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SCVL, Shoe Carnival

Shoe Carnival, Inc. is one of the nation's largest omnichannel retailers of footwear and accessories for the family.

We operate a retail-focused business model designed to deliver a differentiated footwear shopping experience featuring national name brands.

Our omnichannel approach provides customers easy access to our broad assortment of branded footwear for athletics, daily activities, special events and work through the customer's preferred delivery channel.

Latest annual: FY2026 10-K

SCVL · Shoe Carnival

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2026

$1.1B

−5.6% YoY · 3% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.1B 5-yr avg $1.2B

Gross margin 36% 5-yr avg 37%

Operating margin 4.3% 5-yr avg 9.7%

ROIC 6% 5-yr avg 21%

Owner-earnings margin 6% 5-yr avg 6%

Free cash flow margin 6% 5-yr avg 4%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 30% and operating margin about 5.2% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. The operating margin has swung widely — from 2.2% to 16% — on a steadier 30% 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 26% 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 customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 14%, above 15% in 4 of 10 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 5% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

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, 2017–2026

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	2026’26	TTMTTMMay 2026
											Income statement
$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.0B	$977M	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	RevenueRevenue
29%	29%	30%	30%	29%	40%	37%	36%	36%	37%	36%	Gross marginGross mgn
25%	25%	25%	25%	26%	24%	25%	28%	28%	31%	32%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$38M	$38M	$50M	$54M	$22M	$208M	$146M	$94M	$91M	$67M	$49M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
3.8%	3.7%	4.8%	5.2%	2.2%	15.6%	11.6%	8.0%	7.6%	5.9%	4.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$24M	$19M	$38M	$43M	$16M	$155M	$110M	$73M	$74M	$52M	$37M	Net incomeNet inc.
38%	49%	24%	22%	26%	25%	25%	24%	24%	26%	29%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$64M	$40M	$74M	$67M	$63M	$148M	$50M	$123M	$103M	$71M	$104M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$24M	$24M	$22M	$17M	$16M	$19M	$23M	$29M	$31M	$34M	$35M	DepreciationDeprec.
$13M	($7M)	$4M	$596K	$27M	($31M)	($88M)	$16M	($10M)	($23M)	$23M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$22M	$20M	$7M	$19M	$12M	$31M	$77M	$56M	$33M	$45M	$42M	CapexCapex
2.2%	1.9%	0.7%	1.8%	1.3%	2.4%	6.1%	4.8%	2.8%	3.9%	3.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$42M	$21M	$67M	$48M	$51M	$129M	$27M	$94M	$69M	$37M	$62M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
4.2%	2.0%	6.5%	4.7%	5.2%	9.7%	2.2%	8.0%	5.8%	3.3%	5.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$42M	$21M	$67M	$48M	$51M	$117M	($27M)	$66M	$69M	$27M	$62M	Free cash flowFCF
4.2%	2.0%	6.5%	4.7%	5.2%	8.8%	−2.1%	5.7%	5.8%	2.3%	5.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	—	$0	$0	$71M	$0	$0	$45M	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$5M	$5M	$5M	$6M	$5M	$8M	$10M	$12M	$15M	$17M	$17M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$43M	$30M	$46M	$38M	$0	$7M	$31M	$5M	$0	$0	—	BuybacksBuybacks
9%	7%	16%	18%	8%	46%	23%	15%	13%	9%	6%	ROICROIC
7%	6%	13%	14%	5%	34%	21%	13%	11%	8%	6%	Return on equityROE
6%	5%	11%	13%	4%	32%	19%	10%	9%	5%	3%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$63M	$48M	$67M	$62M	$107M	$132M	$63M	$111M	$123M	$131M	$129M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$4M	$6M	$1M	$3M	$7M	$14M	$3M	$3M	$9M	$6M	$7M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$280M	$261M	$258M	$259M	$233M	$285M	$390M	$346M	$386M	$440M	$417M	InventoryInvent.
$68M	$42M	$49M	$61M	$58M	$69M	$79M	$58M	$52M	$79M	$65M	Accounts payablePayables
$216M	$225M	$210M	$202M	$183M	$230M	$315M	$291M	$343M	$367M	$359M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$352M	$321M	$337M	$330M	$355M	$442M	$470M	$481M	$536M	$596M	$571M	Current assetsCur. assets
$86M	$57M	$71M	$123M	$131M	$154M	$157M	$128M	$130M	$158M	$142M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
4.1×	5.6×	4.8×	2.7×	2.7×	2.9×	3.0×	3.8×	4.1×	3.8×	4.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	—	—	—	$0	$11M	$12M	$12M	$18M	$18M	$18M	GoodwillGoodwill
$458M	$416M	$418M	$628M	$643M	$812M	$990M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Total assetsAssets
($63M)	($48M)	($67M)	($62M)	($107M)	($132M)	($63M)	($111M)	($123M)	($131M)	($129M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
224.3×	129.1×	331.7×	283.8×	53.1×	434.4×	498.1×	331.6×	290.3×	179.0×	128.3×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$319M	$307M	$304M	$297M	$310M	$453M	$526M	$583M	$649M	$690M	$673M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.4%	0.5%	1.0%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.6%	0.6%	0.8%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
36.0M	32.5M	31.0M	29.4M	28.5M	28.6M	27.8M	27.4M	27.5M	27.5M	27.4M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$27.77	$31.40	$33.22	$35.29	$34.28	$46.52	$45.38	$42.90	$43.70	$41.23	$41.20	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.65	$0.58	$1.23	$1.46	$0.56	$5.42	$3.96	$2.68	$2.68	$1.90	$1.36	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.16	$0.64	$2.15	$1.65	$1.79	$4.52	$0.98	$3.43	$2.52	$1.34	$2.27	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.16	$0.64	$2.15	$1.65	$1.79	$4.07	$-0.97	$2.43	$2.52	$0.97	$2.27	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.14	$0.15	$0.15	$0.19	$0.18	$0.28	$0.36	$0.44	$0.53	$0.61	$0.63	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.61	$0.61	$0.24	$0.63	$0.44	$1.10	$2.78	$2.05	$1.20	$1.62	$1.53	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$8.85	$9.47	$9.82	$10.12	$10.88	$15.83	$18.90	$21.29	$23.58	$25.05	$24.59	Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2020 are restated ×2 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+4.5%/yr	+3.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+1.6%/yr	−5.6%/yr
EPS	+12.6%/yr	+27.6%/yr
Dividends / share	+17.8%/yr	+27.6%/yr
Capital spending / share	+11.6%/yr	+30.1%/yr
Book value / share	+12.3%/yr	+18.1%/yr

The record, charted

FY2017–2026

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

28Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

9%low FY2018

Gross margin

37%low FY2021

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$37Mowner earningsvs.$52Mnet incomelow FY2018

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2017FY2026

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2022–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 earned $37M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $34M it takes just to hold its position. It put $10M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $27M.

Reported net income$52M

Owner earnings$37M · 3% of revenue

	FY2026	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022
Reported net income	$52M	$74M	$73M	$110M	$155M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$34M	+$31M	+$29M	+$23M	+$19M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$7M	+$8M	+$5M	+$5M	+$6M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$23M	−$10M	+$16M	−$88M	−$31M
Cash from operations	$71M	$103M	$123M	$50M	$148M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$34M	−$33M	−$29M	−$23M	−$19M
Owner earnings	$37M	$69M	$94M	$27M	$129M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$10M	—	−$27M	−$54M	−$13M
Free cash flow	$27M	$69M	$66M	($27M)	$117M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	6%	8%	2%	10%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $34M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $10M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. 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 $7M), owner earnings is nearer $30M.

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 →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 179.0×

Comfortable

Operating income $67M ÷ interest expense $373K

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$131M

Net cash, debt-free

Cash $117M + ST investments $14M − debt $0

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $131M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. 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? 185d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 2 + DIO 223 − DPO 40 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 —

Not enough data

Industry peers: median 9%

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin 5%

Thin through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 2%–10%; latest $37M = operating cash $71M − maintenance capex $34M

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 5% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $7M of SBC) leaves $30M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.36×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $71M ÷ net income $52M

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? 45%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $17M ÷ Owner Earnings $37M

What this means
Of $37M Owner Earnings, $17M (45%) went back to shareholders, $17M dividends, $0 buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 1.30×

Expanding

Capex $45M ÷ depreciation $34M

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 · 4 of 5 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 Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.1B

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 Pass

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 3.76×

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.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

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 (10)

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 Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +147%

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 $2.45/share (latest year $1.93), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $25.40/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, 2017–2026

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

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Operating margin 4% → 7% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 4% early to 7% lately, median 5% — pricing power intact or improving.
Owner earnings growth +6%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 6% a year over the record.
Worst year 2021 · 2.2% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +4.8%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

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.

In its own filing Framed as a capability

The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.

“We may be unable to quickly adapt to rapid change resulting from AI, blockchain, Internet of Things, including voice and smart home devices, and other advanced technologies.”

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, May 2, 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$571M

Cash & short-term investments$129M
Receivables$7M
Inventory$417M
Other current assets$18M

Current liabilities$142M

Accounts payable$65M
Other current liabilities$77M

Current ratio4.02×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.08×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.91×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$429Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−2.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters3.4× → 4.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$614Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$85MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$361M$361M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $371M (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

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$76M

'27$73M

'28$72M

'29$59M

'30$50M

later$120M

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$76Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$451Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$371Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$0

Lease obligations (present value)$371M

Total fixed claims on the business$371M

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $371M, of which the leases are 100%, more than the debt itself. 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 31, 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, 2017–2026

Over the record, the business generated $804M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$323M · 40%
Dividends$87M · 11%
Buybacks$199M · 25%
Retained (debt / cash)$195M · 24%

Returned to owners$286M
49% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $87M as dividends and $199M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$16.71
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 9M shares were bought for $157M, about $16.71 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $11.83 (2018) to $34.25 (2022); its heaviest year, 2019, paid $15.08 ($46M).
Net change in share count−24.0%
The diluted count fell from 36M to 27M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.61/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 18% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained7%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($317M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $24M, so each retained $1 added about 0.07 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

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
2022	Mr. Sifford	$1.9M	$2.5M	$129M
2022	Mr. Worden	$2.2M	$3.1M	$129M
2023	Mr. Worden	$4.0M	$3.6M	$27M
2024	Mr. Worden	$3.5M	$2.1M	$94M
2025	Mr. Worden	$5.0M	$5.0M	$69M
2026	Mr. Worden	$4.1M	$971k	$37M

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 ownership33.6%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio158:1
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$7M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 11% of operating profit. 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 Shoe Carnival 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 2017–2026.

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

Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?28% → 38% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $284M to $424M while revenue grew 13%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (28% of revenue then, 38% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?6 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 6 of the last 10 years, $16M in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?

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 Income taxes 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, Specialty Retail

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
DBIDesigner Brands Inc.	$2.9B	30%	3.0%	18%	3%
GCOGenesco Inc.	$2.4B	48%	3.6%	6%	4%
BOOTBoot Barn Holdings	$2.3B	35%	10.8%	17%	4%
LELands' End Inc.	$1.3B	42%	2.9%	6%	1%
BKEBuckle	$1.3B	49%	19.2%	113%	17%
SCVLShoe Carnival	$1.1B	33%	5.6%	14%	5%
ZUMZZumiez	$929M	34%	5.0%	9%	5%
CTRNCiti Trends Inc.	$820M	49%	2.9%	9%	2%
Group median	—	39%	4.3%	12%	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 Shoe Carnival has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Shoe Carnival earns about $56M on its 4.9% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.3% 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 ($56M) Net of stock comp (−$9M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($70M)

—

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 · ’22→’26−9%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’26+5%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’24–’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.

Free cash flow $62M on 27M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-29; net cash $129M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($42M) runs well above depreciation ($35M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $70M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh SCVL against another business →

The owners of SCVL: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Shoe Carnival (SCVL), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/SCVL, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← SCSC its page in the Manual SD →

Industry order: ← SBH the Specialty Retail chapter SGU →