YPF Sociedad Anonima (YPF): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $48.64, YPF Sociedad Anonima (YPF) is priced for +1.1% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-24.

Generated: 2026-08-10 · Exported: 2026-08-12 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/YPF

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

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

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 8% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied operating-profit growth ~6.7pp.

Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~9.4%/yr; the models below use their own rates.

How unusual the bet is: n/a

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value, while asset-based lands below the price. 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.

Families that justify the price: Earnings, Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.7%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=9)

Solvency

Bullet Takeaways

• Shale oil reached 205.4 thousand barrels a day in the first quarter of 2026, up 39.4% on the year and now 76% of the company's oil output, while total lifting costs fell to US$8.8 per barrel of oil equivalent.

• The balance sheet is the constraint rather than the growth assumption: reported net debt stood at US$8,425 million at March 31, 2026 against a capital plan of US$5.5 to US$5.8 billion for the year, and operating profit covers the interest bill only about 2.6 times over.

• The dated event to watch is the VMOS export pipeline, roughly 62% built, with first oil export targeted for January 2027 and full operation in the second half of that year.

Bull Case

"We are going to be a pure unconventional company next year." That is the chief executive describing a transformation already well advanced, and it is the reason the trailing financial statements describe a business YPF is in the process of leaving. The old company was an integrated national oil producer carrying decades of mature conventional fields. The new one is a concentrated Vaca Muerta shale operator with a refining arm attached.

The operating evidence for that shift is not subtle. Shale oil production reached 205.4 thousand barrels a day in the first quarter, a 39.4% increase on the year, and now accounts for 76% of oil output. Costs moved the other way at the same time. Total lifting cost fell to US$8.8 per barrel of oil equivalent, and at the core shale hub it ran at US$4.0. Ninety-seven percent of upstream capital in the quarter went to unconventional assets, and the company has been selling what it no longer wants, collecting roughly US$500 million from the sale of half of Profertil and part of the Manantiales Behr conventional block.

The result reaches the income statement. Adjusted EBITDA came in at US$1,594 million on a 32% margin, up 28.1% year on year, and net income of US$409 million reversed a US$649 million loss in the prior quarter. Refining ran at 102% utilization, a record, throughput of 344.3 thousand barrels a day, which matters because domestic fuel sales are the part of the business that converts Argentine demand into hard-currency margin.

Deleveraging is happening at the same time as the growth, which is the unusual part. Net debt fell 10.2% in the quarter to US$8,425 million and net leverage improved to 1.57 times from 1.87 times, while free cash flow came to US$871 million. Most shale companies buy production growth with the balance sheet. This one is currently funding both.

Then there is the export constraint, which has always been the ceiling on Argentine shale. Barrels that cannot reach a port are barrels that fetch a domestic price. The VMOS pipeline is roughly 62% built, first oil export is targeted for January 2027 at around 180 thousand barrels a day, and YPF has taken additional shipping capacity of 44 thousand barrels a day, bringing its position to 164 of the line's 550 thousand barrels a day. Guidance calls for shale production of about 250 thousand barrels a day by December 2026. The volumes and the pipe are being built to meet each other.

The bear will point to Argentina, and fairly. But one overhang lifted in March: the Second Circuit vacated the US$16.1 billion judgment against the Republic arising from the 2012 renationalization, in a two-to-one decision, having already stayed the lower-court order that would have required Argentina to hand over its controlling YPF stake. The plaintiffs are expected to appeal, so this is a reprieve rather than a resolution. It still removes, for now, the most direct threat to the company's ownership structure.

Bear Case

The priced-in requirement here is unusually mild, and that is exactly what makes the risk easy to underestimate. Today's price implies company-wide operating profit growing only about 2.5% a year. Nobody is being asked to believe in a miracle. The problem is what sits between that operating profit and a shareholder, and in this company the answer is a great deal.

Start with last year, which is the cleanest illustration available. Operating profit for 2025 came in at US$1,740 million, an improvement on the prior year. The company still reported a net loss of US$799 million, and a loss per share of US$2.11 against earnings of US$5.99 the year before, driven by a US$1 billion tax normalization payment and negative financial results. A business can operate well and still deliver nothing to the bottom line when it is domiciled where this one is domiciled. That is not an accounting quirk; it is the structural feature.

Leverage narrows the margin for error. Net debt runs about 5.54 times operating income, and the interest bill is covered roughly 2.6 times over. For a company whose 2026 capital plan is reaffirmed at US$5.5 to US$5.8 billion, that coverage is thin. And shale capital spending is not discretionary in the way conventional maintenance is. Unconventional wells decline steeply in their first years, so the capital program is what holds production flat before it does anything for growth. A period of weak crude prices would not simply reduce cash flow; it would force a choice between the production trajectory and the balance sheet.

The export thesis is also a timing bet with a hard date attached. The pipeline that is supposed to relieve the takeaway constraint is only about 62% complete, with first exports targeted for January 2027. Between now and then the incremental barrels have to find a home in a domestic market where fuel pricing has historically been a political instrument. Growing production into a constrained outlet is how a good well turns into a mediocre realization.

Ownership is the risk that has no operational hedge. The Republic of Argentina holds the controlling stake, and that stake was itself the subject of a turnover order in the long-running litigation over the 2012 renationalization, stayed on appeal before the underlying US$16.1 billion judgment was vacated in March 2026. The plaintiffs are expected to appeal, potentially to the Supreme Court. A minority holder of this company owns a claim on cash flows whose controlling shareholder is a sovereign with its own fiscal priorities and its own litigation docket.

Finally, the asset-based lenses are the ones flashing. The price sits about 2.02 times where the book-value methods land, the only family the price exceeds. Paying twice stated book for a company that lost money last year is a bet on the transition completing, on schedule, in Argentina. The other methods are more generous, but they are generous because they extend recent cash generation forward, and recent cash generation includes about US$500 million of asset sales that will not repeat.

Valuation

At $51.34 the market is underwriting company-wide operating profit growth of roughly 2.5% a year. For a producer growing shale output at nearly forty percent, that reads as conservative, and the reason it reads that way is that the starting point is depressed rather than the assumption being modest.

The evidence for that sits in one comparison. Trailing operating margin runs about 9.4%. Yet the company reported record adjusted EBITDA of US$5.0 billion for 2025 on revenue of US$18.4 billion, which is a materially different picture of the same year. The difference between those two readings is depreciation, and for a company that has spent billions building a shale position that is still ramping, depreciation is enormous relative to the production currently carrying it. Extend the horizon and the price is consistent with that operating margin drifting toward 3.2%, which is the pessimistic end of what the transition could produce.

The methods disagree in a pattern that is the opposite of a stretched growth stock. The cash-flow methods land well above the price, roughly 0.50 times it. The earnings-power lens is further above still at about 0.46. Peer multiples sit close, at roughly 0.91. Only the asset-based methods land below, leaving the price about 2.02 times where they read. Three families say the market is paying less than the cash generation supports; one says it is paying twice stated book. Both are true statements about the same company, and the reconciliation is that book value reflects a legacy conventional asset base being actively sold, while the cash-flow methods reflect the shale business replacing it.

What the cash-flow methods cannot price is the discount rate a sovereign-controlled Argentine issuer genuinely carries. That is not a flaw in the arithmetic; it is the reason the shares trade where they do rather than where a discounted cash flow of the same barrels in Texas would put them. The gap between the two is the country, stated in dollars.

Solvency is where the analysis should end, because it is what bounds everything else. The balance-sheet figures worth working from are the ones the company filed for March 31, 2026: total debt of US$10,117 million against cash and short-term investments of US$1,692 million, for net debt of US$8,425 million, down 10.2% in the quarter, with net leverage at 1.57 times. On the trailing operating figure that debt is about 5.54 times operating income and the interest bill is covered about 2.6 times over, which is the tighter reading and the more conservative one. The share count has been essentially flat, so neither dilution nor buybacks are moving the per-share arithmetic. What moves it is whether the shale ramp outruns the depreciation it is creating, and whether the pipeline arrives before the barrels do.

Catalysts

Second-quarter results are due on August 7, 2026. Two lines carry most of the information: shale oil volumes against the roughly 250 thousand barrels a day the company targets for December 2026, and net debt, which fell 10.2% in the first quarter to US$8,425 million. Those two move in tension, because the capital plan of US$5.5 to US$5.8 billion for the year is what produces the first and consumes the second.

The VMOS export pipeline is the structural event of the next eighteen months. Construction stood at about 62% at the end of the first quarter, with first oil export targeted for January 2027 at roughly 180 thousand barrels a day and full operations in the second half of 2027. YPF added 44 thousand barrels a day of shipping capacity during the quarter, taking its position to 164 of the line's 550 thousand barrels a day. Progress updates on that schedule matter more to the realized price per barrel than any single quarter's production number.

The litigation over the 2012 renationalization remains open in a way that touches the shareholder register rather than the operations. The Second Circuit vacated the US$16.1 billion judgment against the Republic on March 27, 2026, in a two-to-one decision, after previously staying the order that would have required Argentina to transfer its controlling YPF stake. The plaintiffs are expected to seek further review, so the next procedural step in that case is a real event for anyone holding the shares. Alongside it, the continued disposal of conventional assets is the ongoing corporate action: roughly US$500 million was collected in the first quarter from the Profertil and Manantiales Behr transactions.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Core business (reported)

• SUN (SUN)
• FY2025 10-K: …competitive position. Additionally, we face strong competition in the market for the sale of retail gasoline and merchandise. Our competitors include service stations of large integrated oil companies, independent gasoline service stations, convenience stores, fast food stores, supermarkets, drugstores, dollar…
• FY2025 10-K: …and reputation of the facilities owned by the operator. Operators with versatile storage capabilities typically require less modification prior to usage, ultimately making the storage cost to the customer more attractive. On the West Coast, regulatory priorities continue to increase demand for renewable fuels in the…
• DK (DELEK US HOLDINGS, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …RINs at fixed prices and quantities, which are used to manage our RINs Obligation. Additionally, from a sourcing perspective, we often enter into purchase and sale contracts with vendors and customers or take physical or financial commodity positions for crude oil that may not be used immediately in production, but…
• FY2025 10-K: …optimization plan ("EOP") margin enhancements, as well as the impact related to the small refinery exemptions granted supported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA") growth and improved cash flow, while our capital deployment remained aligned with our strategic priorities. The…
• IEP (ICAHN ENTERPRISES L.P.)
• FY2025 10-K: …consumer cyclical sectors of $375 million, offset in part by gains in the utilities sector of $190 million. Energy Our Energy segment is primarily engaged in the petroleum refining, renewable fuels and nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing businesses. The petroleum business accounted for approximately 90%, 91% and 89% of…
• FY2025 10-K: …refined products is less than the volumes subject to the hedging arrangement; ● accidents, interruptions in transportation, inclement weather or other events cause unscheduled shutdowns or otherwise adversely affect its refinery or suppliers or customers; ● the counterparties to its futures contracts fail to perform…
• PBF (PBF ENERGY INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …refiners that import products into the United States and with producers and marketers in other industries supplying alternative forms of energy and fuels to satisfy the requirements of industrial, commercial and individual consumers. Some of our competitors have expanded the capacity of their refineries and…
• FY2025 10-K: …of our competitors have larger and more complex refineries, and may be able to realize lower per-barrel costs or higher margins per barrel of throughput. Several of our principal competitors are integrated national or international oil companies that are larger and have substantially greater resources than we do and…
• IMO (IMPERIAL OIL LIMITED)
• FY2025 10-K: …businesses, selectively investing for resilient and advantaged returns, operating efficiently and effectively, and providing quality, valued and differentiated products and services to customers. The company owns and operates three refineries in Canada with aggregate distillation capacity of 434,000 barrels per day.…
• FY2025 10-K: …and exploration expenditures were primarily related to sustaining activity in support of the company's oil sands and in-situ assets. For the Downstream segment, capital expenditures were primarily for completing the Strathcona renewable diesel facility as well as other refinery and distribution projects to improve…
• SU (SUNCOR ENERGY INC)
• FY2025 40-F: …Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Yes ☒ No ☐ ​ Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an emerging growth company as…
• FY2025 40-F: …99-3. ATTESTATION REPORT OF THE REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM Our independent registered public accounting firm is KPMG LLP , Calgary Canada , Auditor Firm ID 85 . See pages 3 and 4 of Exhibit 99-2. AUDIT COMMITTEE FINANCIAL EXPERT See page 43 of Exhibit 99-1. CODE OF ETHICS See page 14 of Exhibit 99-1. FEES PAID…
• CVI (CVR ENERGY, INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …Coffeyville Resources Nitrogen Fertilizer, LLC ("CRNF"), which is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of CVR Partners. The Petroleum Segment's top customer represented 12% and 13% of its net sales for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively, and its top two customers represented 27% of its net sales…
• FY2025 10-K: …extended period of time, our liquidity and ability to repay our outstanding debt may be harmed and the trading price of our common stock, which has seen recent volatility, may decline. Our businesses face intense competition. The refining industry is highly competitive with respect to both crude oil and other…
• COP (ConocoPhillips)
• FY2025 10-K: …2025 10-K 2 Business and Properties Table of Contents We manage our operations through five operating segments, defined by geographic region: Alaska; Lower 48; Canada; Europe, Middle East and North Africa; and Asia Pacific. For operating segment and geographic information, see Note 22 . We explore for, produce,…
• FY2025 10-K: …countries, was no longer an operating segment. Residual results are aggregated into Corporate and Other. Our historical operating segment reporting has been recast to reflect this change. Our combined Corporate and Other represents income and costs not directly associated with an operating segment, such as most…

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.