QualityDipStocks / Industrials · Major Chemicals
Hexcel HXL
Outside our quality screen, so we don’t track its dips. It’s 29% below its 52-week high.
Outside our quality screen, trading well above our fair value estimate.
- Fair value est.
- $52.14−33%
- Market Value
- $79.82price −2%
- Off 52-wk high
- −29%
- Risk vs market
- Below marketbeta 0.87
3 bullish · 5 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $77.84
- Fair value est.base case$52.14−33.0%
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$67.81−12.9%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$77.84you are here
- Market Valueavg paid since Oct 21$79.82+2.5%
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$110.28+41.7%
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 6.3% ±2 points. Bear = 10.5% and 4.3%; bull = 8.5% and 8.3% (both fade to 3%). A model estimate from public filings, not a forecast of where the price will go.
Price is above even the bull case.
What the price implies To be worth today’s price, HXL’s free cash flow would need to grow about 14% 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 HXL 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 a bit less than the market, and its own price swings are 2.5× the S&P 500’s.
- Beta vs S&P 500
- 0.87
- Volatility
- 32% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- 0.35
- Correlation QQQ
- 0.28
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 3 of 5
Cash returnsShare count down 4.5% in a year: $353M of buybacks over 12 months.
GrowthDiluted EPS grew 15% to $2.44 in FY2015.
GrowthSales grew 6.3% a year over the last three fiscal years, above the 4.5% median for the 146 Industrials companies we cover.
Top bearish points 5 of 5
ValuationOur DCF fair value estimate is $52.14, 33% below the price.
ProfitabilityOperating margin narrowed to 9.1% in FY2025 from 12.0% in FY2023 (SEC filings).
ValuationP/E of 34.8×, above the 27.5× median for the 130 Industrials companies we cover.
ProfitabilityReturn on invested capital of 8.9%, below the 13% median for the 102 Industrials companies we cover.
QualityDoesn’t pass our quality screen: ROE under 12% and ROIC under 10%.
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on Hexcel 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 Major Chemicals
All fundamentals
P/E 34.8 · FCF yield 3.5% · ROE 12%
Valuation
- P/E
- 34.8×Industrials median 27.5×
- Price / FCF
- 28.5×
- FCF yield
- 3.5%
- EV / EBITDA
- 18.6×
- Price / sales
- 2.96×
- Price / book
- 4.51×
- Market cap
- $6.0Bprice × diluted shares
- Enterprise value
- $6.8B
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $2.0B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +7.6%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- +6.3%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- EPS growth, last FY
- +15.1%
- Net income, 12 months
- $172M
- Net income growth
- +149%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- 25.2%
- Operating margin
- 12.2%
- Net margin
- 8.5%
- FCF margin
- 10.4%
- Return on equity
- 12%
- Return on invested capital
- 9%
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $78M
- Total debt
- $935M
- Net cash
- −$857M
- Debt / equity
- 0.71×
- Interest coverage
- 5.2×operating income / interest
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- $210M
- FCF growth, 12 months
- +8%
- Dividend yield
- 0.90%$54M paid
- Payout ratio
- 31%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $353M5.9% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- −4.5%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- $19M
Trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026; balance sheet at Sep 30, 2026. From Hexcel’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 $52.14 · MV $79.82 · FCF value $64.87
Assumes 6.3% growth for 5 years (revenue grew 6.3% a year FY22–FY25), fading to 3%; 9.5% discount rate, 3% terminal growth. FCF base $2.74 a share (trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026), from the 10-Q filed Oct 21, 2026. Net debt $857M, not deducted.
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 31 · 5 days −2.2%
The business
FCF $0.2B · Sales +9%
- Free cash flow, 12 months$0.2B
- Free-cash-flow yield3.3%
- Free-cash-flow margin10%
- Gross margin25%
- Operating margin11%
- Return on invested capital8%
- Return on equity12%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+9%
- Net debt / EBITDA2.1×
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.
HXL 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.