Where Are the Highest-Quality Value Opportunities This Week?
Monday, November 2, 2026
This week’s Acquirer’s Multiple® All Investable Stocks Screener highlights a broad range of potentially undervalued businesses beyond the largest and most closely followed companies.
The All Investable universe includes the Large Cap 1000 but extends further into the middle of the market-cap spectrum, where companies generally receive less analyst coverage and may be more likely to become mispriced.
This week’s supplied screen contains 232 companies, with 229 trading below 10x Acquirer’s Multiple®. The median Acquirer’s Multiple across the supplied screen is approximately 8.0x.
A low valuation alone does not necessarily indicate a high-quality opportunity. Some businesses are inexpensive because they face declining earnings, heavy debt, industry disruption or unusually favourable conditions that may not continue.
To identify companies offering a stronger combination of value and quality, we applied the following available filters:
Acquirer’s Multiple below 12x
Five-year average return on assets above 15%
Positive free-cash-flow yield
Debt-to-equity below 50%
A total of 51 companies met all four requirements.
The qualifying group has a median Acquirer’s Multiple of approximately 7.2x, a median free-cash-flow yield of approximately 9.8%, and a median five-year average return on assets of 21.2%.
These preliminary results exclude the positive incremental growth requirement used in previous screens because that measure was not included in the supplied export. Applying that additional requirement may reduce the qualifying group.
The results highlight several areas of the market where attractive valuations are appearing alongside strong historical profitability, positive cash generation and relatively modest debt levels.
Where Quality Value Is Appearing
Materials and mining are particularly well represented, with qualifying companies spanning precious metals, diversified mining and related commodity businesses.
Several companies combine low enterprise-value-to-operating-earnings multiples with strong historical returns on assets and positive free cash flow.
One example is Sibanye Stillwater, which trades at an Acquirer’s Multiple of just 2.9x, with a free-cash-flow yield of approximately 13.9%.
The sector's representation reflects the substantial cash generation that commodity producers can achieve during favourable pricing environments. However, investors should consider the sustainability of earnings through different commodity cycles, alongside operating costs, capital expenditure requirements and geopolitical risks.
Energy remains another important source of qualifying companies, spanning integrated oil and gas, exploration and production, downstream operations and energy-related shipping.
The sector contains businesses generating substantial operating earnings and free cash flow relative to their enterprise values.
For example, Equinor trades at approximately 3.7x Acquirer’s Multiple, with an 8.4% free-cash-flow yield.
While these valuations may appear attractive, energy companies remain sensitive to commodity prices, production costs, refining margins and broader industry cycles. Investors should distinguish between businesses offering sustainable cash generation and those benefiting from temporarily favourable conditions.
Consumer businesses continue to provide opportunities beyond traditional cyclical value sectors. The qualifying group includes established businesses with recognised brands, strong historical profitability and positive free-cash-flow characteristics.
Lululemon is one example, trading at approximately 6.8x Acquirer’s Multiple, with a 10.5% free-cash-flow yield.
The presence of consumer companies demonstrates that attractive valuation and quality characteristics are not confined to commodity-sensitive industries.
However, brand strength, changing consumer preferences, inventory management, competition and margin sustainability remain important considerations when assessing long-term earnings durability.
Technology contributes opportunities across semiconductor manufacturing and technology services. Several qualifying businesses combine strong historical returns on assets with relatively modest valuations.
The semiconductor industry remains influenced by memory pricing, capital expenditure cycles and demand associated with artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Technology services businesses face different considerations, including corporate IT spending, outsourcing demand and the impact of automation on traditional service models.
Although these businesses operate in different segments of the technology market, their inclusion demonstrates how valuation and profitability filters can identify opportunities across industries with different growth drivers and competitive dynamics.
Financial and investment services businesses also feature among the qualifying companies. The group includes businesses operating in asset management, investment banking and related financial services.
Several demonstrate strong historical profitability, attractive free-cash-flow yields and valuations that compare favourably with the broader market.
Their earnings can nevertheless be influenced by financial-market performance, assets under management, investment flows, transaction activity and changes in investor sentiment.
Understanding the stability of fee income, operating leverage and exposure to market cycles is particularly important when assessing these businesses.
Healthcare provides a smaller but potentially interesting selection of candidates, including companies operating in pharmaceuticals and specialised treatments.
One example is Novo Nordisk, which trades at approximately 8.3x Acquirer’s Multiple, with a five-year average return on assets of approximately 25.7%.
Healthcare businesses can benefit from established products, intellectual property and recurring demand. However, investors should assess competitive positioning, product pipelines, patent protection, regulatory developments and pricing pressures.
Strong historical profitability does not necessarily guarantee that future returns will remain at similar levels.
Additional opportunities appear across education, professional services, automotive components, media and industrial businesses.
These companies operate in industries with different economic drivers, competitive structures and capital requirements.
Some benefit from established customer relationships and recurring demand, while others are more exposed to consumer spending, manufacturing activity or changes in the broader economic environment.
Their inclusion reinforces the importance of examining individual business quality rather than relying exclusively on sector-level valuation comparisons.
The diversity of qualifying companies gives investors several different areas of the market to investigate rather than concentrating exclusively on the cheapest sectors.
Bottom Line
This week’s supplied All Investable screen contains 51 preliminary qualifying companies combining modest valuations, positive free cash flow, strong historical returns on assets and debt-to-equity below 50%.
The qualifying group has a median five-year return on assets of approximately 21.2%, a median Acquirer’s Multiple of 7.2x, and a median free-cash-flow yield of 9.8%.
Across the broader supplied screen, 229 of 232 companies trade below 10x, with an overall median Acquirer’s Multiple of approximately 8.0x.
These broader figures are not directly comparable with last week's screen because the latest supplied export contains a different number of companies and is concentrated at the cheaper end of the valuation range.
Materials and mining are particularly prominent among the qualifying businesses, while energy remains another important source of potential opportunities.
Consumer, technology, financial services and healthcare companies provide additional areas to investigate, demonstrating that attractive valuation and profitability characteristics are not confined to traditional cyclical industries.
Applying additional profitability, cash-flow and balance-sheet requirements helps narrow the supplied 232-company list to a more focused group for further research.
The positive incremental growth requirement remains to be applied before the final five-factor qualifying group can be established.
These measures provide a starting point rather than a conclusion about any company's investment merits. The next step is to examine earnings durability, competitive advantages, capital allocation and the risks behind each valuation.
We've highlighted just a handful of companies here. Subscribers can explore the complete ranked list, identify the remaining qualifying businesses and compare their underlying valuation, cash-flow, profitability and balance-sheet measures.
The complete Acquirer’s Multiple® All Investable Stocks Screener provides the data needed to investigate these opportunities in greater detail.
In addition to our free U.S. Large-Cap 1000 Screener, subscribers receive access to the complete All Investable, Small and Micro Cap, and Canada All TSX screens—including company rankings and valuation, free-cash-flow, shareholder-yield and quality measures.