QualityDipStocks / Health Care · Ophthalmic Goods
Alcon ALC
Outside our quality screen, so we don’t track its dips. It’s 18% below its 52-week high.
Outside our quality screen, trading near our fair value estimate.
- Fair value est.
- $65.58−8%
- Market Value
- —
- Off 52-wk high
- −18%
- Risk vs market
- Lowbeta 0.37
4 bullish · 5 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $71.45
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$62.02−13.2%
- Fair value est.base case$65.58−8.2%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$71.45you are here
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$87.18+22.0%
Fair value estimate
How the range is computed
Ten-year free-cash-flow DCF. Same 10-year free-cash-flow model as the base: discount rate 9.5% ±1 point and growth 6.1% ±2 points. Bear = 10.5% and 4.1%; bull = 8.5% and 8.1% (both fade to 3%). A model estimate from public filings, not a forecast of where the price will go.
Price sits inside the range.
What the price implies To be worth today’s price, ALC’s free cash flow would need to grow about 8% a year for five years; our estimate uses 6%.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much ALC moved for each 1% move in the S&P 500 (SPY); 1.0 moves with the market. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Past behavior, not a forecast.
Moves much less than the market, but its own price swings are 2.2× the S&P 500’s (it moves on its own news).
- Beta vs S&P 500
- 0.37
- Volatility
- 28% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- 0.17
- Correlation QQQ
- −0.01
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 4 of 5
ValuationFree-cash-flow yield of 4.9% (price / FCF 20.5×): $1.7B of free cash in the last 12 months.
Balance sheetDebt / equity of 0.0×, below the 0.7× median for the 67 Health Care companies we cover.
Balance sheetNet cash of $952M: cash and short-term investments exceed debt (Dec 31, 2025).
ProfitabilityOperating margin widened to 13.1% in FY2025 from 11.0% in FY2023 (SEC filings).
Top bearish points 5 of 5
ProfitabilityReturn on invested capital of 5%, below the 9.5% discount rate our DCF uses.
ProfitabilityReturn on equity is only 4% over the last 12 months.
GrowthSales grew 4.9% over the last 12 months, below the 8.6% median for the 101 Health Care companies we cover.
QualityDoesn’t pass our quality screen: ROE under 12% and ROIC under 10%.
RiskReports earnings Nov 10 (consensus EPS $0.89): results can move the price sharply and reset Market Value.
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on Alcon in the last 48 hours. Headlines as published, each linked. Their words, not ours.
No notable mentions in the last 48 hours. Checked Nov 1, 9:09 PM ET.
Compare with peers
Closest in size in Health Care
All fundamentals
P/E 36.2 · FCF yield 4.9% · ROE 4%
Valuation
- P/E
- 36.2×Health Care median 29.2×
- Price / FCF
- 20.5×
- FCF yield
- 4.9%
- EV / EBITDA
- n/aD&A or debt not tagged in SEC data
- Price / sales
- 3.41×
- Price / book
- 1.61×
- Market cap
- $35.5Bprice × diluted shares
- Enterprise value
- $34.5B
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $10.4B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +4.9%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- +6.1%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $1.98
- EPS growth, last FY
- −3.4%
- Net income, 12 months
- $980M
- Net income growth
- −4%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- 55.2%
- Operating margin
- 13.1%
- Net margin
- 9.4%
- FCF margin
- 16.6%
- Return on equity
- 4%
- Return on invested capital
- 5%
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $1.5B
- Total debt
- $575M
- Net cash
- $952M
- Debt / equity
- 0.03×
- Interest coverage
- 6.7×operating income / interest
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- $1.7B
- FCF growth, 12 months
- +8%
- Dividend yield
- 0.47%$166M paid
- Payout ratio
- 17%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $676M1.9% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- n/ano quarterly diluted share count
- Stock-based comp
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
Trailing 12 months to Dec 31, 2025; balance sheet at Dec 31, 2025. From Alcon’s SEC filings. Sparklines show up to six fiscal years. n/a means we don’t hold that number, with the reason. How each is computed.
Valuation details
DCF $65.58 · FCF value $80.00
Assumes 6.1% growth for 5 years (revenue grew 6.1% a year FY22–FY25), fading to 3%; 9.5% discount rate, 3% terminal growth. FCF base $3.48 a share (fiscal year to Dec 31, 2025), from the 20-F filed Feb 24, 2026.
Setup & signals
No setup armed
No setup armed, so there’s no trigger or stop to track yet. Reversal signal rules only run on companies that pass our quality screen.
Momentum & 52-week range
RSI 68 · 5 days +1.8%
The business
FCF $1.6B · Sales +9%
- Free cash flow, 12 months$1.6B
- Free-cash-flow yield4.5%
- Free-cash-flow margin15%
- Gross margin57%
- Operating margin9%
- Return on invested capital3%
- Return on equity3%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+9%
- Net debt / EBITDA1.4×
Next report
Nov 10
- DateTue Nov 10, after the close
- Consensus EPS$0.89
- Year-ago EPS$0.79
- QuarterSep/2026
From Nasdaq’s earnings calendar. A report resets Market Value.
Information only, not investment advice. Fair value estimates and talking points are rule-based model output from public data and can be wrong; stop levels are reference points, not orders. How every number is computed.
ALC is outside our quality screen
One text when a published rule fires on one of the 333 quality companies we track: the ticker, the price, the stop and a link to the numbers. Nothing else.