Stock Meadow · Metric glossary · Growth
Operating Cash Flow Growth: formula and how to read it
Operating cash flow growth shows whether the cash a business generates from its operations is rising. It is harder to flatter with accounting choices than reported profit.
What is Operating Cash Flow Growth?
How fast cash from operations grew last year. Latest reported full-year operating cash flow compared with the preceding year, as the change divided by the size of the earlier year's figure (the absolute value method). Cash burn turning into cash coming in, or shrinking, counts as growth.
Stock Meadow groups it under Growth, and shows it in tables as Op. cash growth.
Formula and a worked example
Operating cash flow growth = (latest full-year operating cash flow − preceding year's) ÷ |preceding year's|
Operating cash flow rising from $80 million to $96 million is growth of 20%. The numbers are made up for illustration.
How to read it
A higher figure means more growth in cash generated. Cash burn turning into cash coming in, or shrinking, counts as growth.
When Stock Meadow ranks stocks, a higher figure scores better.
Common pitfalls
- Working-capital timing can swing a single year, such as a big customer paying early or late.
- Capped at ±1000%, and blank when there is no earlier year or the earlier year was exactly zero.
- It ignores capital spending, so compare it with free cash flow.
How Stock Meadow handles gaps. Usually blank when there's no earlier full year to compare with, or operating cash flow that year was exactly zero. Extreme values are capped at 1000%+.
Treat any single metric as one clue, and read the company's financial statements before drawing a conclusion. Stock Meadow's figures are research tools based on reported data, not investment advice.
Stock Meadow models that use it
In Weighted ranking, Z-score composite and Balanced (no weak link), you choose the metrics and weights yourself, so you can include it in a custom score.
No fixed-recipe model scores it.
Read about every scoring model on the scoring models page.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does operating cash flow growth matter?
- Profit can include non-cash items. Operating cash flow shows the cash actually produced by the business, so growth in it supports the case that earnings growth is real.
- Is a higher or lower Op. cash growth better?
- When Stock Meadow ranks stocks, a higher figure scores better. That is a ranking convention, so read Op. cash growth alongside other measures and compare similar companies.
- Why is Op. cash growth blank for some stocks?
- It is usually blank when there's no earlier full year to compare with, or operating cash flow that year was exactly zero. Stock Meadow leaves the figure blank rather than guessing it.
Use Op. cash growth in Stock Meadow
Filter on Operating cash flow growth (annual), score it in your own screen, and see how every stock compares. Free during the preview.
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