COMSTOCK RESOURCES, INC. (CRK): what the price requires
At today's price, COMSTOCK RESOURCES, INC. (CRK) is priced for +7.9% growth. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CRK
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | CRK |
| Company | COMSTOCK RESOURCES, INC. |
| Current price | $13.16/sh |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Operating margin needed | 4.3% |
| Operating margin today | 21.8% |
| Margin compression implied | -17.5pp |
| Implied growth | 7.9% |
| Multiple paid | 16x operating income |
The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 9, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.
Solve inputs: computed at a 9.1% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied operating-profit growth ~6.2pp.
How unusual the bet is: within-range
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.02σ |
| cohort percentile (of 45 peers) | 47 |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is supported by asset-based and earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 0.57x | 5 | justifies |
| Earnings | 0.43x | 3 | justifies |
| Relative | 0.62x | 5 | justifies |
| Growth | 0.70x | 1 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Asset, Earnings, Relative, Growth
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 5.9%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=14)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | — | — | no | Reference only (OCF-based, capex excluded): OCF $1.0B |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $0.00 | — | no | Negative/zero FCF or EBITDA — equity value floored at $0 |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $21.16 | 0.62x | yes | P/E 10x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 7.5x / 10.0x / 12.0x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 6x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $23.17 | 0.57x | yes | BV/sh $9.47, ROE (TTM) 22.6%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $36.12 | 0.36x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $18.85 | 0.70x | yes | Rev $2.3B, growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 1.3x / 1.7x / 2.0x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 6x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $26.52 | 0.50x | yes | EPS $2.21, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=3.07 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $30.53 | 0.43x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.78B × (1−10%) / WACC 5.9% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $33.57 | 0.39x | yes | BV $9.47 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 22.6% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $21.70 | 0.61x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $2.21 × BVPS $9.47) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $16.62 | 0.79x | yes | EBITDA $1.31B × sector EV/EBITDA 6.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $71.31 | 0.18x | yes | EPS $2.21 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $4.42 | 2.98x | yes | BV $9.47 × (ROIC 2.7% / WACC 5.9%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $9.45 | 1.39x | yes | Revenue $2.29B × sector P/S 1.2x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $82.88 | 0.16x | yes | EPS $2.21 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $23.89 | 0.55x | yes | EPS $2.21 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt | $2.9b |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | 7.36x |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | 6.65x |
| Interest coverage | 2.0x |
| Share count CAGR (dilution) | 5.9% |
| Burning cash | no |
Bullet Takeaways
- Comstock is a pure-play Haynesville natural gas producer whose entire value rests on one basin's proximity to Gulf Coast LNG terminals and, increasingly, Texas data centers, with production its filings describe as benefiting from "strong regional Gulf Coast demand growth driven by a substantial increase in LNG exports."
- The defining risk is leverage stacked on a swinging commodity: nearly $3 billion of net debt against a business whose realized price was just $3.46 per Mcfe in Q1 2026 even as the benchmark averaged near $5, the gap driven by hedging losses and wider differentials.
- What to watch is the Western Haynesville power hub, a 5.2-gigawatt project developed with NextEra that could need roughly 1 Bcf per day of gas by 2031, the kind of long-dated demand that would change the basin's economics if it lands.
Bull Case
Valuing a gas producer is its own discipline, and Comstock makes the point cleanly. There is no recurring software margin to compound here. The asset is gas in the ground, and the value is set by where that gas sits relative to demand and how cheaply it comes out. Comstock's answer to both is the Haynesville, which its filings call "a premier natural gas basin located in North Louisiana and East Texas with superior economics given its geographical proximity to the Gulf Coast natural gas market." When LNG export terminals and data centers are being built next to the gas, the molecule does not have to travel far to find a premium buyer.
That demand backdrop is the bull case, and it is arriving in size. The Haynesville is positioned to feed the Gulf Coast LNG build-out, and Comstock has now layered a second demand source on top: a 5.2-gigawatt Western Haynesville power hub, developed with NextEra, that could require nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2031, at an estimated project cost of $16 billion. Long-dated, large-load contracts of that kind are exactly what a commodity producer wants, because they convert a price-taker into a supplier with visible offtake. The company's own returns reflect a good basin run well, with return on equity in the low twenties on a trailing basis.
The valuation is where the bull case gets its margin of comfort. Every method we use to value the business lands above the price. The asset-value methods, the earnings-power methods, and the relative-multiple comparison against the gas sector all say Comstock is cheap relative to what it produces. Production fell in the first quarter on severe winter weather, but management expects a rebound through the rest of 2026, driven by strong late-quarter well results and a ramp in drilling and completion activity. And the ownership structure is a signal in itself: Jerry Jones has put more than $1 billion into the company and holds roughly 71% of it, which means the controlling shareholder's interests are aligned with the equity in a way few producers can match. The bull case is a low-cost basin, two structural demand sources, and a price that pays for less than the assets are worth.
Bear Case
The bear case is that Comstock's basin advantage, real as it is, can be quietly eroded by the two things a leveraged commodity producer cannot control: the price it actually realizes and the debt it has to service. The first quarter of 2026 showed both. The benchmark gas price averaged near $5, but Comstock realized just $3.46 per Mcfe, the gap opened by hedging losses and wider regional differentials. A producer that cannot capture the benchmark when the benchmark is strong has a problem the geology does not fix. The premium-basin advantage the filings tout is being chipped away at the point of sale, where hedges and pipeline constraints decide what the molecule is worth to the shareholder rather than to the market.
The leverage turns that revenue softness into a real risk. Comstock carries close to $3 billion of net debt, and the company says plainly in its own filings that its business "is heavily dependent upon the price of and demand for natural gas," and that the debt forces it to spend cash on "interest on our debt, thereby reducing our ability to use our cash flow to fund working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, dividends and general corporate requirements." That is the structure laid bare: a fixed interest bill on top of a cash flow that swings with a volatile commodity. Trailing operating profit covers interest only about three times, and that coverage is computed in a period of relatively strong benchmark prices. A sustained slide in gas would compress it fast.
The macro variable with the most leverage on the thesis is the natural gas price, and the price does not appear to discount a weak-gas scenario. The methods all say cheap, but they say cheap on trailing economics earned at a particular point in the gas cycle; if realized prices stay below benchmark on hedges and differentials, those economics do not repeat. The Western Haynesville power hub is genuine optionality, but it is a 2031 demand source on a project still being built, and the share count has been rising around 6% a year, so per-share progress has to clear that dilution first. The bear case is not that Comstock is a bad company. It is that a levered, single-commodity, single-basin producer is priced as if the good part of the cycle is the whole cycle.
Valuation
The price is set against a backdrop the methods all read as cheap, but the lens that matters for a gas producer is the realized price, not the headline one. Read backward, today's level pays roughly 16 times company-wide operating income, which implies operating profit growing about 7.7% a year for five years. Keep that approximate; it is one solve. The notable thing is how undemanding it is: the implied pace is within what Comstock has recently delivered, and the price sits below what the asset base supports. The market is pricing Comstock conservatively, not aggressively.
The methods we use to triangulate point the same direction, which is the signature of a value-supported name rather than a growth bet. The asset-value methods, anchored on book value plus a return on equity in the low twenties, land well above the price. The earnings-power methods, which capitalize normalized operating profit, land above it too. The relative-multiple comparison against the gas sector also lands above today's price. When asset value, earnings power, peer multiples, and the growth view all sit above the price, the spread is telling you the business is cheap relative to what it produces, and the only real question is whether what it produces is durable.
Solvency is where the discount earns its keep, and it is the reason the cheapness is not a free lunch. Comstock carries close to $3 billion of net debt, trailing operating profit covers interest only about three times, and that coverage rests on realized prices holding up. The company pays no dividend, so all cash flow goes to the capital program and the debt. The downside is bounded not by net cash, there is none, but by the value of low-cost Haynesville reserves that retain worth across a range of gas prices. The price is low because the leverage amplifies the commodity swing, and the multiple is the market's charge for that amplification, layered on a controlling-owner structure that concentrates both the upside and the risk in one shareholder's bet.
Catalysts
The defining catalyst is the Western Haynesville power hub. Comstock accepted selection to supply natural gas for a 5.2-gigawatt project developed with NextEra that could serve up to 5 gigawatts of large-load demand and require nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2031, at an estimated $16 billion project cost. Firm, long-dated offtake of that scale would convert Comstock from a pure price-taker into a contracted supplier and is the single development most capable of re-rating the basin's economics. Progress milestones on the hub are the things to watch.
The near-term catalyst is the production rebound. First-quarter 2026 results were dented by severe winter weather, with oil and gas sales of $339 million and adjusted net income of $44 million, or $0.15 a share, missing estimates. Management expects production to recover through the rest of 2026 on strong late-quarter well results and a ramp in drilling and completion. Whether the realized-price gap to benchmark narrows as hedges roll and differentials normalize is the cleaner read on profitability than the weather-hit headline.
The overhang is the gas price itself and the leverage underneath it. Comstock realized $3.46 per Mcfe in the first quarter against a benchmark near $5, and the LNG export ramp is the structural demand source most likely to firm prices over time. Analysts hold a cautious consensus, with a Hold rating and a median price target near $19. The company pays no dividend and is controlled by Jerry Jones at roughly 71% ownership, so capital allocation runs through a single decision-maker. The next earnings print is the test of whether the production rebound and realized pricing track the bull case or the bear's concern about leverage on a volatile commodity.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Natural gas and oil E&P (single reportable segment) (reported)
- EQT (EQT Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AR (ANTERO RESOURCES CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- RRC (RANGE RESOURCES CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- CNX (CNX Resources Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GPOR (Gulfport Energy Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- EXE (EXPAND ENERGY CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MTDR (Matador Resources Company)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- BKV (BKV CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
CRK FY2025 10-K, accession 0001193125-26-059001 · Comstock Q1 2026 results · Comstock power hub announcement, 2026 · Comstock Q1 2026 commentary · CRK solvency, latest filings · analyst consensus, 2026 · ownership disclosures, 2026