Enter figures from the latest 10-Q balance sheet (all dollar amounts in thousands or millions — just be consistent). The calculator returns NCAV per share, the discount, Graham's two-thirds buy threshold, and a haircut-adjusted liquidation value.
Verdict at current price
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Benjamin Graham's most extreme bargain test: value the company as if it were shut down tomorrow. Take current assets — cash, receivables, inventory — subtract every liability and any preferred stock, and ignore the factories, patents, and brand entirely. If the market price is below even that number, you're paying less than the working capital alone and receiving the rest of the business for free.
NCAV = Total current assets − Total liabilities − Preferred stock
Buy zone (Graham): Price ≤ ⅔ × NCAV per share
Because net-nets are, almost by definition, businesses in trouble. Some burn through their asset cushion before the value is ever recognized; some balance sheets are stale or optimistic by the time you read them. The one-third margin of safety is what makes a basket of them survivable. Graham ran them as a diversified group, historically with strong results — never as single concentrated bets.
NCAV counts every current asset at face value, which a real liquidation never achieves. Graham's refinement applies recovery haircuts: cash counts fully, receivables at something like 75–90 cents on the dollar, inventory at 50–75 cents depending on what it is (commodity inputs recover; fashion and perishables don't), and other current assets around half. The calculator's second output applies your haircut assumptions — a stock below haircut liquidation value is a much rarer and much stronger claim than a simple net-net.
The company's latest 10-Q on SEC EDGAR (sec.gov → search the ticker → most recent 10-Q → balance sheet). Total current assets, total liabilities, and preferred stock are stated line items; shares outstanding is on the cover page. Two classic mistakes to avoid: using only current liabilities instead of total liabilities (inflates NCAV badly), and using stale share counts after a dilution.
True net-nets are scarce in modern U.S. markets — they cluster in microcaps, thinly traded names, and periodically in markets like Japan. Scarcity is information: when nothing qualifies, the discipline is to wait, not to loosen the definition. Watch for the classic traps: companies burning cash fast enough to erase the discount within a few quarters, businesses whose receivables or inventory are fictional in practice, and controlled companies where minority shareholders may never see the value. The balance sheet tells you what's there; the filings' footnotes tell you whether it's real.
A stock priced below its net current asset value — current assets minus all liabilities and preferred stock. In theory the company is worth more shut down than the market is charging for it as a going concern.
Book value includes long-term assets — property, equipment, goodwill, intangibles. NCAV deliberately excludes all of them, counting only current assets against total liabilities. It's a far more conservative floor.
Only buy at two-thirds of NCAV per share or less. The discount is the margin of safety against value traps, cash burn, and stale data — the standard hazards of the net-net pond.
Free in the latest 10-Q or 10-K on SEC EDGAR; most finance sites republish the same line items. Use total liabilities, not just current liabilities, and the current share count from the filing's cover page.