MacroView Weekly — 2026-W35 · The Cash-Flow Value Screen

How this screen was built

A one-off edition: instead of this week's price action, a fundamental screen of every US-listed company above $5bn market cap, ranked on what its reported Q1 and Q2 2026 results actually converted into cash.

The three things this screen shows

Where the cash actually is

Three rankings across the full 101-name set, computed from the same reported figures as the sector tables.

Best cash yield — trailing free cash flow as a percentage of market value.

Cheapest on clean earnings — lowest trailing P/E, excluding every company whose GAAP result is distorted.

Biggest cash engines — largest absolute trailing free cash flow, regardless of valuation.

The six that fail outright

Negative free cash flow over the trailing twelve months. Three are regulated utilities funding grid expansion, which the model finances by design; Oracle's is a discretionary bet on renting GPUs.

Payments, exchanges & financial data

The purest toll-booth economics in the market: a fee on volume someone else generates, almost no cost of goods, almost no capital employed. Also where the “value” label breaks down hardest.

V

Runs VisaNet, the card authorisation/clearing rails. Takes a small fee on payment volume; issues no credit and carries no consumer credit risk.

MA

Same four-party card-network model as Visa, roughly half the volume; larger share of revenue from value-added services (fraud, data, consulting).

AXP

Closed-loop network: issues its own premium cards AND runs the rails, so it earns discount fees plus card-fee and lending income. Does carry credit risk.

SPGI

Credit ratings duopolist with Moody's, plus index licensing (S&P 500), market data and commodity price assessments (Platts). Toll-booth on debt issuance.

ICE

Owns the NYSE plus energy/rates futures exchanges, clearing houses, and a large US mortgage-technology stack. Fee-per-trade plus recurring data subscriptions.

MCO

The other half of the ratings duopoly, plus Moody's Analytics (risk data and software). Issuers must pay to be rated to sell bonds at a decent price.

PYPL

Online checkout wallet and merchant acquirer (PayPal, Braintree, Venmo). Takes a cut of transaction value; competing hard with Apple Pay and Shopify checkout.

Banks, insurers & asset managers

Enormous absolute profit at single-digit to low-teens multiples. Free cash flow is not a meaningful measure for a bank — lending and deposit flows swamp the cash-flow statement — so read those blanks as “not applicable”, and judge these on earnings and book value.

BRK.B

Conglomerate: insurance float (GEICO, Gen Re) invested into a wholly-owned railroad, utilities and manufacturers plus a giant listed-equity book. Holds the largest corporate cash pile in the market.

JPM

Largest US bank: retail deposits, cards, the top investment bank and a huge asset/wealth arm. Earns net interest income plus fees.

BAC

Number two US retail bank, the biggest US consumer deposit base, plus Merrill wealth management and a solid markets business.

MS

Investment bank plus the largest listed wealth-management book (E*TRADE, Smith Barney). Fee-based wealth revenue smooths the cyclical banking side.

GS

Investment bank: M&A advisory, underwriting, and a very large trading franchise, plus growing asset and wealth management. Earnings are cyclical with deal flow.

WFC

US-focused retail and commercial bank; huge mortgage servicer. Now out from under the Fed asset cap and buying back stock aggressively.

C

Global transaction bank — moves corporate cash across borders in ~90 countries — plus cards and markets. The long-running restructuring/value case.

BLK

Largest asset manager on earth (iShares ETFs), plus the Aladdin risk platform that most of the industry rents. Earns a fee on assets, not on performance.

CB

Largest listed P&C commercial insurer, skewed to high-end commercial and specialty lines. Disciplined underwriter with a big investment float.

PGR

Direct-to-consumer auto insurer; the industry's best underwriting data and loss ratio. Earns premiums minus claims, plus investment income on the float.

TRV

US commercial and personal property-casualty insurer. Pure underwriting-plus-float model; results swing with catastrophe seasons.

Technology & software

The great divide of 2026. Mature software and services still convert most of their profit to cash; the hyperscalers no longer do, because capex now absorbs nearly everything operations produce.

AAPL

iPhone is roughly half of revenue; the high-margin Services line (App Store, iCloud, the Google search default) is the profit engine and keeps growing.

GOOGL

Search and YouTube advertising fund everything; Google Cloud is now a real profit centre. Ad revenue is ~75% of the top line.

MSFT

Azure cloud, Office/Microsoft 365 subscriptions, Windows and LinkedIn. Overwhelmingly recurring enterprise revenue on multi-year contracts.

AVGO

Custom AI accelerators and networking silicon for hyperscalers, plus a very high-margin infrastructure software book (VMware, CA, Symantec).

META

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp advertising — effectively all of revenue. Reality Labs loses money; AI capex is now consuming most of operating cash flow.

CSCO

Enterprise networking hardware — switches, routers, AI-datacentre fabric — plus security and a growing software/subscription mix (Splunk).

ORCL

Enterprise databases and ERP applications, now pivoting hard into renting GPU capacity (OCI). The AI datacentre build is being funded with debt.

TXN

Analog and embedded chips — the cheap, unglamorous parts in every car and factory. Owns its fabs, so margins are high but capex is heavy and cyclical.

IBM

Hybrid-cloud software (Red Hat), consulting, and the mainframe franchise that large banks and insurers cannot leave. Steady, low-growth, cash-generative.

QCOM

Smartphone application processors and modems, plus a licensing arm (QTL) that collects a royalty on essentially every 5G handset sold.

CRM

The default enterprise CRM, extended into service, marketing, analytics (Tableau) and Slack. Multi-year subscriptions billed up front, so cash lands ahead of revenue.

ADP

Outsourced payroll and HR administration for ~1m employers. Also earns float interest on client payroll funds held between deduction and remittance.

ACN

IT and management consulting at scale — systems integration, outsourcing, now AI deployment. Asset-light, converts almost all net income to cash.

ADBE

Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Premiere), Document Cloud (PDF/Acrobat) and marketing software. ~90% gross margin subscription business; de-rated on AI disruption fear.

INTU

TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma and Mailchimp. Extremely seasonal — the April tax quarter carries the year.

Healthcare & pharma

Where reported net income is least trustworthy this year. Acquisition write-offs and IPR&D charges have pushed several genuinely cash-rich businesses to GAAP losses — the cash column is the honest one.

LLY

Mounjaro/Zepbound GLP-1 franchise driving the fastest growth of any mega-cap pharma, plus diabetes and Alzheimer's. Spending heavily on manufacturing capacity.

JNJ

Innovative pharma (oncology, immunology) plus MedTech devices. Consumer health was spun off as Kenvue. One of two remaining AAA-rated US corporates.

ABBV

Immunology franchise — Skyrizi and Rinvoq now replacing Humira — plus aesthetics (Botox) and neuroscience. GAAP net income is routinely dented by acquired-IPR&D charges.

MRK

Keytruda, the biggest-selling oncology drug in the world, plus vaccines (Gardasil) and animal health. Facing the Keytruda patent cliff at the end of the decade.

UNH

Largest US health insurer plus Optum — care delivery, pharmacy benefits and health analytics. Recovering from the 2025 Medicare Advantage cost blowout.

AMGN

Large-molecule biologics — Repatha, Prolia, Tezspire — plus a biosimilars book and the obesity candidate MariTide. Highly cash-generative, carries Horizon deal debt.

ABT

Diversified medtech: continuous glucose monitors (Libre), cardiovascular devices, diagnostics and infant nutrition. Unusually recession-resistant mix.

GILD

Dominant HIV franchise (Biktarvy, plus long-acting lenacapavir), oncology and liver disease. Very high margins; GAAP earnings distorted by acquisition write-offs.

PFE

Broad pharma portfolio post-COVID normalisation; heavy debt from the Seagen oncology deal. The classic high-yield, low-multiple, show-me pharma story.

BMY

Eliquis (anticoagulant) and Opdivo (oncology) are the pillars, both approaching loss of exclusivity — hence the low multiple. New launches are the swing factor.

MCK

Pharmaceutical wholesale distribution — moves roughly a third of US drug volume on ~1% net margins. Scale and logistics, not pricing power.

HCA

Largest for-profit US hospital operator, ~190 hospitals concentrated in fast-growing Sun Belt markets. Heavy buyback, runs with deliberate leverage.

ELV

Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee across 14 states, plus the Carelon services arm. Same Medicaid/ACA margin squeeze that hit the whole managed-care group.

CI

Mostly Evernorth — Express Scripts pharmacy benefits and speciality pharmacy — with a commercial-only insurance book. Almost no Medicare Advantage exposure.

Energy

The strongest quarter in the screen, and the least repeatable. Treat the June figures as a cyclical peak, not a run rate.

XOM

Integrated major: Permian and Guyana upstream, plus one of the world's largest refining and chemicals footprints. The downstream is what exploded this quarter.

CVX

Integrated major with Permian, Kazakhstan (Tengiz) and now Hess/Guyana barrels, plus US West Coast and Gulf refining. Downstream profit rose ~500% year on year.

COP

Largest pure-play US independent producer — Permian, Eagle Ford, Alaska, plus LNG. No refining, so it is a direct bet on the crude price.

MPC

Largest US refiner by capacity, plus the MPLX midstream stake and Speedway-legacy logistics. Pure leverage to the crack spread — which hit records in Q2.

VLO

Pure-play refiner — no upstream at all — with the largest renewable-diesel business in North America. The most direct crack-spread instrument of the three.

PSX

Refining plus midstream, chemicals (CPChem JV) and marketing. Same crack-spread leverage as Marathon with a larger midstream ballast.

WMB

Natural-gas pipelines, anchored by Transco from the Gulf to New York. Fee-based, take-or-pay contracts — largely insulated from the commodity price.

EPD

The largest US midstream partnership — NGL pipelines, fractionators and Gulf export docks. An MLP, so distributions come with a K-1 tax form.

SLB

Largest oilfield services contractor — drilling, well completion, reservoir software. Sells services to producers, so it lags the oil price rather than tracking it.

EOG

Shale producer with the sector's best-regarded drilling returns and a famously conservative balance sheet. Pays a base dividend plus variable top-ups.

KMI

Largest US natural-gas pipeline network plus terminals and CO2. Toll-road economics on volume, not price; data-centre gas demand is the new growth story.

OKE

Natural-gas liquids gathering, processing and pipelines from the Bakken and Permian to Gulf fractionation. Mostly fee-based after recent acquisitions.

OXY

Permian-weighted producer plus OxyChem and a carbon-capture arm. Still working down Anadarko/CrownRock debt; Berkshire owns a large stake.

Consumer staples & retail

The defensive core: demand that barely moves with the cycle, brands with pricing power, predictable conversion. The trade-off is low growth, and in packaged food, outright decline.

WMT

Largest retailer in the world; groceries are over half of US sales. Thin margins by design, now supplemented by high-margin advertising and marketplace fees.

COST

Membership warehouse club. Sells goods near cost — essentially all operating profit is the annual membership fee, which renews above 90%.

KO

Sells concentrate to independent bottlers and owns the brand and marketing — an asset-light royalty on global soft-drink volume. ~63% gross margin.

PG

Household and personal-care brands — Tide, Pampers, Gillette, Head & Shoulders. Pricing power through brand, sells the same volume in every cycle.

HD

Largest home-improvement retailer, roughly half its sales to professional contractors. Highly geared to housing turnover and mortgage rates.

PM

Marlboro outside the US, and increasingly IQOS heated tobacco and ZYN nicotine pouches — now the growth engine. Addictive product, minimal capex.

PEP

Frito-Lay snacks are the profit engine; beverages are the volume. Owns its bottling, so heavier assets and thinner margins than Coke.

TJX

Off-price retail — TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods. Buys excess branded inventory cheaply; gains share when consumers trade down, so it is counter-cyclical.

LOW

Number two home-improvement chain, more DIY-weighted than Home Depot and pushing to win more professional customers. Same housing cyclicality.

MO

Marlboro inside the US, plus NJOY and a stake in ABI. Volumes decline every year and it raises price to more than compensate. Very high payout ratio.

MDLZ

Global snacking — Oreo, Cadbury, Milka, Ritz. Roughly 40% emerging markets. Cocoa cost inflation has been hammering gross margin.

TGT

General-merchandise retailer weighted to discretionary categories — apparel, home — which is exactly why it has lagged Walmart. Cheapest big-box multiple.

CL

Toothpaste (roughly 40% global share), soap and Hill's premium pet food. Very high emerging-market exposure, so FX moves the reported numbers.

KHC

Packaged food — Heinz, Kraft, Philadelphia, Oscar Mayer. Structurally declining centre-of-store categories; repeated goodwill write-downs are the pattern.

Industrials, defence & transport

Hard assets with real barriers — rail rights-of-way, landfill permits, engine installed bases, multi-decade defence backlogs. Capital-intensive, so cash conversion trails the margin.

CAT

Construction and mining equipment, plus reciprocating engines and turbines now in demand for data-centre power. Aftermarket parts are the margin ballast.

GE

Jet engines — the LEAP narrowbody engine and the GE9X — sold near cost and monetised over decades of high-margin spare parts and servicing.

RTX

Pratt & Whitney engines, Collins avionics and Raytheon missiles/air defence. Roughly half defence, half commercial aerospace aftermarket.

UNP

Western US freight railroad — an irreplaceable right-of-way network. Hauls intermodal, grain, chemicals and coal at ~40% operating margins.

DE

Agricultural and construction machinery with a captive finance arm. Tied to farm income and crop prices; precision-ag software is the margin story.

ETN

Electrical components — switchgear, busways, power distribution — sold into data centres, utilities and factories. The purest listed electrification play.

LMT

Pure defence prime: F-35, missiles (PAC-3, JASSM), space and rotary. Revenue is a multi-year government backlog, which is why it trades cheaply but steadily.

GD

Gulfstream business jets, nuclear submarines (Virginia and Columbia class), combat vehicles and IT services. The submarine backlog runs into the 2040s.

CSX

Eastern US railroad serving the Southeast and Atlantic ports. Same regulated-monopoly network economics as Union Pacific, on a smaller footprint.

UPS

Global parcel network. Deliberately shedding low-margin Amazon volume while cutting capacity; margins and cash flow are under real pressure right now.

WM

North American waste collection and landfill. Landfill permits are nearly impossible to obtain, so pricing rises above inflation every year. Recession-proof.

NSC

The other eastern railroad, overlapping CSX. Has been closing an operating-ratio gap to peers since the 2023 East Palestine derailment.

NOC

B-21 stealth bomber, Sentinel ICBM replacement, space systems and defence electronics. The most classified-programme-weighted of the primes.

Telecom & media

The deepest value in the screen on a cash basis: flat-to-shrinking businesses priced as though they are dying, throwing off very large free cash flow in the meantime.

VZ

Largest US wireless network by revenue, plus fixed wireless broadband. Highest dividend yield among mega-caps; subscriber growth is the perennial worry.

TMUS

Best US mid-band 5G spectrum position after the Sprint merger; has been taking subscriber share from both rivals while converting a high share of revenue to cash.

DIS

Theme parks and cruise ships (the profit centre), studios, ESPN and Disney+. Streaming has turned profitable; linear TV decline is the offset.

T

US wireless carrier plus a growing fibre broadband footprint. Post-restructuring it is a simple, heavily indebted, cash-returning utility-like business.

CMCSA

Largest US cable broadband operator, plus NBCUniversal, Sky and the theme parks. Broadband subscribers are shrinking, which is why the multiple is so low.

Materials

Split between contracted industrial gases, which behave almost like utilities, and the miners, which are direct commodity bets. Gold has been the standout.

LIN

Largest industrial gases company — oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen — supplied on 15-year take-or-pay contracts with on-site plants. Near-utility predictability.

NEM

Largest gold miner in the world, with copper by-product. Costs are broadly fixed, so a high gold price drops almost straight through to cash flow.

FCX

One of the largest listed copper producers — Grasberg in Indonesia, plus Arizona and Peru. Direct leverage to the copper price and electrification demand.

SHW

Paint — sold mostly through its own ~5,000 company-owned stores to professional painters, which is the moat. Tied to housing turnover and repaint cycles.

APD

Industrial gases like Linde, but with a much heavier bet on large hydrogen megaprojects — which is why capex has swamped cash flow and the multiple has fallen.

Utilities

Included to be explicit about a negative result: as a group they fail this screen. Every one below has burned cash over the trailing year, funding data-centre-driven grid capex with debt and equity. They are regulated-earnings and dividend vehicles, not cash generators.

NEE

Florida Power & Light (regulated) plus the largest US wind and solar developer. Growth utility, funded by continuous debt and equity issuance.

SO

Regulated utility in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi; operates Vogtle, the only new US nuclear units. Serving heavy Atlanta-area data-centre demand.

DUK

Regulated electric and gas utility across the Carolinas, Florida, Indiana and Ohio. Earnings are set by rate cases; data-centre load growth is the tailwind.

D

Regulated utility in Virginia — home to the largest data-centre cluster on earth — plus offshore wind construction. Capex is running well ahead of cash flow.