | ELECTRO SENSORS INC | Industrial Instruments For | $27M | 2.7x | 5.3x | 13,564.5x | 2.2% |
| BNGO | Bionano Genomics, Inc. | Laboratory Analytical Inst | $17M | 0.6x | — | — | 29.3% |
| ASTC | ASTROTECH Corp | Laboratory Analytical Inst | $15M | 16.3x | 68.8x | — | 0.4% |
| NIKI | Niki BioSolutions, Inc. | Measuring & Controlling De | $10M | — | — | — | — |
| POAS | PHAOS TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS (CAYMAN) | Industrial Instruments For | $4M | 41.4x | — | — | 0.7% |
| BCHT | Birchtech Corp. | Measuring & Controlling De | $39M | 2.2x | 5.3x | — | 7.3% |
| HBIO | HARVARD BIOSCIENCE INC | Laboratory Analytical Inst ·fallback | $38M | 0.8x | 1.5x | — | 9.6% |
| DAIO | DATA I/O CORP | Instruments For Meas & Tes ·fallback | $40M | 1.8x | 3.8x | — | 6.3% |
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 3 of the 9 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 →
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.
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 -$5.5M 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.
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✗ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow -$4.7M (was -$4.4M 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.
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow -$4.7M vs net income -$5.5M.
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✗ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -45.1% vs -32.5% a year ago.Why this matters: Is the company squeezing more profit out of each dollar of assets than last year? Rising = getting more efficient; falling = the opposite.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)The filing reports no interest-bearing debt in either year (total assets $12.2M).
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 4.34x vs 6.32x 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.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 13.4% (4.9M → 5.6M 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.
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✗ Pricing power (gross margin)Gross margin 27.2% vs 31.1% a year ago.Why this matters: Rising gross margin means stronger pricing power or lower input costs — a sign of competitive strength. Falling margin signals pressure.
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 0.43x vs 0.22x 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.
Plain English: the company holds about $9M in cash and is burning roughly $5M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 23 mo 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 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 12.5%, the figure our model used for CLIR. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: the calculator opens at our published value of $3.32 — 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.
10.3% — 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 1.05. 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 12.5% — the more conservative sector/quality rate (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.
-10.9%
At the default assumptions the flat path lands near our published value of $3.32. 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)
ClearSign Technologies Corp (CLIR) is fairly valued, with the price being 10.9% below 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 10.9% discount / margin of safetyMargin of Safety — How much room there is between the current price and intrinsic value, in your favor.
Why it matters: Benjamin Graham's core idea: only buy when there is enough discount that you can be wrong about your assumptions and still not lose money.
Reference: 20%+ is the classic Graham target · 30%+ for higher-risk companies
Full explanation →); equivalently the intrinsic value is about 3.4% ABOVE the price. The market may be discounting CLIR due to its consistently negative net income and operating cash flow over the past five years, despite strong revenue growth. The biggest risk to our model's base assumptions is that the company's 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 -$5.6 million in the latest fiscal year, continues to decline rather than stabilizing or growing at the modeled rate.
As of yesterday
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.
- Quarterly revenue growth rates
- Improvement in gross margin percentage
- Progress towards positive 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.
- Revenue grew +46% to $5.2M.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$5.6M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Gross margin shrank to 27% (-4 pts).
- Still unprofitable at -$5.5M — loss widening.
Management & Leadership
Colin James Deller serves as the Chief Executive Officer, and Brent Hinds is the Chief Financial Officer. Gil Todd Silva, Lou Basenese, Larry Michael Saddler, and Anthony Digiandomenico are listed as Directors.
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer
What They Make
ClearSign Technologies Corp develops and sells industrial combustion technologies designed to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions. Their customers are typically industrial facilities and original equipment manufacturers.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
The market prices CLIR at a 10.9% discount 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 →, consistent with the company's financial health signals. Specifically, the market is likely concerned by the negative net income and operating cash flow in the latest fiscal year, which has been consistently negative for the past five years. The market may also be assigning value to the potential for widespread adoption of its clean combustion technologies in a tightening regulatory environment, which is not in the model.
Three Scenarios, Weighted
| Scenario | IV | Upside from today's price | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $1.15 | -61.2% | 40% |
| Base | $3.10 | 4.6% | 35% |
| Optimistic | $7.10 | 139.9% | 25% |
| Weighted | $3.32 | 12.2% | 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
The company funds its operations primarily through its cash and short-term investments of $9.2 million, given its negative operating cash flow and net income.
Growth / Revenue DCF Medium
Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 50.0% |
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
Moat Signals
Revenue has been growing at 71.4% per year over the last four years, from $1 million to $5.2 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)36.4NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BearishLine below signalThe fast trend is below the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently downward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (2 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (2)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- Illiquidity discount 25% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From ClearSign Technologies Corp's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 5.2M | -5.5M | $-0.99 |
| 2024 | 3.6M | -5.3M | $-1.08 |
| 2023 | 2.4M | -5.2M | $-0.13 |
| 2022 | 374,000 | -5.8M | $-0.16 |
| 2021 | 607,000 | -7.9M | $-0.25 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -4.7M | 4,000 | 893,000 | -5.6M |
| 2024 | -4.4M | 39,000 | 528,000 | -4.9M |
| 2023 | -3.2M | — | 614,000 | -3.8M |
| 2022 | -5.0M | 10,000 | 373,000 | -5.4M |
| 2021 | -6.7M | 73,000 | 680,000 | -7.5M |
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: -4.7M − 4,000 − 893,000 (stock-based comp) = -5.6M. 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 Assets | 12.2M |
| Total Liabilities | 2.7M |
| Equity | 9.5M |
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The questions people ask about CLIR
Is ClearSign Technologies Corp (CLIR) a good stock to buy?
ClearSign Technologies Corp (CLIR) trades about 11% below our $3.32 estimate of what the business is worth, so the price is not the obstacle. The questions are why it is cheap: check the failure-warning checks, the debt, and whether insiders are buying, all on this page. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Is ClearSign Technologies Corp (CLIR) overvalued?
No, by our measure. ClearSign Technologies Corp (CLIR) trades at $2.96, about 11% below our estimate of $3.32 for what the business is worth. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
What is CLIR's intrinsic value?
Our model estimates CLIR is worth about $3.32 per share, built from the cash the business is expected to generate, taken from its SEC filings. The market price is $2.96.
What growth is priced into CLIR?
Working backwards from today's price, the market expects CLIR's cash flow per share to shrink by roughly 3.3% 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 ClearSign Technologies 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.