Crescent Energy Co

Method. 10-year forecast of free cash flow, discounted at the company's WACC, with a Gordon-growth terminal at year 10. FCF is proxied by last fiscal-year net income (proper FCF needs CFO − CapEx by year, which we don't store yet). Beta defaults to 1.0 when not reported.

Why DCF is fragile. Treat the output as a thinking aid, not a verdict. Honest weaknesses of any DCF:

• Growth is the dominant assumption. No one can foresee 10 years of growth — small changes in the slider can double or halve fair value. The reverse-DCF readout above tells you what the market is implicitly assuming; ask yourself whether that's realistic before trusting either number.
• Terminal value dominates. In most DCFs, 60-80% of the answer comes from the terminal-value calculation — i.e., everything AFTER year 10. A 0.5pp change in terminal growth, or in WACC, can swing fair value by 20-30%.
• WACC is itself a guess. We use a textbook CAPM cost of equity (Rf 4.3%, MRP 5.5%, β from the quote) plus a 6% pretax cost of debt — none of these are the company's actual marginal financing cost.
• No moat / disruption modelling. The model assumes the company keeps earning whatever it earns today, compounding cleanly. Competitive shifts, regulatory action, and technology disruption can invalidate the forecast overnight.
• Net income ≠ free cash flow. For capex-heavy names (semis, telcos) net income overstates distributable cash. For low-capex names (software) it understates. Both reduce the precision of the FV figure.
• Reflexivity. A high stock price often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy via better hiring, financing, and customer trust. DCF can't see this.

Take the DCF, the reverse-DCF implied growth, the historical multiples, and the community sentiment together. When they agree, conviction. When they disagree, the disagreement is the most informative thing on the page.