Why Free Cash Flow Drives Superior Stock Performance

According to the legendary investor Warren Buffett, free cash flow—the cash remaining after a company has covered expenses, interest, taxes, and long-term investments—is the most crucial valuation metric.

The classic metric for identifying a "cheap" value company was the price-to-book value (P/B) ratio, which worked well when most companies' assets were physical. Over the past four decades, company balance sheets have changed dramatically.

According to analysts at Lord Abbett, intangible assets—like intellectual property, software, and brand value—now make up over 80% of the S&P 500's total assets. They found that focusing on free cash flow yields much better results.

Between January 2002 and June 2024, a low price-to-book-based portfolio returned 519%, while the one focused on free-cash-flow yield returned over 1100%.

The Pacer U.S. Cash Cows 100 ETF COWZ selects 100 US companies with strong cash flows and healthy balance sheets from the Russell 1000 index.

The VictoryShares Free Cash Flow ETF VFLO holds profitable large-cap companies that not only have high free cash flow yields but also favorable growth prospects.

The Invesco Nasdaq Free Cash Flow Achievers ETF QOWZ invests in companies with continuous and stable growth in free cash flow.

Exxon Mobil XOM, Qualcomm QCOM, and NVIDIA NVDA are among the top holdings in these ETFs. To learn more, please watch the short video above.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

Zacks Investment Research