LIGHTBRIDGE Corp (LTBR) Stock Analysis
LIGHTBRIDGE Corp
▾ What's in the 42/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read LTBR (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.
The share count we read for LTBR looks wrong — common for multi-class / founder-controlled filers that report shares per share-class. That makes per-share figures (including intrinsic value) misleading, so we suppressed them. The company's total financials below are sound.
What to use instead: Lean on the totals — revenue, net income, cash flow — and the balance sheet. Multi-class share counts are being corrected; once fixed, the per-share valuation returns automatically.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — LTBR's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
How does LTBR stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 7 same-industry companies most similar to LTBR (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If LTBR 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 → |
1.2x / 1.6x / 1.9x |
| 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 / 5.8x / 7.1x |
| 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 → |
6.4x / 20.0x / 27.8x |
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 (7)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CITR | CitroTech Inc. | Industrial Chemicals | $147M | 61.9x | — | — | 0.2% |
| ACNT | ASCENT INDUSTRIES CO. | Industrial Chemicals | $122M | 1.6x | 7.1x | — | 9.0% |
| NL | NL INDUSTRIES INC | Industrial Chemicals | $297M | 1.9x | 6.2x | 27.8x | 6.9% |
| LOOP | Loop Industries, Inc. | Industrial Chemicals | $67M | 6.5x | — | — | 0.7% |
| VHI | VALHI INC /DE/ | Industrial Chemicals | $402M | 0.2x | 1.4x | 6.4x | 3.4% |
| LXFR | LUXFER HOLDINGS PLC | Industrial Chemicals | $456M | 1.2x | 5.4x | 20.0x | 3.7% |
| ADUR | ADURO CLEAN TECHNOLOGIES INC. | Industrial Chemicals | $499M | — | — | — | — |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
The Z-score needs working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, sales and total assets from the latest balance sheet, and at least one of those isn't reported in machine-readable form here — common for foreign private issuers. We leave it blank rather than compute a distress verdict from an estimated input. It doesn't affect the reported figures in the financial tables below.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✗ Positive net incomeNet income -$19.6M 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 -$14.3M (was -$9.5M 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 -$14.3M vs net income -$19.6M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -9.6% vs -28.8% a year ago.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)The filing reports no interest-bearing debt in either year (total assets $203.8M).
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✓ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 239.04x vs 94.95x a year ago.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 69.2% (14.5M → 24.5M 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) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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· Sales per asset (asset turnover) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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 $202M in cash and is burning roughly $14M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 14.1 yrs before it must raise capital (diluting shareholders), take on debt, or cut spending.
Assumes constant burn and ignores financing/asset sales. For pre-profit biotech and growth companies, this matters more than a DCF — a great drug pipeline is worthless if they run out of money before approval.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Lightbridge Corporation due to its consistently negative operating cash flow and net income, indicating a cash-burning growth stage. Investors are likely focused on the company's progress in developing and commercializing its advanced nuclear fuel technology, betting on future product pipeline success and the optionality of its intellectual property. The primary quantifiable risk is the continued negative operating cash flow, which necessitates ongoing funding.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Progress in regulatory approval for fuel designs
- Announcement of new development or licensing agreements
- Updates on fuel irradiation testing results
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$20.1M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
- Still unprofitable at -$19.6M — loss widening.
Nothing was clearly improving year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Seth Grae serves as the President and CEO of Lightbridge Corporation, a role he has held for many years, guiding the company's strategic direction in nuclear fuel development. Andrey Mushakov is the Executive Vice President for International Programs, and James Guerra is the Chief Financial Officer.
What They Make
Lightbridge Corporation develops proprietary advanced nuclear fuel designs that aim to enhance the safety and economic performance of existing and new nuclear reactors. Their primary customers are nuclear power utilities and reactor vendors.
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) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market prices Lightbridge based on expectations for its future product pipeline and the potential for its advanced nuclear fuel technology to gain regulatory approval and commercial adoption. Given the company's negative operating cash flow and net income, current profitability is not a factor; instead, investors are betting on the long-term optionality and disruptive potential of its intellectual property in the nuclear energy sector.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds its operations primarily through equity raises, as indicated by its negative operating cash flow and lack of dividends or buybacks.
Normalized FCF
Cyclical/commodity sector (Industrial Chemicals) with negative current FCF: normalized FCF uses multi-year median to smooth through the cycle.
Show advanced inputs
| Sector Default | 5.0% |
| Best Estimate | 5.0% |
| Method | sector_default |
| Growth Basis | total |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project production volumes, realized commodity prices and unit cash costs 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
The company has reported negative net income and operating cash flow in its latest period and has been profitable in 0 out of the last 5 years.
Geography & Markets
Lightbridge is headquartered in the US and focuses on developing nuclear fuel technology for global markets, particularly in countries with existing or developing nuclear power programs. Exact geographic revenue splits are not available in current filings.
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)46.2NeutralMomentum 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 (8 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (7)
- Median OCF is negative — OCF-based normalization not applicable.
- Normalized OCF-capex was negative. Falling back to median raw FCF.
- No positive normalized FCF. Using EPS as proxy.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
- Illiquidity discount 7% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Extreme valuation (P/IV withheld — see the note above); output dominated by data/units issue (often a multi-class share-count mismatch). Suppressed.
- DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From LIGHTBRIDGE Corp's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | — | -19.6M | $-0.80 |
| 2024 | — | -11.8M | $-0.81 |
| 2023 | — | -7.9M | $-0.65 |
| 2022 | — | -7.5M | $-0.69 |
| 2021 | — | -7.8M | $-1.71 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
Capital expenditure isn't tagged in this filer's machine-readable data (the CapEx column shows "—"). The free-cash-flow column is therefore operating cash flow less stock-based compensation only — an upper bound on true owner earnings, not the real figure. Companies that report capex under a custom label (some large IFRS filers do) look better here than they are.
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -14.3M | — | 5.8M | -20.1M |
| 2024 | -9.5M | — | 2.1M | -11.6M |
| 2023 | -6.5M | — | 1.3M | -7.7M |
| 2022 | -6.8M | — | 3.5M | -10.3M |
| 2021 | -11.0M | — | 3.1M | -14.1M |
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: -14.3M − — − 5.8M (SBC & adj.) = -20.1M. 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 | 203.8M |
| Total Liabilities | 847,451 (derived) |
| Equity | 203.0M |
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