VLO
Daily closes · 1Y (252 sessions) · +147.6% · range 133.38–330.21
The Businesswhat the company reports
Business & cash flow
| OCF / assets | 10.0% |
|---|---|
| FCF / revenue | 4.7% |
| Gross margin | 16.1% |
| ROIC | 8.1% |
| Forward P/E | 11.7 |
This company does not report capital expenditure in the standard filing tag, so free cash flow cannot be derived and FCF/assets is not shown — common for asset managers, REITs, insurers and utilities. OCF/assets is shown instead, and it is the other measure Brown Bear's testing found to survive. Assets are from the latest annual filing (FY2025).
Price vs Earnings growth
Price has run ahead of forward EPS growth by 129.6pp
Confidence 95.0/100
Drivers
| Forward EPS growth | +17.9% |
|---|---|
| Trailing price return (1y) | +147.6% |
| Forward P/E compression | +15.2% |
Figures
| Trailing EPS | 23.97 |
|---|---|
| Forward EPS | 28.27 |
| Trailing P/E | 13.78 |
| Forward P/E | 11.68 |
Revisions
Strongly Improving (+12.6%, 10 dates)
Takeaway Price has moved further than forward earnings growth currently justifies — worth weighing against the rest of the entry case.
Share count
Diluted shares Return since the previous filing
| Direction | Shrinking — shares retired |
|---|---|
| Diluted shares | 298.0M as at 2026-03-31 |
| Change over 1 year | -10.0% |
| Change over 3 years | -27.0% |
| Public float | $41.80bn as at 2025-06-30 (10-K) |
The Pricewhat the chart is doingTop ↑
Price Levels
| Strategy | Fair Value Anchor |
|---|---|
| Reference band | 296.36 — 331.86 |
| Protective stop | 288.16 (Structure, 8.3% risk) |
| Support | 293.80 (3 touches, 12.4% away) |
| Resistance | — (— away) |
Takeaway The shares are about 12.4% above 293.80, a price buyers have stepped in at before. There is no ceiling to point to, because the stock is trading where it has not traded before and nobody has sold it at these levels. That floor has held 3 times, which is how it was spotted. If someone bought at today's price and sold if it dropped through the level below, they would be about 8.3% out of pocket. That is all this figure means — an illustration of the risk, not a price to sell at.
Levels are computed from price structure. They describe where the engine locates support and extension — they are not targets, and not advice.
Ichimoku Cloud (Adaptive)
| Daily cloud | Price ABOVE the cloud | periods 7/21/42 (81% of classic 9/26/52) |
|---|---|
| Lines | Tenkan/Kijun BULL | cloud twist BULL |
| Cloud event | Fresh up breakout 2d ago |
| Cloud thickness | 83% percentile (thick — substantial structure) |
| Chikou span | Above price from 26 periods ago |
| Weekly cloud | Price ABOVE the weekly cloud (context only, not scored) |
Takeaway The stock is trading above its cloud — a shaded band drawn from several of its own moving averages, currently 281.84 to 304.25. Being above it means the medium-term picture is pointing upwards, and that band is the first place the stock has recent support if it slips back. Its shorter-term averages agree with that. The band is unusually wide at the moment, so it marks a broad zone rather than a single level.
Trailing returns
| 21 days | +9.5% |
|---|---|
| 63 days | +33.6% |
| 126 days | +65.5% |
| 252 days | +150.6% |
| Below 252d high | 0.0% |
Trend context
| Position | Far above trend |
|---|---|
| Extension | Extremely extended |
| Trend slope | Rising |
| Direction of travel | Diverging from trend |
Takeaway Extreme upside extension is still moving away from fair trend; chase risk is elevated.
Volatility
| State | In a squeeze |
|---|---|
| Current band width | 10.7% of price |
| Recent tightest | 8.2% (2 sessions ago, narrower than 99.0% of its history) |
| Expansion since | 1.31× |
| Range broken | Up |
| Band | 292.28 — 325.27 |
Takeaway Lately this share price has been swinging around inside a range roughly 11% wide, and it recently went unusually quiet — calmer than it has been 99% of the time. When a stock goes quiet like this, its next move tends to look big by comparison. But quiet says nothing about which way it will go: Brown Bear tested calm-before-a-move as a reason to buy, and it did not work.
Historical trends
History begins when the site started recording, not when the company listed, so a short line means a short record and nothing more.
Repair Pathway
- Nearest Trigger Relative momentum leadership holds already satisfied Track 2 pathway: relative momentum leadership is already present; maintaining it supports upgrade pressure · Broadly stable
- Trigger 2 EMA20 continuation hold already above Track 2 pathway: price is above a rising EMA20; sustained hold would support momentum continuation · Broadly stable
- Trigger 3 Positive 20-day momentum acceleration repair trigger repair engine identifies this as the nearest technical repair catalyst · Broadly stable
- Trigger 4 Volume confirmation above 1.5x +0.50x volume confirmation would improve confidence in the pathway · Broadly stable
Who's Tradingthe flow behind the priceTop ↑
Insider activity
| Activity | No filings in the window |
|---|---|
| Buy filings | 0 |
| Sell filings | 0 |
Open-market Form 4 purchases and sales over the last 75 days, read from SEC EDGAR Form 4. Grants, option exercises, gifts and shares withheld for tax are excluded — they are compensation mechanics, not a decision to buy or sell. Reported Form 4 activity. Brown Bear tested insider cluster-buying as a return signal and rejected it as era-unstable; shown as fact, not signal.
Volume confirmation
| Volume-price trend | Above its signal line |
|---|---|
| Confirmation | Marginal |
No absorption or distribution event in the recent window.
Takeaway Slightly more shares change hands on rising days than on falling ones, but the gap is too small to read anything into.
Options Positioning
No binary-event flag
VLO: no binary-event flag. Near IV 39%, far IV 42% (ratio 0.94), implied move 4.9%.
| Implied volatility | 39% near (9d) · 42% far (128d) |
|---|---|
| Term structure | 0.94× near/far |
| Historical volatility | 34% |
| Implied vs historical | 1.16× |
| Implied move | ±4.9% by 2026-08-21 |
| Implied move vs ATR | 0.48× |
| Skew | Flat (0.98×) |
| Call wall | 360.00 (+9.0% away) |
| Put wall | 280.00 (-15.2% away) |
| Gamma pin | 280.00 |
Takeaway Insuring against a move in this stock costs less for the next few weeks than for the next few months, which is the normal state of affairs and suggests no particular date is worrying anyone. Options traders are positioned for a move of around 4.9% in either direction by 2026-08-21.
Chain as at 2026-08-12. This is a risk read on whether a specific event is being priced — not a directional view.
Context & Methodthe record, and how it was builtTop ↑
Relative Rotation
Leadership Cooling
Rotation health 53.5/100; Mixed Rotation.
| Rotation health | 53.5 |
|---|---|
| Rotation strength | 63.4 |
| Leg | Quadrant | RS-Ratio | RS-Mom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock vs sector | Improving | 86.8 | 113.7 |
| Stock vs SPY | Lagging | 90.2 | 92.9 |
| Sector vs SPY | Weakening | 101.7 | 90.8 |
Direction of travel: North-West / early recovery
Position only. Brown Bear's RRG redesign programme is closed — five constructions, none beat an appropriate null — so this section describes where the name sits, and is not a signal.
News Headlines
- Loading headlines\u2026
Headlines are supplied by third-party feeds and are not written, ranked or interpreted by Brown Bear. They feed no score on this page.
Detailed Scoring
Positive signals
- Piotroski F-score 6/9 (+8.0)
- Altman Z-score 6.73 (+6.0)
- Insider conviction score (+3.0)
- ROIC quality: 8.1% (+0.9)
- FCF margin quality: 4.7% (+1.4)
- Gross margin improving by 12.4 pts (+2.0)
- FCF margin improving by -0.4 pts (+-1.0)
- High earnings quality (accrual ratio -0.060) (+2.0)
- Track 2: MACD histogram state (0.33) (+5.0)
- Track 2: MACD line/signal trend quality (+18.0)
- Track 2: positive MACD trend regime (+10.0)
- Track 2: MACD slope expanding (+2.0)
- Track 2: relative strength trend improving (+10.0)
- Track 2: bullish DI spread 3.8 (+3.0)
- Track 2: relative momentum rank 0.96 (+15.0)
- Track 2: price above EMA20 by 8.1% (+6.7)
- Track 2: EMA20 slope expanding 2.2% (+5.8)
- Track 2: MACD histogram acceleration 2.04 (+12.0)
- Track 2: RSI trend quality 66.6, 5-day change +14.8 (+11.9)
- Track 2: VPT strength 0.11 (+2.6)
- Track 2: price above EMA50 by 15.3% (+12.0)
- Track 2: EMA50 slope improving 4.6% (+6.0)
- Track 2: Bollinger position 1.15 (+8.0)
Negative signals
- Track 2: weak volume for momentum setup (0.97x average)
- Track 2: negative 20-day momentum acceleration (-0.06)
- Track 2: weak/falling ADX (22.0, falling)
- Chase risk 67.9/100 (Exhaustion Risk): RSI 66.6, EMA20 8.1%, EMA50 15.3%, BB 1.15, distribution 4.0/100
- ROIC improving by -1.4 pts (+-2.0)
- Track 2 structural exemption: structural score 20.3/100 below the 25 quality floor; this is an unowned speculative candidate, so the universal SELL gate was skipped and the Track 2 momentum/RRG grid was allowed to evaluate instead. Structural quality here is weak by design for this kind of candidate -- treat any resulting BUY as higher risk than a Track 1 signal.
- Chase risk 67.9/100 | Extension score 32.1/100 | Exhaustion Risk