QualityDipStocks / Finance · Specialty Insurers
First American FAF
Outside our quality screen, so we don’t track its dips. It’s 19% below its 52-week high.
Outside our quality screen, trading near our fair value estimate.
- Fair value est.
- $69.96+10%
- Market Value
- $64.32price −1%
- Off 52-wk high
- −19%
- Risk vs market
- Lowbeta 0.38
4 bullish · 4 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $63.82
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$56.85−10.9%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$63.82you are here
- Market Valueavg paid since Oct 21$64.32+0.8%
- Fair value est.base case$69.96+9.6%
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$79.16+24.0%
Fair value estimate
How the range is computed
Financials model (residual income). Same residual-income model as the base: cost of equity 9.5% ±1 point and return on equity 10.8% ±2 points. Bear = 10.5% and 8.8%; bull = 8.5% and 12.8%. 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, FAF would need a return on equity of about 10% a year; our estimate uses 11%.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much FAF 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 2.3× the S&P 500’s (it moves on its own news).
- Beta vs S&P 500
- 0.38
- Volatility
- 30% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- 0.16
- 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
GrowthDiluted EPS grew 376% to $6.00 in FY2025.
ValuationP/E of 8.9× vs a 13.5× median for the 151 Finance companies we cover.
GrowthSales grew 14% to $8.1B over the last 12 months vs the 12 months before (SEC filings).
Cash returnsDividend yield of 2.6% ($168M paid over 12 months, 23% of earnings).
Top bearish points 4 of 5
GrowthSales fell 0.7% a year over the last three fiscal years, below the 9.3% median for the 144 Finance companies we cover.
ProfitabilityNet margin of 9.1%, below the 21% median for the 142 Finance companies we cover.
Cash returnsShare count up 0.1% over 12 months, above the −2.5% median for the 117 Finance companies we cover.
QualityDoesn’t pass our quality screen: no positive free cash flow.
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on First American 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 Specialty Insurers
All fundamentals
P/E 8.9 · ROE 14% · Sales +14%
Valuation
- P/E
- 8.9×Finance median 13.5×
- Price / FCF
- n/acash flow isn't a clean measure for an insurer
- FCF yield
- n/acash flow isn't a clean measure for an insurer
- EV / EBITDA
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
- Price / sales
- 0.81×
- Price / book
- 1.21×
- Market cap
- $6.5Bprice × diluted shares
- Enterprise value
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $8.1B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +14.1%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- −0.7%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $7.09
- EPS growth, last FY
- +376.2%
- Net income, 12 months
- $732M
- Net income growth
- +52%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
- Operating margin
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Net margin
- 9.1%
- FCF margin
- 10.0%
- Return on equity
- 14%
- Return on invested capital
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $1.7B
- Total debt
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Net cash
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
- Debt / equity
- n/adeposits/float make debt/equity not comparable for an insurer
- Interest coverage
- n/anot meaningful for an insurer
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- $806M
- FCF growth, 12 months
- +14%
- Dividend yield
- 2.58%$168M paid
- Payout ratio
- 23%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $56M0.9% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- +0.1%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- $60M
Trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026; balance sheet at Sep 30, 2026. From First American’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 $69.96 · MV $64.32
Financials model (residual income): book value $59.71 a share on Sep 30, 2026, plus the earnings above a 9.5% cost of equity. ROE 10.8%, the average of 12.5% for the trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026 and 9.0% over fiscal 2021–2025, on average common equity; payout 23% of earnings (dividends 23%), so book grows by the retained rest; the return above 9.5% fades halfway toward 9.5% over 10 years, then grows at 3% (terminal value). From the 10-Q filed Oct 23, 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 45 · 5 days −1.4%
The business
Sales +5%
- Gross margin64%
- Operating margin13%
- Return on invested capital14%
- Return on equity14%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+5%
- Net debt / EBITDA0.5×
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.
FAF 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.