Clearfield Inc (CLFD)
🔔 Watch stock
symbol.quality_heading
The business works in principle, but one material question is open. As long as it stays open, our findings do not carry a quality verdict.
Whoever buys today is betting that the BEAD billions flow before the market’s patience runs out — and pays 168 times trailing earnings for it, cushioned by $147 million of net cash and ongoing buybacks. Whoever waits may miss the first funding surge but can check every quarterly report (10-Q) for whether the broad-based orders actually arrive: a revenue turn in the Community Broadband and cable segments plus a growing order backlog would be the evidence. The decision is yours.
symbol.quality_note
Clearfield equips rural U.S. broadband providers with fiber connectivity hardware — and lights up four trend filters in our in-house stock scanner at once (data as of July 10, 2026), while Reddit musters just 2 mentions in 24 hours (as of July 15, 2026). We read the annual reports (10-K) for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 and the quarterly report (10-Q) as of March 31, 2026: a revenue mountain that ran from plus 92 to minus 44 percent, a recovery that snagged on delays in the BEAD funding program in the latest quarter (minus 15 percent), a Finnish acquisition that went for one dollar — and $147 million in cash and investments with no bank debt. Not investment advice — just the question of what a promised windfall is worth before the money is wired.
Read the analysis
Stock Watch
This analysis is as of July 16, 2026. Stock Watch will tell you what's changed at CLFD since then.
Later $1 a month per stock — signing up is free, and you'll be the first to know when it launches.
Appears in These Scanners
This stock currently matches 5 of our scanner strategies — each hit links to the scanner.
Only genuine hits from verified scanners count; pure ranking metrics (P/E, P/S, and similar, which just sort the whole universe) don't count as a hit. Scanners marked in red are red-flag signals (risk/short scanners) — appearing there is not a seal of approval. View all scanners
Trading Day
Key levels of the most recently completed trading day — not a live quote.
52-Week Range
Current price 30.30 $ — 17% of the range above the low.
Lowest and highest closing price over the last 52 weeks. The marker shows where the current price sits within that range: close to the high speaks for strength, close to the low for weakness.
Basics
Performance
Technical Indicators
Calculated from the price history · as of 08/03/2026
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Dividend
This stock currently pays no dividend.
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
NeutralGeprüft am 16.07.2026 gegen die Geschäftsberichte (10-K) für die Geschäftsjahre 2025 (eingereicht 25.11.2025) und 2024 (eingereicht 15.11.2024) sowie die vier jüngsten Quartalsberichte (10-Q, zuletzt zum 31.03.2026, eingereicht 07.05.2026): In den ausgewerteten SEC-Filings von Clearfield findet sich kein wesentlicher KI-Bezug — die Volltextsuche nach „artificial intelligence“, „machine learning“, „generative“, „large language“, „LLM“ und „AI“ liefert in allen sechs Dokumenten keinen einzigen Treffer. Clearfield verkauft Glasfaser-Management-, Schutz- und Anschlusstechnik für Breitbandnetze (FTTx); weder wird KI als Umsatzquelle oder operatives Werkzeug beschrieben, noch nennen die Risk Factors (Item 1A) KI als konkretes Geschäftsrisiko für das eigene Modell. Nach dem Kriterienkatalog dokumentierter Negativ-Befund: „neutral“.
View the full file — quotes, sources, reviewed filings
Filings Reviewed: 10-Q 2026-05-07 · 10-Q 2026-02-09 · 10-Q 2025-08-07 · 10-Q 2025-05-09 · 10-K 2025-11-25 · 10-K 2024-11-15
Rated on July 16, 2026 · How the Rating Is Built
Highlighted are things our editorial team noticed: green = stands out as strong, red = deserves a closer look. No single metric is a verdict on its own — always read it in context.
Analysts & Price Target
The price target sits 44.4% above the current price.
- Consensus
- Sell
- Analyst Ratings
- 4
Combined picture of the price targets and recommendations of every analyst covering the stock. Price targets are expectations for the next 12 months, not promises — and they often follow the price rather than predict it.
Estimates by Fiscal Year
| Fiscal Year | EPS Estimate ($) | EPS Range ($) | Revenue Estimate ($M) | Expected Growth | Analysts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/30/2026 | 0.70 | 0.54 – 0.86 | 165 | 55.6% | 2 |
| 09/30/2027 | 1.45 | 1.25 – 1.65 | 200 | 107.1% | 2 |
Average of the analyst estimates for the coming fiscal years. The range shows how far the most optimistic and the most cautious estimate sit apart — the wider it is, the less certain the expectation.
Next Reporting Date
- Expected Earnings per Share
- 0.20 $
Expected date of the next quarterly or annual figures. Dates do shift occasionally — only the invitation issued by the company is binding.
Revenue & Profit
Cash Flow
Balance Sheet
Margins
Per Share
Click the chart or tab into it, then use ← and → to step through the periods.
None of the selected stocks reports this metric. Pick another metric or switch between annual and quarterly.
· Total · per year
These companies report in different currencies — switch on “Indexed” or pick a margin for a fair comparison.
The figures could not be loaded right now.
Source: fundamental data
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | -0.13 | – | 36 | 3.60 | -5.40 | 7 | 5 |
| 2025: Q1 | 0.09 | – | 47 | 27.80 | 2.80 | 3 | 0 |
| 2025: Q2 | 0.12 | – | 50 | 2.30 | 3.20 | 8 | 7 |
| 2025: Q3 | -0.65 | – | 18 | -62.40 | -51.60 | 11 | 12 |
| 2025: Q4 | -0.04 | – | 34 | -3.20 | -1.80 | 0 | -1 |
| 2026: Q1 | -0.04 | -141.00 | 34 | -27.10 | -1.50 | -1 | -2 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Annual Figures
| Fiscal Year | Revenue ($M) | EBIT ($M) | Net Income ($M) | EPS ($) | Operating Cash Flow ($M) | Equity ($M) | Total Assets ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 75 | 11 | 8 | 0.59 | 12 | 63 | 71 |
| 2017 | 74 | 5 | 4 | 0.28 | 6 | 65 | 69 |
| 2018 | 78 | 5 | 4 | 0.32 | 5 | 69 | 74 |
| 2019 | 85 | 5 | 5 | 0.34 | 15 | 75 | 82 |
| 2020 | 93 | 8 | 7 | 0.53 | 7 | 83 | 95 |
| 2021 | 141 | 25 | 20 | 1.47 | 11 | 104 | 126 |
| 2022 | 271 | 64 | 49 | 3.55 | 1 | 148 | 229 |
| 2023 | 226 | 38 | 33 | 2.17 | 20 | 315 | 356 |
| 2024 | 167 | -23 | -12 | -0.85 | 22 | 276 | 315 |
| 2025 | 150 | 2 | -8 | -0.58 | 29 | 256 | 306 |
Fiscal years from the audited annual reports, oldest first. EBIT is the operating profit before interest and taxes; total assets are everything the company owns.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
$147.1 million in cash and investments against zero bank debt, $242.8 million of equity on $263.5 million of total assets (March 31, 2026), an Altman Z around 20; the buyback program was raised to $85 million in November 2025 — Clearfield can afford to wait for BEAD (quarterly report 10-Q as of 03/31/2026).
Revenue in the second quarter of fiscal year 2026 minus 15 percent to $34.4 million — per the quarterly report in part because of "delays in the BEAD program"; the annual report warns explicitly that customers time orders to the availability of subsidies. The story’s catalyst is currently braking the business.
Boom-bust as a system property: plus 92 percent (FY 2022), minus 44 percent (FY 2024), plus 20 percent (FY 2025), minus 15 percent (Q2 FY 2026) — amplified by two distributors with a combined 31 percent of revenue and no purchase obligation at all (10-K FY 2025, Note 7).
The Nestor Cables acquisition (roughly $16 million, July 2022) ended, after a $16.6 million impairment, for $1 in cash (November 11, 2025) — an expensive cycle misstep, but ended consistently rather than window-dressed; since then the money flows into the company’s own shares ($16.5 plus $12.6 million of buybacks since October 2024).
A Stan Weinstein stage-2 uptrend, price above the 50- and 200-day averages, institutional accumulation and plus 40 percent in three months meet a trailing P/E around 168, a fundamental grade of D and a Piotroski score of 3 of 9 (data as of July 10, 2026) — the market is paying for a date no filing names; net of cash, the operating business costs roughly 2.7 times revenue.
Clearfield is a solidly financed waiting room: $147.1 million of net cash, no bank debt, and a management team that buys back its own shares and ended the Nestor misstep for one dollar. But the business is not yet delivering the story — the latest quarter shrank 15 percent, explicitly in part because of the BEAD delays, two distributors account for nearly a third of revenue, and at 168 times trailing earnings the market is paying for the subsidy future, not the present. Whoever invests here buys a well-capitalized option on Washington’s payout calendar. Not investment advice.
- CLFD reached our research list via the confluence of four trend hits in our in-house stock scanner (data as of July 10, 2026); the Reddit hype scanner showed just 2 mentions in 24 hours at the same time (ApeWisdom, as of July 15, 2026) — attention is not a buy argument here, it is simply absent.
- Scanner metrics (P/E, P/S, Piotroski, Altman Z, fundamental grade) are computed from trailing twelve-month figures; the Nestor impairment (Q4 FY 2025) and the BEAD dip (Q2 FY 2026) are baked in, a potential funding surge naturally is not.
- Price and valuation figures are dated to July 10, 2026 (about $37.60, market value roughly $550 million); analyses are evergreen, daily prices are not a buy argument. Clearfield’s fiscal year ends September 30 — all quarterly references carry that fiscal-year offset.
About the Company
Clearfield, Inc. entwirft, fertigt und vertreibt zusammen mit seinen Tochtergesellschaften Produkte für das Glasfaser-Management, den -Schutz und die -Übertragung in den USA und international.
| Employees | 243 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Minneapolis, MN |
| Address | 7050 Winnetka Avenue North, 55428 Minneapolis, United States |
| Phone | 763 476 6866 |
| Website | seeclearfield.com |
| IPO Date | 7. Aug 1986 |
| ISIN | US18482P1030 |
| Stock Split | 2:1 on 04/03/1989 |
Management
| Name | Title | Birth Year |
|---|---|---|
| Cheryl P. Beranek | CEO, President & Director | 1962 |
| Daniel R. Herzog | Chief Financial Officer | 1964 |
| John P. Hill | Chief Operating Officer | 1966 |
| Skip Hansen | Chief Information Officer | – |
| Frank J. Brixius Jr. | General Counsel & Secretary | – |
| Anis Khemakhem | Chief Commercial Officer | 1977 |
| Bob Cody | Vice President of Human Resources & Office of Resource Management | – |
Executives per the latest required filings; titles kept in their original language. Source: fundamental data.
Chart
Interactive price chart (TradingView).
Data as of: July 31, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.