QualityDipStocks / Utilities · Environmental Services
Waste Connections WCN
Outside our quality screen, so we don’t track its dips. It’s 1% below its 52-week high.
Outside our quality screen, trading well above our fair value estimate.
- Fair value est.
- $113.13−39%
- Market Value
- $183.96at the price
- Off 52-wk high
- −1%
- Risk vs market
- Lowbeta −0.21
4 bullish · 5 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $184.08
- Fair value est.base case$113.13−38.5%
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$149.02−19.0%
- Market Valueavg paid since Oct 21$183.96−0.1%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$184.08you are here
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$186.72+1.4%
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 9.5% ±2 points. Bear = 10.5% and 7.5%; bull = 8.5% and 11.5% (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, WCN’s free cash flow would need to grow about 18% a year for five years; our estimate uses 9%.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much WCN 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.
Has moved mostly independently of the market, but its own price swings are 2.0× the S&P 500’s (it moves on its own news).
- Beta vs S&P 500
- -0.21
- Volatility
- 26% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- −0.10
- Correlation QQQ
- −0.27
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 4 of 5
GrowthDiluted EPS grew 74% to $4.17 in FY2025.
Cash returnsShare count down 2.2% in a year: $1.0B of buybacks over 12 months.
ProfitabilityOperating margin widened to 18.1% in FY2025 from 15.4% in FY2023 (SEC filings).
GrowthSales grew 9.5% a year over the last three fiscal years, above the 3.1% median for the 56 Utilities companies we cover.
Top bearish points 5 of 5
ValuationOur DCF fair value estimate is $113.13, 39% below the price.
Balance sheetDebt rose 31% to $8.8B from FY2023 to FY2025.
ValuationP/E of 40.9× vs a 21.2× median for the 55 Utilities companies we cover.
Cash returnsDividend yield of 0.8%, below the 2.9% median for the 50 Utilities companies we cover.
QualityDoesn’t pass our quality screen: net debt 3.1× EBITDA (limit 3×).
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on Waste Connections 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 Utilities
All fundamentals
P/E 40.9 · FCF yield 2.7% · Sales +6%
Valuation
- P/E
- 40.9×Utilities median 21.2×
- Price / FCF
- 37.1×
- FCF yield
- 2.7%
- EV / EBITDA
- n/aD&A or debt not tagged in SEC data
- Price / sales
- 4.66×
- Price / book
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Market cap
- $46.4Bprice × diluted shares
- Enterprise value
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $9.9B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +6.3%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- +9.5%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $4.46
- EPS growth, last FY
- +74.5%
- Net income, 12 months
- $1.1B
- Net income growth
- +82%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- 42.6%
- Operating margin
- 17.7%
- Net margin
- 11.4%
- FCF margin
- 12.6%
- Return on equity
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Return on invested capital
- n/aoperating income, debt, equity or cash not tagged
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- 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
- 4.9×operating income / interest
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- $1.2B
- FCF growth, 12 months
- +1%
- Dividend yield
- 0.77%$355M paid
- Payout ratio
- 31%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $1.0B2.2% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- −2.2%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- $81M
Trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026. From Waste Connections’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 $113.13 · MV $183.96 · FCF value $119.35
Assumes 9.5% growth for 5 years (revenue grew 9.5% a year FY22–FY25), fading to 3%; 9.5% discount rate, 3% terminal growth. FCF base $4.96 a share (trailing 12 months to Sep 30, 2026), from the 10-Q filed Oct 22, 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 71 · 5 days −1.4%
The business
FCF $1.2B · Sales +7%
- Free cash flow, 12 months$1.2B
- Free-cash-flow yield2.6%
- Free-cash-flow margin12%
- Gross margin43%
- Operating margin20%
- Return on invested capital9%
- Return on equity14%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+7%
- Net debt / EBITDA3.1×
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.
WCN 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.