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JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) Investors Are Paying Above The Intrinsic Value

Does the share price for JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) reflect it’s really worth? Today, I will calculate the stock’s intrinsic value by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today’s value. This is done using the discounted cash flows (DCF) model. Don’t get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the basis for my calcs can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model. If you are reading this and its not August 2018 then I highly recommend you check out the latest calculation for JetBlue Airways by following the link below.

Check out our latest analysis for JetBlue Airways

The calculation

I’m using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company’s growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have perpetual stable growth rate. To start off with we need to estimate the next five years of cash flows. For this I used the consensus of the analysts covering the stock, as you can see below. I then discount the sum of these cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate.

5-year cash flow forecast

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

Levered FCF ($, Millions)

$161.00

$313.00

$332.83

$353.92

$376.35

Source

Analyst x1

Analyst x1

Est @ 6.34%

Est @ 6.34%

Est @ 6.34%

Present Value Discounted @ 9.97%

$146.40

$258.82

$250.26

$241.99

$234.00

Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= US$1.13b

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after the five years. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of the GDP. In this case I have used the 10-year government bond rate (2.9%). In the same way as with the 5-year ‘growth’ period, we discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 10%.

Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2022 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$376.3m × (1 + 2.9%) ÷ (10% – 2.9%) = US$5.52b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = US$5.52b ÷ ( 1 + 10%)5 = US$3.43b

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the cash flows, which in this case is US$4.56b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding, or the equivalent number if this is a depositary receipt or ADR. This results in an intrinsic value of $14.59. Compared to the current share price of $19.21, the stock is rather overvalued at the time of writing.

NasdaqGS:JBLU Intrinsic Value Export August 30th 18
NasdaqGS:JBLU Intrinsic Value Export August 30th 18

Important assumptions

I’d like to point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. You don’t have to agree with my inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. Because we are looking at JetBlue Airways as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighed average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation I’ve used 10%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.996. This is derived from the Bottom-Up Beta method based on comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.

Next Steps:

Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company. What is the reason for the share price to differ from the intrinsic value? For JBLU, there are three essential aspects you should look at:

  1. Financial Health: Does JBLU have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.

  2. Future Earnings: How does JBLU’s growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart.

  3. Other High Quality Alternatives: Are there other high quality stocks you could be holding instead of JBLU? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow for every stock on the NASDAQ every 6 hours. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

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