Built from weaker models, sales multiples or analyst targets, so treat it as a rough guide.
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Valued as a cyclical company: P/E comparison, Discounted cash flow, and Graham number.
ACCE opinionCheesecake Factory Incorporated (The) Common Stock (CAKE)
Fair value (4 models)
Not available
ACCE price target
$99.00
Rating
Not rated
Horizon
12 months
ACCE price target published on 10 Oct 2026, 00:00 CEST.
Price used: $108 at the close on 23 Oct 2026, 22:00 CEST.
Models: Discounted cash flow, Graham number, and P/E comparison.
Fair value: the average of the applicable valuation models (discounted cash flow, multiples, residual income, dividend discount, shareholder yield), each run on the latest financial statements and the market price shown. Opinion columns (fair value, target, rating) are shown apart from the data. Full methodology: acceinvestments.com/data/how-we-value-stocks
Conflicts of interest: The author holds no personal position in this security. General statement
Produced by ACCE Investments (acceinvestments.com)
Data
ACCE score
64
out of 100
Analysts
21% buy
19 covering
P/E
29.4x
forward 20.8x
1-year return
+93.8%
Dividend yield
1.07%
Cheesecake Factory Incorporated (The) Common Stock in four questions
Plain answers, details below
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Overview
ACCE thesis
Cheesecake Factory runs its namesake full-service restaurant chain alongside the smaller fast-casual North Italia, Flower Child and FRIDAYS brands, with its sales driven mostly by dine-in traffic and a large menu of cheesecakes sold in and out of the restaurants. Its edge is brand scale in casual dining, where a 7.7% revenue growth rate and a 38.8% return on equity suggest the franchise is still earning strong returns on the capital it has deployed. The near-term driver is the growth of the non-Cheesecake concepts, which lets the company add units in new formats rather than relying only on the flagship. The stock trades at 22.6 times forward earnings against a trailing 31.6, so the market is pricing in a meaningful earnings recovery from a thin 7.8% operating margin, and that gap between trailing and forward multiples is the question worth testing. At 5.8 billion dollars of market capitalisation and with no index membership, it is a mid-sized name that sits outside the most-followed benchmarks, which may keep coverage thin and pricing less efficient. Whether the margin recovery is real is the point to check first.
⚠ Investor warnings · 5 flagsAI-assisted·How I use AI
high
Heavy short interest
Short interest sits at 39.3% of float, a very high level that signals strong bearish conviction and raises squeeze and volatility risk for any position.
high
Leveraged balance sheet
Debt/Equity of 7.93 is a stretched capital structure, leaving little cushion if restaurant traffic or margins weaken.
moderate
Price above ACCE target
The stock trades 9.5% above the ACCE price target of $99.00, with the current price at $108.37, so valuation already looks full on our model.
moderate
Score down over 90 days
The ACCE score fell 7 points from 71 to 64 over 90 days, with valuation (V:45) and quality (Q:57) the weakest components.
moderate
Insider selling, no buys
Insiders disclosed $8.94M of sales across the last 10 filings and no purchases, a one-directional signal worth watching.
AI research notes
AI-assisted·How I use AIWritten Oct 18, 2026 · figures from 2026-06-30 · prices to Oct 23, 2026
Why it could do well
Revenue grew 7.7% over the past year, and the five-year average annual growth rate was 13.6%.
Free cash flow over the last twelve months reached $155M, and the diluted share count fell 1.3% last fiscal year.
The latest quarter beat expectations, with earnings per share of 1.44 against 1.17 expected, a surprise of 23.1%.
Why it could disappoint
Return on invested capital is only 3.1%, so the business earns little on the money it puts to work.
At $114.92, the stock trades 9.5% above the ACCE price target of $99.00, and the analysts' mean target of $99.20 sits below the share price.
Only 21% of analysts rate the stock Buy or Strong Buy, and the free cash flow yield is just 2.7%.
Each chip shows the exact figure and where it comes from. A claim without a source is not published.
Next results
Oct 27, 2026
We update the fair value about 2 days after the results, once the new figures are filed.Add to calendarGoogle
Walk me through this stock
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Valuation
INVESTOR
Where CAKE's valuation models land
Price
$108.37
Model fair valueConfidence: low
about $19.06
Model
Fair value
Upside
Discounted cash flow
Graham number
P/E comparison
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Quality
INVESTOR
Quality and conviction INVESTOR FEATURE
The full quality picture: a reason under every score, how the scores moved, and the conviction breakdown.
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+Conviction breakdown and growth / value / quality / momentum scores