Is Camping World Holdings, Inc. (CWH) 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? — Very risky. Safer than 4% 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 8 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, in every era and all twelve sectors.
How wild is the price? — 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). 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 CWH — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read CWH (pre-profit growth)
This company is reinvesting instead of generating profit, so a standard DCF cannot price it. The useful question is whether the growth the market is paying for is achievable — and whether the company can fund itself until then.
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Reverse-DCF — the growth the price demands ↓
It shows exactly how fast the business must grow to justify today's price. Compare that to what comparable companies have actually achieved.
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Cash runway ↓
Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
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Interactive calculator ↓
Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
CWH looks like a foreign company (ADR) whose SEC filings are denominated in its home currency, while the share price is in U.S. dollars. Mixing the two would produce a meaningless dollar fair-value, so we suppress the single intrinsic-value number rather than show a wrong one.
What to use instead: the growth trends, margins and ratios below (which are currency-independent), the peer comparison, and the company's own filings. A currency-converted valuation is on our roadmap.
Who owns CWH, 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.
215 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end.
Riskier than 96% of the stocks we cover
What this rating means, and what it does not
What this rank is — Very risky. Riskier than 96% of the companies we cover. Out of every 100 companies ranked here, about 3.4% 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% |
| Retail & wholesale (sector average) | 1.00% | 4.04% | 7.74% |
| riskiest 1% | 16.4% | 33.0% | 45.5% |
| next 2% (97-99) | 5.9% | 24.9% | 38.2% |
| next 2% (95-97) ← this stock | 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 | <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 2026-05-01), which can be a quarterly report newer than the yearly figures used elsewhere on this page; scores last updated 2026-09-18. Within Retail & wholesale: rank 93 of 100. Rough one-year odds for this stock alone: bankruptcy 2.3%, an 80% fall 10.7% (the model overstates the middle of the range). On the same data, the Altman Z score caught 26% of bankruptcies in its riskiest 5%; this rank caught 59%.
▾ 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) ← this stock | 6.4% acquired within a year |
| next 25% (50-75) | 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.
How does CWH stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same- or closely-related-industry companies closest in size to CWH and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If CWH 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 / 0.3x / 0.4x |
| 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 → |
1.9x / 1.9x / 2.2x |
| EV / EBITEV / EBITDA — Enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. Why it matters: A classic "what would a private buyer pay" multiple — used in M&A. Strips out tax and capital-structure noise. Reference: 8–12x for mature businesses · 15–25x for growth · Below 5x often signals distress Full explanation → |
7.6x / 10.1x / 14.4x |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAH | SONIC AUTOMOTIVE INC | Auto Dealers | $2.9B | 0.3x | 1.9x | 12.2x | 0.6% |
| ABG | ASBURY AUTOMOTIVE GROUP INC | Auto Dealers | $3.3B | 0.4x | 2.2x | 8.0x | 14.7% |
| JZXN | Jiuzi Holdings, Inc. | Auto Dealers | $56M | 19.3x | 2,774.2x | — | 0.1% |
| GPI | GROUP 1 AUTOMOTIVE INC | Auto Dealers | $3.8B | 0.2x | 1.0x | 5.1x | 9.8% |
| OPLN | OPENLANE, Inc. | Auto Dealers | $4.0B | 2.4x | — | 23.3x | 7.9% |
| VRM | Vroom, Inc. | Auto Dealers | $42M | — | — | — | 149.3% |
| RUSHA | RUSH ENTERPRISES INC \TX\ | Auto Dealers | $5.4B | 0.8x | 3.9x | 14.4x | 8.0% |
| AN | AUTONATION, INC. | Auto Dealers | $5.6B | 0.3x | 1.9x | 7.6x | 5.6% |
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 — Weak. Passes 3 of the 8 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% 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 1.54. 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.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✗ Positive net incomeNet income -$89.8M 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 -$132.0M (was $245.2M the prior year).Why this matters: Profit can be an accounting figure; cash from running the business is harder to fake. Negative operating cash flow means the core business consumes cash and must be funded externally.
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✗ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow -$132.0M vs net income -$89.8M.Why this matters: When cash generated exceeds reported earnings, profits are high-quality (not propped up by accruals or one-time items).
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✗ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -1.8% vs -0.8% 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)Long-term debt is 28.0% of assets vs 30.7% a year ago ($1,413.6M of $5,044.3M assets).
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 1.20x vs 1.35x 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 held roughly flat (103.3M → 103.3M year-over-year).
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 1.26x vs 1.25x 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 $215M in cash and is burning roughly $132M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 20 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.
Camping World Holdings, Inc. The market is paying up for significant future growth, implying an 18.0% annual per-share cash flow growth, despite recent negative operating cash flow and declining revenue. The biggest risk to our model's base assumptions proving too high is the continued decline in revenue, which has fallen -2%/yr over the last four years.
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 growth in quarterly revenue figures
- Return to positive operating cash flow
- Improvements in net income profitability
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 +4% to $6.37B.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$377.4M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Still unprofitable at -$89.8M — loss widening.
Management & Leadership
Matthew D Wagner serves as CEO and President, with Thomas E Kirn as Chief Financial Officer. Lindsey Christen also holds an officer position. Marcus Lemonis was a former Chief Executive Officer.
CEO and President
Chief Financial Officer
What They Make
Camping World Holdings sells recreational vehicles (RVs) and related products and services. Their paying customers are individuals purchasing RVs, parts, accessories, and services.
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.
This optimism is despite revenue declining -2%/yr over four years and operating cash flow being negative in the latest fiscal year. The market appears to be anticipating a significant turnaround and acceleration in future cash flow generation.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company reported negative 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 → of -$377.4 million in the latest fiscal year, with total debt stable at $1.5 billion. The model normalizes for an investment-phase capital spending build, valuing median operating cash flow less estimated maintenance capex.
Normalized FCF
This is the model the pipeline would normally apply to a company like this. Its output failed our checks here, so no intrinsic value is published; the notes below are context, not a valuation.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | -2.0% |
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
| Sector Default Source | Consumer Cyclical sector default |
| Best Estimate | 5.0% |
| 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 declining at -2%/yr over the last four years, and net income was negative in the latest fiscal year.
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)25.3OversoldHeavily 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)
- Investment-phase normalization: the company is profitable with strong operating cash flow, but current free cash flow is depressed by a capital-spending build. The model values median operating cash flow less estimated maintenance capex — not the depressed single year and not a commodity cycle.
- Median OCF: $116.68M, est. maintenance capex: $70.01M, normalized SBC: $20.81M, normalized owner-earnings FCF: $25.86M.
- Noncontrolling interests: only 61% of the consolidated business belongs to this share class (equity split (1 − noncontrolling equity ÷ total equity)), so every cash-flow input to the valuation is scaled to the economic share held by these shareholders. The financial statements below remain consolidated. Holding-company structure — read the underlying operating entity too.
- Illiquidity discount 7% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Camping World Holdings, Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 6.4B | -89.8M | $-0.87 |
| 2024 | 6.1B | -38.6M | $-0.37 |
| 2023 | 6.2B | 33.4M | $0.32 |
| 2022 | 7.0B | 123.7M | $1.20 |
| 2021 | 6.9B | 278.5M | $2.70 |
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 | -132.0M | 201.2M | 44.3M | -377.4M |
| 2024 | 245.2M | 88.2M | 21.6M | 135.4M |
| 2023 | 310.8M | 369.4M | 24.1M | -82.7M |
| 2022 | 189.8M | 210.6M | 33.8M | -54.7M |
| 2021 | 154.0M | 247.8M | 47.9M | -141.7M |
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: -132.0M − 201.2M − 44.3M (stock-based comp) = -377.4M. 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 | 5.0B |
| Total Liabilities | 4.7B |
| Equity | 228.6M |
| Total Debt | 1.5B |
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 CWH
Is Camping World Holdings, Inc. (CWH) a good stock to buy?
We do not publish a single fair value for Camping World Holdings, Inc., 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 Camping World Holdings, Inc. (CWH) overvalued?
A single fair-value number is not reliable for Camping World Holdings, Inc., 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 Camping World Holdings, 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.