OPTICAL CABLE CORP (OCC) Stock Analysis
OPTICAL CABLE CORP
▾ What's in the 37/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). 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.
How to read OCC (cyclical commodity producer)
A miner or energy producer earns whatever the commodity price is, so a single DCF swings with the cycle. Judge it against peers and where you think the commodity cycle is heading.
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EV/Sales peer comparison ↓
How the price compares to similar producers is more meaningful than a through-cycle DCF.
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Interactive calculator (test cycle assumptions) ↓
Flex the growth/discount inputs to see how sensitive the value is to where we are in the cycle.
Standard DCF doesn't fit OCC well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The EV/Sales Peer Comparison below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value drawing & insulating of nonferrous wire. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
Miners, metals and energy producers earn whatever the commodity price is at the time. A discounted-cash-flow model leans on recent cash flow, so it swings with the cycle: the result is dominated by where we are in the commodity cycle rather than by durable business economics.
For this business type, lean on the EV/Sales peer comparison and Reverse-DCF below (how today's price compares to similar producers and what growth it implies), and weigh the commodity-price outlook. Treat the DCF number as a rough mid-cycle reference, not a buy/sell trigger.
⚠ We found no genuine same-industry (Drawing & Insulating of Nonferrous Wire) comparables at all — fewer than the 4 we require for a reliable median. The 8 names in the table below therefore include 8 broader Basic Materials names marked fallback, whose business models and margins differ — which is why any median below is computed over that wider set, not over true comparables. So we do not derive a peer-implied share value here. Read the multiples as rough context only.
How does OCC stack up against its closest peers?
Ideally we compare OCC only to same-industry peers, but too few exist in our universe right now, so the basket below mixes in broader-sector names. Treat the multiples as rough context, not a valuation. For a leveraged business, FCF yield (in the table) is 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 → |
0.6x / 5.9x / 9.6x |
| 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 → |
5.3x / 9.0x / 29.1x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 peers (broad — see caveat); 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USGO | U.S. GoldMining Inc. | Gold & Silver Mining ·fallback | $102M | — | — | — | 0.1% |
| GRUSF | Grown Rogue International Inc. | Agricultural Production-Cr ·fallback | $115M | 3.9x | 9.0x | — | 2.2% |
| TMCWW | TMC the metals Co Inc. | Metal Mining ·fallback | $130M | — | — | — | 3.3% |
| SAFX | XCF Global, Inc. | Industrial Organic Chemica ·fallback | $165M | 7.9x | — | — | 2.0% |
| XPL | SOLITARIO RESOURCES CORP. | Gold & Silver Mining ·fallback | $66M | — | — | — | 1.4% |
| SND | Smart Sand, Inc. | Mining & Quarrying of Nonm ·fallback | $184M | 0.6x | 5.3x | — | 11.4% |
| HUHU | HUHUTECH International Group Inc. | Nonferrous Foundries ·fallback | $204M | 9.6x | 29.1x | — | 0.4% |
| WWR | WESTWATER RESOURCES, INC. | Metal Mining ·fallback | $55M | — | — | — | 2.3% |
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 →
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 -$1.5M 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 $1.4M (was -$0.9M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $1.4M vs net income -$1.5M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -3.6% vs -10.4% a year ago.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)The filing reports no interest-bearing debt in either year (total assets $40.1M).
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 1.82x vs 2.02x 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 3.8% (7.7M → 8.0M 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 30.9% vs 27.3% a year ago.
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 1.82x vs 1.65x 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.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for OCC. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.
A full intrinsic value isn't shown for OCC because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
The market appears to be paying up for the company's revenue growth of 5.4% annually over the last four years and expanding gross margins from 27.5% to 30.9%. The market may be assigning value to potential future demand for specialized fiber optic cables in emerging high-bandwidth applications, which is not in the model. The biggest risk to our model's base assumptions is that the company's operating cash flow, which has only been positive in 2 of the last 5 years, could decline from its latest positive level, making the modeled cash flow growth of 5.3% too high.
As of 7 days ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Continued revenue growth above 5.4% annually
- Further expansion of gross margin beyond 30.9%
- Consistent positive operating cash flow generation
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 +10% to $73.0M.
- Free cash flow turned positive at $732K.
- Gross margin improved to 31% (+4 pts).
- Still unprofitable at -$1.5M — loss narrowing.
Nothing was clearly worsening year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Michael D. Wood is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Optical Cable Corporation, a position he has held since 2003. He also serves as Chairman of the Board. Neil Wilkin Jr. is the Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Financial Officer.
What They Make
Optical Cable Corporation (OCC) designs, manufactures, and markets fiber optic cables and connectivity solutions. Their customers are primarily telecommunication companies, data centers, and government entities who pay for these specialized cabling products.
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 OCC at a premium of +17808.5%, implying a significant future growth trajectory not captured by the model's 5.3% growth rate. This optimism is likely supported by the company's revenue growing at 5.4% annually over the last four years and gross margin expanding from 27.5% to 30.9%. The market may be assigning value to potential future growth in demand for high-speed data infrastructure and specialized cabling, which is not in the model.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company has reduced its long-term debt from $5M to $0M, indicating a focus on strengthening its balance sheet rather than returning capital via dividends or buybacks.
Normalized FCF
Cyclical/commodity sector (Drawing & Insulating of Nonferrous Wire): normalized FCF uses 5-year median to smooth peak/trough distortions.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 5.4% |
| Sector Default | 5.0% |
| Sector Default Source | Basic Materials sector default |
| Best Estimate | 5.3% |
| Method | blend(70% revenue_cagr, 30% sector) |
| 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
Revenue has been growing at 5.4% annually over the last four years, from $59M to $73M.
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)44.9NeutralMomentum 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 →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
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 (8)
- Cyclical sector: using normalized cash flow (median OCF minus estimated maintenance capex).
- 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 15% applied (small/micro-cap — harder to exit, demand a margin).
- Cyclical commodity producer: price is far above our modelled value. FCF-DCF structurally understates capital-intensive miners/energy — use the EV/Sales peer lens and the commodity-price outlook, not this single number.
- Extreme valuation gap (P/IV withheld — see the note above): result may be dominated by model assumptions, share count issues, or sector-specific dynamics. Treat as low confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From OPTICAL CABLE CORP's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 73.0M | -1.5M | $-0.18 |
| 2024 | 66.7M | -4.2M | $-0.54 |
| 2023 | 72.2M | 2.1M | $0.26 |
| 2022 | 69.1M | -347,091 | $-0.05 |
| 2021 | 59.1M | 6.6M | $0.87 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1.4M | 295,537 | 386,639 | 731,899 |
| 2024 | -857,024 | 369,630 | 443,234 | -1.7M |
| 2023 | -395,676 | 520,847 | 611,480 | -1.5M |
| 2022 | -1.6M | 279,810 | 411,997 | -2.3M |
| 2021 | 2.1M | 166,227 | 335,519 | 1.6M |
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: 1.4M − 295,537 − 386,639 (stock-based comp) = 731,899. 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 | 40.1M |
| Total Liabilities | 18.5M |
| Equity | 16.5M |
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