P/FCF — price to free cash flow
What it measures¶
P/FCF is the price investors pay for each unit of a company's yearly free cash flow — operating cash flow minus capital expenditure, the cash the business generates after keeping its equipment going. It is the market capitalisation (share price × number of shares) divided by free cash flow. It is sometimes called the "cash P/E".
Why it is on the page¶
Profit includes accounting estimates; free cash flow is closer to what the owners could actually take out of the business. Comparing P/FCF with P/E shows how far the two diverge: a P/FCF far above the P/E says less of the profit is arriving as spare cash.
Thresholds, their source and the population they were fitted on¶
The Fundamentals page shows P/FCF without zones: no published line applies across industries, and a year of heavy investment can make free cash flow — and so the multiple — swing widely.
| Reference | What it shows | Source |
|---|---|---|
| P/E beside it | whether profit and free cash flow tell the same story | the same ratio tree |
- Fitted on: no population — a descriptive ratio.
- Evidence grade: not graded.
A worked example¶
Celestica, as the Fundamentals page showed it on 9 August 2026: P/FCF 98.62 against a P/E of 54.29 — investors paid almost twice as much per unit of free cash flow as per unit of profit, because a large part of the year's profit went into stock and money owed by customers as the business grew. The free-cash-flow margin of 3.70%, against a net margin of 6.72%, says the same thing.
What “No verdict” means here¶
P/FCF never carries a verdict word. The row reads not applicable when free cash flow is zero or negative, and insufficient data when it, or the market capitalisation, is not stored.
What the verdict is and is not¶
The figure describes what investors pay for a unit of free cash flow. It is not a judgement of the price, not a forecast, and not an instruction to trade the shares.