At today's price, EQT's stock is pricing in about 11.7% annual free-cash-flow growth for the next ten years — comfortably below its 5-year FCF growth (47% a year), but that headline FCF growth was mostly bought through two large acquisitions; EQT's organic production volume grew only 6.4% a year over the same period, well below what the price now requires.
At its current price, EQT implies ~11.7% annual FCF growth for the next 10 years, discounted at 10%.
EQT's headline FCF growth has averaged 47% a year over the past 5 years — but with two large acquisitions stripped out, its actual production volume grew only 6.4% a year.
Required growth vs. historical growth
Required growth from the reverse DCF below. Historical figures from 10-K FY2022-FY2025 (FCF, revenue) and 10-K FY2022, p.47 and FY2025, p.67-69 (organic sales-volume CAGR, which excludes the revenue and cash-flow lift from acquisitions).
Sensitivity: what if the discount rate moves?
| WACC | Required growth |
|---|---|
| 8% | 7.1% |
| 10% (base case) | 11.7% |
| 12% | 15.6% |
Because EQT is a large-cap company in a commodity-price-sensitive sector, a standard 10% discount rate was used as the base case, with 8% and 12% tested as bounds. Across that range, the required growth rate moves from 7.1% up to 15.6% — even at the low end, it exceeds the 6.4% organic volume growth EQT has actually delivered.
What would move this number
- Using 2025's actual FCF ($2.84B) instead of the normalized 3-year-average base ($1.52B) used here drops the required growth rate sharply, from 11.7% to just 3.2% (at WACC 10%) — because 2025's FCF was unusually strong on a gas-price rebound plus lower post-merger integration spending.
- The normalization itself is the single biggest judgment call in this analysis — 2025's actual FCF came in 86% above the 3-year average, past the ±40% threshold this site uses to decide when a single year is too unusual to use directly, which is why the 3-year average was used as the base case instead.
- Whether EQT counts on further bolt-on acquisitions (like the February 2026 Olympus Energy deal) to keep growing, versus organic drilling alone, is arguably the most important open question — the 47% headline FCF CAGR and the 6.4% organic volume CAGR imply very different answers about how "cheap" 11.7% really is.
Show your work
Inputs, sources, model assumptions, and the calculation
- Share price$53.01 — Yahoo Finance / Google Finance cross-check, Sept 11, 2026 close
- Shares outstanding624,274,009 — DEF 14A 2026, p.106 (as of Feb 5, 2026)
- Market cap≈$33.09B — price × shares (calculated)
- Total debt$7.80B — 10-K FY2025, p.90 (balance sheet, Dec 31, 2025)
- Cash and equivalents$0.111B — 10-K FY2025, p.90
- Net debt$7.69B — total debt minus cash (calculated)
- Enterprise value (EV)≈$40.78B — market cap plus net debt (calculated)
- FCF, most recent 3 years2023: $1.16B / 2024: $0.57B / 2025: $2.84B — 10-K FY2025, p.91 (cash flow statement), FCF = operating cash flow minus capex
- Normalized FCF (base used)$1.52B — 3-year average; 2025's actual FCF deviated +86% from that average, past this site's ±40% normalization threshold
- Discount rate (WACC)10% base case (8%/12% tested)
- Terminal growth rate2.5% — long-run GDP-level assumption
Model: free cash flow is assumed to grow at a constant annual rate g for 10 years, then at a 2.5% terminal rate thereafter, solved by bisection for the value of g that equates present value to today's enterprise value (market cap plus net debt, ≈$40.78B).
Historical CAGR check: 5-yr FCF CAGR (2021→2025, includes acquisitions) = 47.0%. 5-yr revenue CAGR (2021→2025, includes acquisitions) = 29.6%. 5-yr organic production-volume CAGR (2021→2025, excludes acquisition effects) = 6.4%.
The fine print
- This isn't a fair-value price target — it only shows what the current price already assumes.
- Change the discount rate or the FCF normalization method, and the answer moves substantially — see the sensitivity table and the note on FCF normalization above.
- Whether 11.7% growth is realistic depends heavily on whether you expect EQT to keep growing mainly through acquisitions (as its 5-year headline numbers reflect) or organically through drilling alone (6.4% a year) — not on this math alone.
- A reverse DCF shows what the market currently expects — it does not say what the stock is "worth."
- Any investment decision, and its outcome, is your own responsibility.
Frequently asked questions
What growth rate does EQT's stock price assume?
At today's price, EQT's stock is pricing in about 11.7% annual free-cash-flow growth for the next ten years, at a 10% discount rate, using a normalized (3-year average) FCF base.
Is EQT's historical growth really as strong as it looks?
Not organically. EQT's 5-year FCF CAGR (47%) and revenue CAGR (30%) look dramatic, but both were driven largely by the Tug Hill and Equitrans Midstream acquisitions completed in 2023-2024. Stripping out acquisition effects, EQT's actual production volume grew only 6.4% a year — well below the 11.7% the current price now requires.
What share price was used for this analysis?
This analysis used $53.01, as of the Sept 11, 2026 close.