The Engine
The Intelligence
Behind the Signal
15 valuation models, purpose-built by asset class — not one generic model forced onto every company. 12 quality checkpoints. A 4-tier live update engine that responds to news, filings, and rate moves — every number VInvest shows you has a traceable, auditable source. Here is exactly what it is.
Six Valuation Models
Every Angle. One Defensible Number.
No single model has all the answers — and no single company fits one mold. VInvest runs the applicable subset of 15 models simultaneously and triangulates them by confidence and applicability. Here are the core 6, used on most tickers.
primary
Discounted Cash Flow
DCF
We forecast 10 years of free cash flow using LLM-extracted assumptions from the company’s own filings, then discount back to today’s dollars. This model rewards businesses that generate real, growing cash.
Best for: stable FCF generators with 5+ years of filing history
Weight: 40–75% · Primary for most tickers
secondary
McKinsey Value Driver
EV / NOPAT
How much is the company’s operating profit worth, given its growth rate and cost of capital? This model anchors on today’s earnings power and the ROIC/WACC spread — the moat quantified in numbers.
Best for: capital-intensive businesses with predictable operating margins
Weight: 25% · Always secondary
Secondary
Peer Multiple
EV / EBITDA
What are the 3 most similar businesses in the same sector trading at? We apply the industry multiple to this company’s normalised EBITDA — grounding the intrinsic in what the market actually pays for comparable businesses.
Best for: companies with 3+ high-similarity comparables available
Weight: 10–35% · Scales with comparable pool quality
Supplementary
Revenue Multiple
EV / Revenue
A simpler anchor: what revenue multiple do comparable companies trade at? Useful as a cross-check against the primary models, especially for high-growth companies with thin but improving margins.
Best for: high-growth companies with thin but improving margins
Weight: 5–10% · Cross-check only
Supplementary
Net Asset Value
NAV
What are the company’s assets worth on a liquidation basis? Sets a floor on intrinsic value. Most relevant for asset-heavy businesses — less meaningful for pure service or software companies.
Best for: REITs, banks, asset-heavy industrials
Weight: Supplementary · Floor check only
Supplementary
Dividend Discount
DDM
For dividend-paying companies, what is the present value of all future dividends? A pure income-based valuation that complements the primary models for mature dividend compounders. Excluded when buybacks dominate shareholder returns.
Best for: 10+ year consistent dividend history with stable payout ratio
Weight: Supplementary · When dividend history is reliable
9 Specialist Models
Built for Companies the Core 6 Weren't Meant For.
A REIT isn’t a software company. An insurer isn’t a retailer. A SPAC isn’t either. VInvest swaps in the right model for the business in front of it — automatically.
Real Estate
Price / Funds From Operations
The metric REIT investors actually use — net income adjusted back for real-estate depreciation, which distorts GAAP earnings for asset-heavy landlords. Applied automatically whenever a ticker is classified as a REIT.
Best for: REITs and real-estate operating companies
Real Estate
Price / Adjusted FFO
FFO minus recurring capital expenditures — a tighter read on the cash a REIT can actually distribute. Runs alongside P/FFO for a bear/base/bull range grounded in what the business really pays out.
Best for: REITs, especially dividend-focused ones
Financials
Insurance Price / Book Value
Insurance P/BV
Standard book value doesn’t capture an insurer’s true earnings power — the underwriting margin and float do. This model prices insurers the way specialist analysts do, not the way a generic multiple would.
Financials
Insurance Excess Return
Values the insurer on the spread between underwriting ROE and cost of capital — rewarding disciplined underwriters over ones simply growing premium volume.
Financials
Price / Book Value
P/BV
For banks and other balance-sheet-driven financials, book value — not free cash flow — is the more reliable anchor. Applied where the business model is fundamentally about managing a balance sheet.
Financials
Excess Return Model
Excess Return
Values a company on the spread between ROIC and WACC applied to invested capital — a cleaner lens than DCF for capital-intensive financials where free cash flow is noisy.
Special Situations
Speculative Growth Model
For pre-revenue or early-revenue companies where a DCF is mostly guesswork, this model scenario-weights multiple growth/margin paths instead of forcing a single point estimate — and says so plainly in the Confidence Score.
Special Situations
SPAC Trust Value
Special Situations
Credit Option Model
Every ticker gets triangulated across its applicable models — three to six of them, typically — weighted by confidence and fit. When the primary models agree — the result is not a coincidence. It is a signal.
Watch It Pick
Not One Model. The Right Model.
A REIT gets P/FFO. A SPAC gets Trust Value. A standard equity gets the core 6. Watch VInvest pick the right model for the business in front of it — automatically. — Replace this placeholder with your video embed.
The Quality Audit
12 Checkpoints. Zero Black Boxes.
The Confidence Score is powered by 12 auditable checks. Every deduction is named. Every pass is documented.
CHECK 01
FCF History Depth
5+ years of free cash flow history for reliable projection?
COST: 10yr history ✓ +0pts
CHECK 02
IS Mapping Rate
% of income statement items mapped cleanly from SEC filings?
COST: 94% mapping ✓ +0pts
CHECK 03
Comparable Quality
How similar are the peer companies? Scored 0–100 on business model similarity.
COST: 4 peers, avg 74% −8pts
CHECK 04
Model Agreement
How tight is the spread between the five primary valuation models?
COST: DCF/NOPAT 5.3% spread ✓
CHECK 05
Gatekeeper Status
Did the company pass all Binary Shield criteria (Z-Score, D/EBITDA, ROIC floor)?
COST: Z-Score 9.9 ✓ +0pts
CHECK 06
Analyst Coverage
3+ covering analysts for earnings anchor validation?
PSMT: 2 analysts −5pts
CHECK 07
Revenue Consistency
Stable or volatile revenue growth over the trailing 5 years?
COST: CoV 0.12 ✓ +0pts
CHECK 08
Margin Stability
Operating margins within ±2% over 5 years?
COST: range 3.4–3.7% ✓ +0pts
CHECK 09
Capital Structure
Debt manageable relative to operating cash flows over the cycle?
COST: D/EBITDA 0.43× ✓ +0pts
CHECK 10
Earnings Quality
Free cash flow consistently close to reported net income?
COST: FCF/NI ratio 0.94 ✓ +0pts
CHECK 11
News Recency
Tier 2 or Tier 3 update run within the last 90 days?
COST: T3 ran Feb 27 ✓ +0pts
CHECK 12
Sector Comp Depth
Comparable sector populated for reliable EV multiples?
COST: 4 peers in universe ✓ +0pts
Example — COST · March 28, 2026
11 of 12 checkpoints passed
✓ STRONG
Comparable pool: 4 peers, avg similarity 74%
−8 pts
Confidence Score
72 / 100 — HIGH
Live Update Engine
Your Institutional Analyst. Working 24/7.
VInvest recalculates in response to events — the same way a real analyst would. Four tiers, each with a different trigger and depth of work.
Tier 1
Daily Sync
Fires: every morning · 06:00 EST
Updates WACC with the current risk-free rate from FRED. Refreshes market price, P/V ratio, and signal state. Checks for any gatekeeper threshold violations. Adds a Tier 1 entry to the Intelligence Feed for every tracked ticker. Fully automated — no analyst input required.
Your intrinsic is current to this morning’s rate environment — without you opening the app.
Tier 2
News Reactor
Fires: within 15 min of material news
Monitors SEC filings, earnings announcements, macro data releases, and significant news events. VInvest AI assesses whether any model input changes. If yes: re-weights the intrinsic and records the exact $/share delta. If no: logs as sentiment noise with no intrinsic change.
The tariff news hit COST at 14:32. By 14:47, intrinsic had been revised −$18/sh with the exact driver documented.
Tier 3
Quarterly Compass
Fires: within 24h of 10-Q or 8-K filing
Full three-statement model rebuild from the latest quarterly filing. Updates revenue, margins, FCF, capital structure, and ROIC. Re-runs all six valuation models. Issues a new Confidence Score. Generates a Tier 3 Intelligence Feed entry with the full delta breakdown.
COST filed Q2 2026. By 06:00 the next morning, the model was rebuilt from scratch — every change documented line by line.
Tier 4
Annual Reset
Fires: within 48h of 10-K annual filing
Complete annual rebuild. Updates the full historical database, re-trains the comparable selection algorithm, rebuilds the 10-year financial history, and resets all base assumptions from first principles. The most comprehensive recalculation in the system — no stale data carried forward.
New year, clean model. Every assumption re-earned from the latest annual filing.
The Intelligence Feed
Every News Event Has a Name.
Not All Names Matter.
VInvest processes 80,000+ news sources daily. Most events don’t move intrinsic value. The ones that do are classified into five strategic buckets — each with a direct impact on a specific model input — before they ever appear in your feed.
A
Moat Threat
Antitrust, patent expiry, price war, market share erosion. Is the competitive moat shrinking?
Affects → RONIC, terminal growth
B
Capital Cost
Credit rating shift, debt refinancing, Fed rate move. Recalculates WACC across your entire watchlist instantly.
Affects → WACC, intrinsic floor
C
Growth Auditor
Guidance revision, supply friction, demand softening. Tests whether market-implied growth rates are still realistic.
Affects → revenue growth, FCF
D
Smart Money
13F filings, insider buys above 10%, buybacks. Why are institutional owners or insiders increasing their conviction?
Affects → sentiment, signal state
E
Asset Integrity
Write-downs, goodwill impairment, litigation, liquidity warnings. Is the balance sheet as strong as the model assumes?
Affects → V-Safety, confidence score
The $CROX 8-K filed yesterday? That’s a Category B event — Capital Cost. Debt/EBITDA dropped to 1.8×. The model re-ran. The new intrinsic is in your feed by 06:00 EST. The balance sheet says the acquisition is digested. The price says it never will be.
Valuation · Circle of Competence
You Know This Company Better Than Any Model Does.
The VInvest AI extracts assumptions from filings. But you have read the earnings calls, tracked the management for years, and understand the competitive dynamics the model cannot see. Valuation is where your knowledge becomes your edge.
01
Start with the AI baseline
02
Adjust what you disagree with
03
Select your models, blend the weights
04
Start with the AI baseline
NOPAT in perpetuity · GDP anchored · cap 3.5%
Historical RONIC 25.1% · sets reinvestment efficiency
Kc 7.8% · Kd 3.6% · Beta 0.76 — you adjusted from 7.2%
Your Circle of Competence
Up to 20 tickers where your custom assumptions live permanently. These are the companies you understand better than the market does — your sector expertise, your management read, your thesis. Every time a filing drops, VInvest updates the data. Your judgment stays. You wait for the price to meet your number. Then you act.
Pro plan · 20 CoC tickers · All 15 models · Save your assumptions
See It In Action
Research, Live — Start to Finish on One Ticker
Conviction Matrix, Valuation, Street vs VInvest — then the right panel: Ask AI, Company Report, News, all live on one ticker. Ends on Signal. Produced by VInvest team. — Replace this placeholder with your video embed.
Don’t trust our models — interrogate them.
Free. No account required for the first result card.