Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 44% and operating margin about 6.1% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. The operating margin has swung widely — from −7.8% to 8.2% — on a steadier 44% gross margin, so what moves it sits below the gross line, in operating spend and one-off charges more than in the cost of the product itself. Inventory runs near 45% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on debt terms & refinancing, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 13%). The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 4% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2026

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2026’26	TTMTTMApr 2026
										Income statement
$9.6B	$9.4B	$9.6B	$9.7B	$10.1B	$9.1B	$9.2B	$9.1B	$8.6B	$8.6B	RevenueRevenue
44%	44%	44%	44%	44%	46%	42%	37%	43%	44%	Gross marginGross mgn
36%	37%	38%	37%	37%	41%	41%	42%	42%	41%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$788M	$570M	$604M	$677M	$750M	$525M	$39M	($713M)	($43M)	$157M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
8.2%	6.1%	6.3%	7.0%	7.4%	5.7%	0.4%	−7.8%	−0.5%	1.8%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$460M	$476M	$424M	$487M	$493M	$464M	$30M	($336M)	$44M	$44M	Net incomeNet inc.
38%	9%	24%	24%	24%	18%	—	—	—	14%	Effective tax rateTax rate
										Cash flow & returns
$523M	$601M	$811M	$867M	$970M	$737M	$287M	$85M	($46M)	$91M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$258M	$249M	$238M	$238M	$250M	$248M	$269M	$292M	$272M	$257M	DepreciationDeprec.
($215M)	($159M)	$121M	$104M	$181M	($23M)	($53M)	$87M	($398M)	($247M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$260M	$190M	$194M	$270M	$268M	$399M	$226M	$181M	$252M	$266M	CapexCapex
2.7%	2.0%	2.0%	2.8%	2.6%	4.4%	2.5%	2.0%	2.9%	3.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$264M	$411M	$617M	$597M	$702M	$338M	$61M	($96M)	($298M)	($175M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
2.8%	4.4%	6.4%	6.1%	6.9%	3.7%	0.7%	−1.1%	−3.5%	−2.0%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$264M	$411M	$617M	$597M	$702M	$338M	$61M	($96M)	($298M)	($175M)	Free cash flowFCF
2.8%	4.4%	6.4%	6.1%	6.9%	3.7%	0.7%	−1.1%	−3.5%	−2.0%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$18M	$18M	$18M	$17M	$56M	$336M	$209M	$60M	$60M	$60M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$18M	$6M	$281M	$498M	$470M	$618M	$15M	$7M	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
13%	15%	12%	13%	15%	13%	1%	-27%	-1%	—	ROICROIC
16%	14%	12%	14%	14%	18%	1%	-15%	2%	2%	Return on equityROE
15%	13%	11%	13%	12%	5%	−7%	−18%	−1%	−1%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
										Balance sheet
$135M	$897M	$897M	$419M	$835M	$588M	$488M	$1.9B	$3.1B	$3.0B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$641M	$606M	$625M	$689M	$750M	$754M	$610M	$544M	$380M	$402M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$4.3B	$4.2B	$4.4B	$4.4B	$4.5B	$4.7B	$3.9B	$3.6B	$3.6B	$3.8B	InventoryInvent.
$3.1B	$2.9B	$3.2B	$3.4B	$3.6B	$4.0B	$3.5B	$3.4B	$3.0B	$3.1B	Accounts payablePayables
$1.9B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$977M	$748M	$1.0B	$1.2B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$5.2B	$5.4B	$6.1B	$5.7B	$6.3B	$6.3B	$6.4B	$6.1B	$7.3B	$7.3B	Current assetsCur. assets
$3.7B	$3.5B	$3.9B	$4.5B	$4.7B	$5.2B	$5.3B	$4.7B	$4.2B	$4.1B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×	1.6×	1.6×	1.3×	1.3×	1.2×	1.2×	1.3×	1.7×	1.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$991M	$994M	$990M	$992M	$994M	$990M	$601M	$598M	$600M	$600M	GoodwillGoodwill
$8.3B	$8.5B	$9.0B	$11.2B	$11.8B	$12.2B	$12.3B	$10.8B	$11.8B	$11.8B	Total assetsAssets
$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.0B	$747M	$1.0B	$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$3.4B	$3.4B	Total debtDebt
$908M	$148M	$149M	$329M	$198M	$785M	$1.3B	($80M)	$289M	$458M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$2.9B	$3.4B	$3.6B	$3.5B	$3.5B	$2.6B	$2.5B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.2B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.2%	0.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
										Per share
73.9M	74.1M	74.0M	71.2M	69.0M	60.7M	59.6M	59.9M	60.6M	60.9M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$129.55	$126.48	$129.48	$136.43	$146.46	$150.68	$154.51	$151.82	$141.93	$141.74	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$6.22	$6.42	$5.73	$6.84	$7.14	$7.65	$0.50	$-5.61	$0.73	$0.72	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.57	$5.55	$8.34	$8.39	$10.18	$5.56	$1.02	$-1.60	$-4.92	$-2.87	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.57	$5.55	$8.34	$8.39	$10.18	$5.56	$1.02	$-1.60	$-4.92	$-2.87	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.24	$0.24	$0.24	$0.24	$0.82	$5.54	$3.51	$1.00	$0.99	$0.99	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$3.51	$2.56	$2.62	$3.80	$3.88	$6.57	$3.79	$3.02	$4.16	$4.37	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$39.48	$46.08	$47.99	$49.87	$51.26	$42.81	$42.28	$36.23	$36.27	$36.34	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	10-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+0.9%/yr	−0.6%/yr
EPS	−19.3%/yr	−36.7%/yr
Dividends / share	+15.2%/yr	+3.9%/yr
Capital spending / share	+1.7%/yr	+1.4%/yr
Book value / share	−0.8%/yr	−6.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2026

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

61Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

−1%low FY2024

Gross margin

43%low FY2024

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

21.3×peak FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

($298M)owner earningsvs.$44Mnet incomelow FY2026

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2016FY2024

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2026cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2026 the business reported $44M of profit but ($298M) of owner earnings: $342M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

	FY2026	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$44M	($336M)	$30M	$464M	$493M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$272M	+$292M	+$269M	+$248M	+$250M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$36M	+$42M	+$41M	+$46M	+$45M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$398M	+$87M	−$53M	−$23M	+$181M
Cash from operations	($46M)	$85M	$287M	$737M	$970M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$252M	−$181M	−$226M	−$399M	−$268M
Owner earnings	($298M)	($96M)	$61M	$338M	$702M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-3%	-1%	1%	4%	7%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $36M), owner earnings is nearer ($334M).

Much of fiscal 2026's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Material weakness in financial controls

“Incremental expenses associated with the remediation of the Company's previously-disclosed material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? -0.7×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($43M) ÷ interest expense $65M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $289M

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $3.1B − debt $3.4B

What this means
Netting $3.1B of cash and short-term investments against $3.4B of debt leaves $289M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 66d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 16 + DIO 273 − DPO 223 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 13%

Solid through the cycle

9-yr median, range -27%–15%; -1% latest = NOPAT ($34M) ÷ invested capital $2.5B

Industry peers: median 14%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 9 years (it ran -1% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 4%

Thin through the cycle

9-yr median margin, range -3%–7%; latest ($298M) = operating cash ($46M) − maintenance capex $252M

Industry peers: median 4%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's -3% of revenue this year, a 4% median across 9 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $36M of SBC) leaves ($334M).
Are earnings backed by cash? -1.05×

Thinly cash-backed

Cash from ops ($46M) ÷ net income $44M

In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

No surplus to allocate

What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
Investing or harvesting? 0.93×

Maintaining

Capex $252M ÷ depreciation $272M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $8.6B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.75×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Near

Debt ≤ working capital · $3.4B vs $3.1B WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Near

A profit every year (9-yr record) · 1 loss year

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (9)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −119%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-1.45/share (latest year $0.73), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $36.45/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2026

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 8 of 9

What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 9 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 7% → −3% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 7% early to −3% lately, median 6% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Worst year 2024 · −7.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2024, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −2.0%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
Returns have thinned, but the filing discusses it in an owner’s vocabulary rather than selling past it — candor about a hard stretch counts for more than an adjective.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Apr 25, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$7.3B

Cash & short-term investments$3.0B
Receivables$402M
Inventory$3.8B
Other current assets$128M

Current liabilities$4.1B

Accounts payable$3.1B
Other current liabilities$1.1B

Current ratio1.78×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.85×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.72×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$3.2Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−5.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.2× → 1.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$1.2Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($2.3B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$5.7B$2.2B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $5.7B (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$0

'27$350M

'28$300M

'29$0

'30$1.5B

later$1.3B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$0the first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$350Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.5Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$3.5Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Jan 3, 2026 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

'26$535M

'27$464M

'28$384M

'29$349M

'30$282M

later$590M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$535Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$2.6Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$2.2Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$3.4B

Lease obligations (present value)$2.2B

Total fixed claims on the business$5.7B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $5.7B, of which the leases are 40%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Jan 3, 2026 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2026

Over the record, the business generated $4.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

Reinvested$2.2B · 46%
Dividends$792M · 16%
Buybacks$1.9B · 40%

Returned to owners$2.7B
104% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $792M as dividends and $1.9B as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $2.4B and cash and short-term investments rose $2.8B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $1.9B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−17.5%
The diluted count fell from 74M to 61M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.99/sh
Paid in 9 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 19% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Thomas R. Greco	$10.1M	$24.6M	$702M
2022	Thomas R. Greco	$8.4M	−$7.3M	$338M
2023	Shane M. O'Kelly	$9.4M	$9.9M	$61M
2023	Thomas R. Greco	$4.1M	−$3.9M	$61M
2024	Shane M. O'Kelly	$10.3M	$2.4M	($96M)
2026	Shane M. O'Kelly	$9.1M	$8.1M	($298M)

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio358:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$36M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Advance Auto Parts is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2026.

2 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?−1.3% vs 4.5%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 4.5% early in the record and −1.3% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$1.0B → $3.4B
Debt rose from $1.0B to $3.4B while owner earnings went from about $431M to ($111M): the borrowing grew and the earnings that would carry it are not there now. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.

And these came back clean

Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2026

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Inventory as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Auto Dealers & Services

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
AZOAutoZone Inc.	$18.9B	53%	19.3%	60%	14%
ORLYO'Reilly Automotive Inc.	$17.8B	52%	19.6%	51%	15%
CASYCasey's General	$17.6B	67%	4.3%	11%	4%
SAHSonic Automotive Inc.	$15.2B	15%	2.4%	14%	1%
AAPAdvance Auto Parts	$8.6B	44%	6.1%	13%	4%
RUSHARush Enterprises Inc. Common Stock Cl A	$7.1B	16%	4.7%	12%	5%
CWHCamping World Holdings	$6.4B	30%	6.1%	18%	2%
HZOMarineMax Inc. (FL)	$2.3B	29%	5.3%	13%	1%
Group median	—	37%	5.7%	14%	4%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Advance Auto Parts has delivered.

Advance Auto Parts’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Advance Auto Parts earns about $318M on its 3.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −3.5% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($318M) Net of stock comp (−$37M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth, delivered—

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’26)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings ($175M) on 60M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-18; net debt $458M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh AAP against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Advance Auto Parts (AAP), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/AAP, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← AAON its page in the Manual AAPL →

Industry order: the Auto Dealers & Services chapter ABG →