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Free Cash Flow Yield Screener — Find High-FCF-Yield Stocks
Mid-cap stocks ranked by free cash flow yield, with sector medians overlaid per row. Instantly see which names generate the most cash per dollar of market cap versus their peers.
How to Read FCF Yield Data
Free cash flow yield is the cleanest single measure of what you get for your money. Take the cash a company generates after maintaining and growing its asset base — that is free cash flow — divide it by the market cap you pay, and you have the yield. A stock with a 12% FCF yield is giving you $12 of cash per $100 invested, before any allocation decision management makes with it. It is the bond-equivalent measure for equities: straightforward, comparable across names, and much harder to manipulate than reported earnings.
The vs. Sector Avg column is the bookmark feature of this screener. A stock with a 6% FCF yield looks different if its sector median is 3% (trading at double the sector rate) versus if its sector median is 10% (significantly below peers). The sector overlay removes the structural capital-intensity difference between industries and lets you ask the right question: is this company a better cash generator than comparable businesses at the price you are paying?
Color coding reflects absolute FCF yield: green (≥10%) means the stock is generating substantial cash relative to price, amber (5–9.9%) is moderate, and neutral means below 5%. Always pair the color with the sector delta — a neutral-colored stock trading 4pp above its sector median may be more interesting than a green stock that is 5pp below peers.
For a deeper understanding of what FCF yield measures and how to use it in a full valuation, see our FCF yield guide.
FCF Yield vs. Other Valuation Metrics
The P/E ratio is the most widely cited valuation metric, but it uses accounting earnings — a figure that can diverge substantially from cash reality due to depreciation, amortization, stock-based compensation, and working capital timing. FCF yield starts with the cash statement and works backward from what actually hit the bank account. For most established businesses, FCF yield and earnings yield tell a similar story; when they diverge significantly, the divergence itself is the signal worth investigating.
Enterprise value-based metrics like EV/EBITDA and EV/FCF adjust for capital structure — they add debt and subtract cash before dividing. FCF yield uses market cap in the denominator, which makes it an equity-level measure: you are valuing only the equity claim, not the whole enterprise. For companies with significant net debt, the equity FCF yield will look more attractive than an enterprise-level metric. For net-cash companies, the reverse is true. Use EV/FCF when comparing companies with very different balance sheets; use equity FCF yield when screening for shareholder returns.
When High FCF Yield Is a Trap
A high FCF yield is not automatically a buy signal. Several situations produce a temporarily elevated yield that reverts: a company in a light-capex phase before a major investment cycle begins; a business harvesting working capital by cutting inventory, which cannot continue indefinitely; a cyclical business at the peak of its earnings cycle when cash flow looks exceptional but will compress; or a company whose capex has dropped below maintenance levels, meaning the asset base is deteriorating even as free cash flow appears high. Always check whether FCF is above or below the long-run average before treating a high current yield as a sustainable floor.
Frequently asked questions
What FCF yield percentage is considered high?
Above 10% is generally considered high for an established mid-cap. It means the company is generating a dollar of free cash for every $10 of market cap — equivalent to a 10x price-to-FCF multiple, which is very cheap by historical standards. That said, sector context matters: a 10% yield in technology (where 15%+ is common) is less compelling than 10% in consumer staples (where the sector median might be 4–5%).
How does this screener get its data?
The screener pulls from our editorial coverage universe — mid-cap stocks we actively cover — using Yahoo Finance for the financial data. For each stock it fetches free cash flow (trailing twelve months), market capitalization, sector, and company name. It then computes FCF yield and the sector median across all covered names in that sector. Data refreshes hourly.
Why might a stock's FCF yield look different from what I calculate?
Free cash flow has no universal accounting definition. Yahoo Finance uses operating cash flow minus capital expenditures. Some analysts add back maintenance capex only (excluding growth capex) to get 'true' FCF. Others deduct stock-based compensation. If you are building a model, always verify which definition is being used and apply it consistently across companies.
Can I use FCF yield to compare across sectors?
You can, but direct cross-sector comparison is misleading without context. Capital-intensive sectors (energy, utilities, industrials) structurally have lower FCF yields because of higher maintenance capex. Software and services businesses have structurally higher yields. The vs. Sector Avg column normalizes for this: it lets you compare relative cash generation within a sector rather than absolute yields across sectors.
Is a negative FCF yield a red flag?
Negative FCF yield means the company is consuming cash rather than generating it. For mature mid-caps in our universe this is a meaningful warning sign, though context matters. A single year of negative FCF during a major capital expenditure program (building a new plant, launching a new product line) may be intentional and temporary. Sustained negative FCF over multiple years in an established business suggests the core operations do not generate enough cash to sustain themselves without external financing.
How do I find the full analysis for a stock in the screener?
Click the ticker symbol in the first column to go to the Basis Report stock intelligence page for that company. From there you can run a full DCF valuation, see earnings quality scores, review analyst ratings, and generate a complete research report. The FCF yield screener is the entry point; the full report gives you the depth to make a decision.