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EVA Calculator
Calculate Economic Value Added for any stock. Enter a ticker for live data, or type NOPAT, WACC, and Invested Capital — get EVA, the capital charge, and an instant verdict on whether the business creates or destroys shareholder value.
Enter a ticker to calculate EVA
Try AAPL, MSFT, or any US-listed company. The calculator pulls EBIT, tax rate, and balance sheet data from live filings, then computes EVA — economic value added — with a value-creating or value-destroying verdict.
RELATED TOOLS
NOPAT calculator — net operating profit after tax, the EVA numerator →ROIC calculator — NOPAT over invested capital, the value-creation test →WACC calculator — the discount rate this capital structure costs →EVA starts with NOPAT. Learn how NOPAT and invested capital combine in the return on invested capital guide.
What Economic Value Added Measures
Profit above the cost of capital
EVA asks the one question accounting earnings cannot: did the business earn more than the full cost of all the capital it employed? Net income covers interest but ignores the return equity holders require. EVA deducts both — the interest on debt and the opportunity cost of equity — to find the true economic surplus.
A company reporting positive net income can have negative EVA if its equity return falls short of what investors could earn elsewhere at equivalent risk. That gap is the economic cost that reported earnings mask.
The formula: EVA = NOPAT minus (WACC × IC)
NOPAT is net operating profit after tax — EBIT times (1 minus tax rate). It strips out the financing structure so the operations can be evaluated on their own.
The capital charge (WACC times Invested Capital) converts a percentage cost of capital into a dollar hurdle. EVA is simply how much NOPAT exceeds that hurdle. Positive means value was created; negative means it was destroyed.
EVA margin
EVA margin (EVA divided by Invested Capital) scales the result to the size of the business. A company with 1 billion dollars of invested capital and 50 million dollars of positive EVA has a 5% EVA margin — for every dollar deployed, it returned 5 cents above the cost of capital.
Comparing EVA margins across a sector is more revealing than comparing raw EVA dollar amounts, because it controls for capital intensity and lets you see which businesses are genuinely the most productive deployers of capital.
The capital charge
The capital charge (WACC times Invested Capital) is the dollar cost of using all capital in the business. It is not an accounting expense — interest is, depreciation is — but the equity cost never appears on the income statement. EVA makes it explicit by converting the WACC into a hurdle dollar figure that NOPAT must clear.
Use the WACC calculator to compute a company-specific discount rate rather than relying on the 10% default when precision matters.
EVA vs NOPAT vs ROIC
Dollar surplus above the cost of capital
NOPAT minus (WACC times IC). Answers the value-creation question in absolute terms. A company with 1 billion NOPAT and a 900 million capital charge has 100 million EVA — the economic profit that actually belongs to shareholders above the hurdle.
Operating profit after tax, before financing
The numerator of EVA and ROIC. It measures what the core business earns, capital-structure neutral. A high NOPAT alone is not enough — it must exceed the capital charge to show positive EVA. Use the NOPAT calculator.
Return on invested capital (percentage)
ROIC = NOPAT divided by Invested Capital. When ROIC exceeds WACC, EVA is positive. When it falls below, EVA is negative. ROIC is the percentage version of the same test EVA runs in dollars. Use the ROIC calculator.
Rising EVA is the key signal
A single period of positive EVA is useful; a trend of rising EVA is powerful. Companies that consistently expand their EVA margin over a cycle are typically compounding intrinsic value — and that tends to show up in stock returns over 5 to 10 years.
Frequently asked questions
What is Economic Value Added (EVA)?
Economic Value Added (EVA) is a measure of whether a company earned more than the dollar cost of all the capital it employed — both equity and debt. The formula is EVA = NOPAT minus (WACC times Invested Capital). When EVA is positive, the business created value above and beyond what its capital providers required. When EVA is negative, it destroyed value even if it reported a profit.
What is the EVA formula?
EVA = NOPAT minus (WACC times Invested Capital), where NOPAT is net operating profit after tax (EBIT times (1 minus tax rate)), WACC is the weighted average cost of capital as a decimal, and Invested Capital is total assets minus current liabilities. The term WACC times Invested Capital is called the capital charge — it is the minimum profit required to cover the cost of capital.
What does a positive EVA mean?
A positive EVA means the company earned more than its cost of capital. Every dollar of invested capital generated surplus value above what shareholders and debt holders required as compensation for risk. Sustained positive EVA is the economic definition of value creation — it is why Buffett, McKinsey, and most institutional analysts use it as a performance benchmark rather than reported earnings.
What does a negative EVA mean?
A negative EVA means the company earned less than its cost of capital. Even if it reported positive net income or EPS growth, it was not earning enough to compensate investors for the risk they took. Sustained negative EVA erodes intrinsic value, and companies trapped there often trade at a discount to book value.
How is EVA different from net income?
Net income ignores the cost of equity capital. A company can report positive net income while destroying shareholder value — it may cover its interest bill but still fall short of the return equity holders require. EVA deducts the full cost of all capital (debt and equity), so it gives a complete picture of whether the business is genuinely profitable from an economic standpoint.
What is the capital charge in EVA?
The capital charge is WACC times Invested Capital — the minimum return the business must earn to break even after paying all capital providers. It converts a percentage cost of capital into a dollar hurdle. EVA subtracts this hurdle from NOPAT, so a company with a 10% WACC and 1 billion dollars of invested capital must earn at least 100 million dollars of NOPAT just to show zero EVA.
More tools & guides
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Assumptions, scenarios, and what breaks them — on any public company.
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