HF SINCLAIR CORPORATION (DINO): what the price requires

At today's price, HF SINCLAIR CORPORATION (DINO) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~5.6 years. 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/DINO

Headline

FieldValue
TickerDINO
CompanyHF SINCLAIR CORPORATION
Current price$81.79/sh
CompositionTransportation fuels 78% / Lubricants and specialty products 9% / Asphalt, fuel oil and other products 5% / Excess crude oil revenues 5% / Transportation and logistic services 0% / Other revenues 3%

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basissegment
Must persist for5.6y

Solve inputs: computed at a 9.1% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~2.1 years.

How unusual the bet is: high

ReferenceValue
cohort percentile (of 45 peers)91
sustained it ~5.6 years at this level28%
implied end-window share0%

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.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset0.95x5justifies
Earnings1.04x4expensive
Relative0.51x5justifies
Growth1.24x3expensive

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 7.8%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=17)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$65.711.24xyesFCF base $1.4B, growth -10% (input: historical growth), terminal g 0.5%, WACC 7.8%, 5yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$90.010.91xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 4.4x / 6.4x / 8.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr
Relative ValuationRelative$140.900.58xyesP/E 18x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 15.2x / 18.0x / 20.8x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 12x
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$73.671.11xyesBV/sh $53.49, ROE (TTM) 12.7%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$85.780.95xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$32.622.51xyesRev $27.6B, growth -15% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 0.5x / 0.5x / 0.6x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$79.921.02xyesEPS $6.66, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=6.00 (Overvalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$86.910.94xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $1.78B × (1−23%) / WACC 7.8% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset$88.320.93xyesBV $53.49 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 12.7% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.3%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$89.530.91xyes√(22.5 × EPS $6.66 × BVPS $53.49) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$161.920.51xyesEBITDA $2.61B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$72.361.13xyesFCF $1396.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings——no—
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$214.900.38xyesEPS $6.66 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$38.552.12xyesBV $53.49 × (ROIC 5.6% / WACC 7.8%)
P/Sales SectorRelative$382.250.21xyesRevenue $27.62B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$249.750.33xyesEPS $6.66 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x
Earnings YieldEarnings$72.001.14xyesEPS $6.66 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$1.7b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)2.38x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)1.84x
Share count CAGR (dilution)0.8%
Burning cashno

Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

One number reframes the whole verdict on HF Sinclair: in the first quarter of 2026, with refining margins soft, the refining segment generated just $55 million of adjusted EBITDA, while renewables produced $133 million, lubricants and specialty $103 million, and midstream $111 million. Read that again. The business the market still prices as a refiner earned most of its profit somewhere other than refining. The standard mental model, a one-trick commodity business that lives and dies on crack spreads, no longer fits cleanly, and the cheap headline multiple is built on the old model. If the refining cycle is the only thing you watch, you miss where the earnings actually came from this quarter.

The diversification is not a slide-deck aspiration; it is doing the heavy lifting precisely when refining is weak, which is the point of diversifying in the first place. Renewables swung from roughly negative $17 million a year earlier to $133 million, helped by narrower feedstock spreads, higher RIN prices, and producer tax-credit recognition. Lubricants and specialty rose to $103 million, and the marketing segment grew branded fuel volume to 325 million gallons from 294 million. Refining itself swung positive, to $55 million of adjusted EBITDA from negative $8 million a year earlier. The 10-K lays out the segment economics in detail, distinguishing renewables and midstream from the refining throughput math, and the quarter shows those segments earning real money on their own.

The capital return underneath is the second pillar of the bull case. Reported net income was $648 million, or $3.56 a diluted share, on revenue of about $7.12 billion, up 12% year over year. The company returned $167 million to shareholders in the quarter, $91 million in dividends and $76 million in buybacks, and has now returned more than $4.9 billion since the Sinclair acquisition, cutting the share count by over 66 million shares. A diversified energy company trading at a deep-value multiple, generating profit across four segments, and returning cash steadily is a different proposition than a pure refiner caught at the top of the cycle.

Bear Case

The price disconnect here is the bull's argument turned on its head: the stock is cheap because the market does not believe the current earnings level lasts. That is the qualitative truth before any ratio. Refining is cyclical, and the recent strength is borrowed from geopolitics rather than earned from structural demand. Distillate crack spreads, the difference between what a refiner pays for crude and what it gets for fuel, spiked to multi-year highs in early 2026 on supply fears, the kind of move history says fades. The 10-K is blunt that this is the central risk, warning that a decline "of crack spreads or price differentials between domestic and foreign crude oils or renewable diesel product margins could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows". A market pricing the stock below most measures of its value is a market that expects the margins to normalize down, not up.

The diversification the bull leans on is real but uneven, and several of this quarter's bright spots carried one-time help. The renewables result included producer-tax-credit benefits and inventory effects; the lubricants segment was lifted by a $53 million inventory gain; and the refining swing to positive territory was aided by a $21 million EPA small-refinery waiver. Strip the non-repeating items and the underlying earnings power is lower than the headline adjusted EBITDA suggests. Renewables in particular depends on a policy stack, RIN prices and tax credits, that can change with an administration or a court ruling, so the segment doing the most heavy lifting is also among the most exposed to forces outside the company's control.

That leaves the balance sheet and the cycle to do the talking. HF Sinclair carries net debt against trailing operating income at roughly one times, with interest coverage around eight, so solvency is not the worry; the worry is earnings direction. The price embeds an operating margin near 1% against the 6.1% the company earned on a trailing basis, which is the market's way of saying it expects a move toward the trough, not the peak. The value lenses calling the stock cheap are anchored on demonstrated earnings, and demonstrated earnings for a refiner at a cyclical high are exactly the figure that mean-reverts. The bet is that the diversified segments hold the floor when crack spreads roll over. The bear simply notes the price already assumes they roll over.

Valuation

Almost every method used to triangulate HF Sinclair lands at or below today's $73.22 price, which is unusual and worth stating plainly. The peer-multiple comparison is the most emphatic, reading the stock as deeply discounted to comparable energy names. The asset-value lens, built from a book value near $53.49 a share plus the company's excess returns, sits a touch above the price, and the normalized earnings-power lens lands just under it. Only the most growth-credulous cash-flow method reaches above the price, and even that is close. The pattern is a value-and-asset-supported name across the board, not a growth bet that needs a story to work.

What the price assumes is the revealing part. Inverted, today's quote embeds an operating margin around 1%, well below the 6.1% the company earned on a trailing basis, which is the market pricing in a move toward the cyclical trough rather than a continuation of recent strength. For a refiner, that is a rational stance: crack-spread-driven earnings at a high are the textbook figure that reverts, so the deep discount is less a bargain hiding in plain sight than the market refusing to capitalize peak margins. The question the price poses is whether the non-refining segments, renewables, midstream, and lubricants, hold enough of the earnings base to make the trough shallower than a pure refiner's would be.

On solvency the picture is comfortable, which matters in a cyclical name: net debt sits near one times trailing operating income, and interest coverage runs around eight times, so the company can keep funding its dividend and buyback through a soft patch without strain. It returned $167 million in the quarter and more than $4.9 billion since the Sinclair acquisition. The decisive variable is not the balance sheet; it is whether the diversified segments cushion the next downturn in crack spreads. If they do, the value methods calling the stock cheap are right. If refining and renewables weaken together, the demonstrated earnings those methods rest on were a cyclical high.

Catalysts

The first-quarter 2026 print showed a diversified refiner holding up in a soft refining market. Reported net income was $648 million, or $3.56 a diluted share, on revenue of about $7.12 billion, up 12% year over year, with adjusted EBITDA of $426 million. The segment mix was the story: renewables delivered $133 million of adjusted EBITDA, up from roughly negative $17 million a year earlier, lubricants and specialty $103 million, midstream $111 million, and refining $55 million, a swing from negative $8 million. Crude charge averaged at the high end of guidance despite refinery turnarounds and harsh winter weather.

The capital-return cadence continued. HF Sinclair returned $167 million to shareholders in the quarter, $91 million in dividends and $76 million in repurchases, declared a $0.50 quarterly dividend payable in June 2026, and has now returned more than $4.9 billion since the Sinclair acquisition. Several segment results carried one-time help, including producer tax credits and inventory gains in renewables and lubricants and an EPA small-refinery waiver in refining, so the underlying run-rate is lower than the headline.

The macro backdrop is the swing factor. Distillate crack spreads spiked to multi-year highs in early 2026 on geopolitical supply fears, a level history suggests fades, and renewables economics hinge on RIN prices and the tax-credit stack, both policy-sensitive. The next several quarters will test whether the diversified segments hold the earnings floor as refining margins normalize, and whether the buyback continues at its recent pace. Those are the events most likely to move the thesis.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Refining / Lubricants & Specialties (reported)

Renewables (reported)

Marketing (reported)

Midstream (reported)

Methodology Note

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

Q1 2026 earnings release

View the full interactive DINO report on boothcheck