On Tuesday the screener read the filings of 1,190 US companies and put them in order. These were the five at the top. What follows is what the arithmetic found in each one — and, for every one of them, what the same arithmetic does not like.
None of this is a recommendation. A high rank means the numbers in a company’s own filings are unusual enough to be worth an hour of reading. When this ranking was tested, it held up as a ranking — the bottom performed consistently worse than the top — but the top itself performed about in line with the market. The value is in where it points, not in the order.
How to read the four numbers
Every company gets four scores, and each one is a percentile against other companies in its own sector, on the same day. A cheapness of 97 means the company looks cheaper than 97% of its sector on enterprise value against operating profit, free cash flow and sales, plus what it returns to shareholders. It does not mean cheap against the market, and for one of the names below that distinction is the whole story.
The four are weighted into one composite: cheapness 40%, quality 30%, safety 20%, confirmation 10%. Quality asks whether the business earns a decent return on what it owns and whether the earnings are backed by cash. Safety asks whether it could survive a bad year. Confirmation asks the only question the filings cannot answer — whether the market has begun to agree.
To be ranked at all a company must trade above $3, be worth at least $300 million, and turn over at least $2 million of stock a day. Banks, insurers and property trusts are left out entirely, because enterprise-value measures do not describe those balance sheets honestly. On Tuesday, 155 of the companies read were left unranked for want of data.
The five
| # | Company | Price | Score | Cheap | Qual | Safe | Conf |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | YELPYelp Inc · Consumer Services | $18.96 | 79.8 | 97 | 92 | 63 | 9 |
| 2 | NRDSNerdWallet · Technology | $8.53 | 79.4 | 97 | 84 | 65 | 23 |
| 3 | CRCTCricut · Industrials | $5.81 | 78.2 | 80 | 98 | 58 | 54 |
| 4 | CRLCharles River Labs · Biotech & Pharma | $285.11 | 77.3 | 86 | 74 | 67 | 73 |
| 5 | BWABorgWarner · Autos & Transport | $61.11 | 76.5 | 78 | 68 | 82 | 84 |
Prices are Tuesday’s closes. Every other figure comes from the company’s most recent SEC filings, which means it can lag a quarter behind the news — a point that matters a great deal for two of the five.
1 · Yelp — the cheapest thing on the board, and the market knows it
Under six times operating profit and under three times free cash flow, on a business earning 24.7% on invested capital with net cash on the balance sheet. Accruals are firmly negative, meaning the profits are backed by cash rather than by accounting. The share count is down 12.4% over the year.
Confirmation of 9 out of 100 — the lowest reading in the top five by a distance. The stock is down 26.3% over twelve months, trades at 74.9% of its 200-day average, and sits within a few cents of a 52-week low of $18.73. This is not a company the market has started to agree about. It is a company the market is still selling.
One number here needs a caveat the screen cannot give you. Yelp’s shareholder yield reads 27.4%, which is enormous, and it is a large part of why cheapness scores 97. That figure is trailing twelve months. On 6 August 2026 Yelp paused its buyback — with $339m still authorised — to pay down a $100m revolving credit facility, and said repurchases should resume in 2027. The yield describes money already returned. It does not describe what is happening now.
Yelp sells advertising to local businesses, and in February 2026 it added Hatch, an AI lead-management platform, for about $270m. The thing to go and read is whether the advertising decline is cyclical or structural: advertising revenue fell 3% in the second quarter, with restaurants, retail and other down 10%, while the much smaller “other revenue” line nearly doubled.
2 · NerdWallet — the same shape, one notch softer
The highest cheapness reading on the whole board at 97.4, on a business earning 20.6% on capital with net cash and an eighth of its shares retired over the year. Like Yelp, the accruals are negative: the earnings are cash.
Confirmation of 23. Down 10.8% over twelve months and trading at 81.6% of its 200-day average. And the cheapness rests on a revenue line under visible pressure — consumer credit-card revenue fell in the second quarter, which the company attributed to organic search traffic, while the small-business segment shrank 11%.
It is worth noticing what the top two have in common, because the screener cannot notice it. Both Yelp and NerdWallet are businesses whose customers arrive through search, ranked at a moment when how people search is changing. The filings show cheap, profitable, cash-generating companies. They do not show whether the channel that brings the customers still works in three years. That is the reading the screen is sending you off to do.
3 · Cricut — the quality name, on a shrinking base
Quality of 98 out of 100, the highest reading anywhere in the top five, built on a 68.5% return on invested capital and gross profitability of 0.71. It is also the only one of the five trading above its 200-day average, at 1.25×, which is what lifts confirmation to 54.
Safety of 58, the weakest in the group. And the quality score is measured across a business whose two halves are moving in opposite directions: in the second quarter, products revenue — the machines and materials — fell 22% year on year, while the subscription platform grew 5%.
A return on capital near 70% is a real thing and not an accounting artefact. The question a reader has to answer is what it is a return on: a hardware base that is contracting, plus a subscription attached to machines already sold. Both facts are in the same filing.
4 · Charles River — what “cheap” means when it means cheap for biotech
Confirmation of 73, on a stock up 90% over twelve months and trading 38% above its 200-day average. The market agrees here more than with anything else in the top five except BorgWarner.
31.6 times operating profit is not cheap in absolute terms, and nobody should read the 86 as if it were. It is cheap against other biotech and pharma companies, which is the only comparison this screener ever makes. If you want a name that is cheap against the market, this is not it.
Two things happened this year that the trailing figures above have not caught up with. Charles River completed the sale of its CDMO and Cell Solutions businesses to GI Partners and of several European discovery sites to IQVIA, both in May 2026, together taking more than $200m off reported 2026 revenue. And James Foster, who ran the company for decades, retired as chief executive on 5 May 2026; Birgit Girshick has the job. The screen reads the last twelve months of filings, so part of what it is measuring is a company that no longer exists in that shape.
The open question is regulatory rather than financial. The FDA has stated an intention to move away from requiring animal testing in preclinical safety work in favour of new approach methodologies, and Charles River’s two largest segments — research models, and discovery and safety assessment — are precisely what that would touch. The company has publicly framed the shift as an evolution rather than a revolution. Whether it is, is the thing to go and read about.
5 · BorgWarner — nothing spectacular, nothing broken
The most even profile in the group and the only one with no reading below 68. Confirmation of 84 and safety of 82 are both the best in the top five, on a stock up 53% over the year at eleven times operating profit and a 5% shareholder yield.
Quality of 68, the lowest of the five, on gross profitability of 0.19 — this is a components manufacturer, and the margins say so. Electric-vehicle programme timing remains the standing question over the whole supplier base.
An honesty note about this row specifically. Three of the inputs the screener normally uses — accruals, EV to free cash flow, and net debt to EBITDA — came back empty for BorgWarner in Tuesday’s file. Its scores are therefore built on fewer measures than the other four, and the safety reading in particular is leaning on less. That is not an argument against the company; it is a reason to check the balance sheet yourself rather than take an 82 at face value.
What the five have in common
Two of them — Yelp and NerdWallet — are cheap and still falling, trading at three-quarters and four-fifths of their 200-day averages. The other three have the market’s agreement already. Four of the five hold net cash. Four of the five have negative accruals, meaning reported profits are backed by cash coming in the door. Not one of the five is in a sector that was fashionable this year.
That spread is the screener working as intended rather than a contradiction. Cheapness carries 40% of the weight and confirmation only 10%, so a company can reach the top of the table while the market is still selling it. Yelp is exactly that case, and it is why the confirmation column is printed beside the score instead of being folded silently into it.
What this is not
It is not advice, and it is not a forecast. In testing, this ranking ordered the universe — the bottom decile performed consistently worse than the top — but the top decile itself performed about in line with the market. A high rank buys you a shorter reading list, nothing more. Everything above comes from filings that can be a quarter old, and in at least two of these five the world has moved since.
Sources: The Vance Report’s own screen file for 22 September 2026, built from SEC company facts and Nasdaq closing prices; the method is set out in how the Vance Value Screener works. Company events are from the companies’ own second-quarter 2026 results and investor-relations releases: Yelp’s buyback pause and Hatch acquisition; NerdWallet’s segment results; Cricut’s platform and product split; Charles River’s divestitures, leadership change and commentary on new approach methodologies; BorgWarner’s second-quarter release.