QualityDipStocks / Consumer Discretionary · Auto dealers
AutoNation AN
Outside our quality screen, so we don’t track its dips. It’s 22% below its 52-week high.
Outside our quality screen. No fair value estimate for now: a capital-spending surge is squeezing its free cash flow.
- Fair value est.
- n/a
- Market Value
- forming
- Off 52-wk high
- −22%
- Risk vs market
- Lowbeta 0.41
4 bullish · 5 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $179.64
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$153.01−14.8%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$179.64you are here
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$229.98+28.0%
Fair value estimate
Estimate unreliable for AN: free cash flow is squeezed by a capital-spending surge (capex is 93% of operating cash flow over the last 12 months, vs 57% in FY2023), so a DCF on today's free cash flow would understate the business. We’d rather show nothing than a made-up number.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much AN 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 2.6× the S&P 500’s (it moves on its own news).
- Beta vs S&P 500
- 0.41
- Volatility
- 34% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- 0.15
- Correlation QQQ
- 0.02
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 4 of 5
ValuationP/E of 7.8× vs a 20.9× median for the 169 Consumer Discretionary companies we cover.
Cash returnsShare count down 12.6% in a year: $993M of buybacks over 12 months.
ProfitabilityReturn on equity of 30% over the last 12 months.
ValuationPrice / book of 2.5×, below the 4.9× median for the 151 Consumer Discretionary companies we cover.
Top bearish points 5 of 5
ProfitabilityReturn on equity fell 18 points in two fiscal years, to 28% in FY2025.
ValuationFree-cash-flow yield is just 0.4% (price / FCF 245×), so the price leans on future growth.
GrowthSales grew only 0.8% a year from FY2022 to FY2025.
GrowthSales fell 1.8% over the last 12 months, below the 7.0% median for the 175 Consumer Discretionary companies we cover.
QualityDoesn’t pass our quality screen: sales down vs the year-ago quarter; net debt 7.6× EBITDA (limit 3×).
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on AutoNation 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 Auto dealers
All fundamentals
P/E 7.8 · FCF yield 0.4% · ROE 30%
Valuation
- P/E
- 7.8×Consumer Discretionary median 20.9×
- Price / FCF
- 244.5×
- FCF yield
- 0.4%
- EV / EBITDA
- n/aD&A or debt not tagged in SEC data
- Price / sales
- 0.20×
- Price / book
- 2.47×
- Market cap
- $5.6Blisted
- Enterprise value
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $27.4B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- −1.8%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- +0.8%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $20.80
- EPS growth, last FY
- +0.7%
- Net income, 12 months
- $722M
- Net income growth
- +9%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- 17.7%
- Operating margin
- 4.6%
- Net margin
- 2.6%
- FCF margin
- 0.1%
- Return on equity
- 30%
- Return on invested capital
- n/aoperating income, debt, equity or cash not tagged
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $51M
- Total debt
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Net cash
- n/acash or debt not tagged in SEC data
- Debt / equity
- n/adebt or equity not tagged in SEC data
- Interest coverage
- 6.4×operating income / interest
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- $23M
- FCF growth, 12 months
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Dividend yield
- 0%
- Payout ratio
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $993M17.7% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- −12.6%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- $46M
Trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026; balance sheet at Sep 30, 2026. From AutoNation’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
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 63 · 5 days +11.5%
The business
FCF $0.0B · Sales 0%
- Free cash flow, 12 months$0.0B
- Free-cash-flow yield0.4%
- Gross margin18%
- Operating margin4%
- Return on invested capital7%
- Return on equity30%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)0%
- Net debt / EBITDA7.6×
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.
AN 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.