Practice · graded on a filing

Single-stage DCF — NVDA

Build it from NVDA’s latest annual filing. Every line you enter is checked by code against the filing.

What this drill asks

Compound a base unlevered free-cash-flow figure at a stated growth rate, discount each year at a stated discount rate, take a Gordon terminal value, and sum to an implied enterprise value. Every cell is arithmetic; the model stops at enterprise value and never reaches a per-share number. Every figure you are given comes from NVDA’s latest annual filing and is cited below; the assumptions are handed to you and are never graded. Nothing here is a view on the company.

Match the AI

You–/9

AI model9/9

An AI model worked this exact drill and got 9 of 9 lines right. Match it.

Claude Sonnet 5, given the same filed figures and stated assumptions you see, scored by the same grader. One run, on 2026-09-28, not retried. It does arithmetic on this filing only and never forms a view on the company.

Reconcile NVDA's model from the filed figures below (as of 2026-01-25). Derive each linked line to the dollar — the model must reconcile end to end.

Given (filed figures)

Operating cash flow (FY2026, filed): $102,718,000,000
Interest expense (FY2026, filed): $259,000,000
After-tax interest added back — interest × (1 − 15.1% effective tax rate, filed tax ÷ filed pre-tax income): $219,846,964
Capital expenditures (FY2026, filed): $6,042,000,000
Base unlevered free cash flow (FCFF) — CFO + after-tax interest − CapEx: cash available to debt and equity holders, the flow a WACC discounts: $96,895,846,964

Stated assumptions — given to you, not filed

Annual FCF growth (stated assumption — not a filed figure): 5%
Discount rate / WACC (stated assumption — not a filed figure): 9%
Terminal growth (stated assumption — not a filed figure): 2.5%
Projection horizon (stated assumption): 3 years

Derive the linked lines

Year 1 projected free cash flow — grow the base at 5%Year 2 projected free cash flow — grow the base at 5%Year 3 projected free cash flow — grow the base at 5%Present value of year 1 — discount at 9% for 1 yearPresent value of year 2 — discount at 9% for 2 yearsPresent value of year 3 — discount at 9% for 3 yearsTerminal value at year 3 — Gordon growth: year 3 FCF × (1 + 2.5%) ÷ (9% − 2.5%)Present value of the terminal value — discount at 9% for 3 yearsImplied enterprise value — sum the discounted cash flows and the discounted terminal value

NVIDIA CORP 10-K (FY2026, period ended 2026-01-25), accession 0001045810-26-000021, via SEC EDGAR

Educational use only — not investment advice.

In the interview

“Walk me through a DCF.”

The 30-second answer

Project the company's unlevered free cash flow for a few years, discount each year back at the weighted average cost of capital, add a terminal value for everything after the projection, discounted the same way, and the sum is enterprise value. Unlevered, because the cash flow belongs to debt and equity holders together, which is why the rate is the WACC.

Why it works: A dollar in year three counts for less today because you could have invested it in the meantime. Discounting at the WACC asks what the cash flows mean today to everyone who funded the business. Most of the value usually sits in the terminal value, which is why the growth and discount assumptions matter so much.
The common trap: Discounting the terminal value for one year fewer or one more than the final projection year. The terminal value sits at the end of year N, so it takes N years of discounting, the same as the last year's cash flow.

The full mechanics · 6 steps

01Start from unlevered free cash flow: cash from operations, plus after-tax interest, less capital expenditure.
02Grow it at the stated rate for each projection year.
03Discount year t by (1 + discount rate) to the power t.
04Terminal value = final-year cash flow × (1 + terminal growth) ÷ (discount rate − terminal growth).
05Discount the terminal value by the same N years as the final cash flow.
06Enterprise value is the sum of the discounted cash flows and the discounted terminal value.

Comes up inIB first-round technicalsIB superdayModeling testEquity research case

How this is graded

Operating cash flow, interest expense, the effective tax rate and capital expenditures, as filed in the latest annual report, bridged to unlevered free cash flow (CFO + after-tax interest − CapEx). Each cell is checked against the value the same pipeline derives from that filing, inside a small tolerance band, and the model has to reconcile end to end. There is no language model in the grade — it is arithmetic over filed figures, so it returns the same verdict every time. The correct values are not in this page: they are recomputed on the server when you submit, and your entries are read as a submission, never as the answer.

Every attempt ends in a review. Each line is marked Best, Inaccuracy, Mistake or Blunder by how far it is off, and the first line that went wrong is flagged, so an error carried through the rest of the model is fixed once, where it started.

Signed out, nothing is recorded: work it as many times as you like. Signed in, each graded attempt is saved to your account so your dashboard can track it.

The same model, other filers

Each one is built from that company's own annual filing and graded the same way.

MSFT · single-stage dcf GOOGL · single-stage dcf AMZN · single-stage dcf

Other models on NVDA

NVDA · accretion / dilution NVDA · comps (fundamentals)NVDA · dcf sensitivity grid NVDA · ebitda bridge NVDA · basic lbo NVDA · three-statement linkage NVDA · wacc build-up

Terms this model is built from

Enterprise value Free cash flow walk Capital expenditures

Educational use only — not investment advice. Figures come from public SEC filings; Echelon teaches you to analyze data, it never recommends buying or selling any security.

“Walk me through a DCF.”

The 30-second answer

Why it works

A dollar in year three counts for less today because you could have invested it in the meantime. Discounting at the WACC asks what the cash flows mean today to everyone who funded the business. Most of the value usually sits in the terminal value, which is why the growth and discount assumptions matter so much.

The common trap

Discounting the terminal value for one year fewer or one more than the final projection year. The terminal value sits at the end of year N, so it takes N years of discounting, the same as the last year's cash flow.

The full mechanics · 6 steps

01Start from unlevered free cash flow: cash from operations, plus after-tax interest, less capital expenditure.
02Grow it at the stated rate for each projection year.
03Discount year t by (1 + discount rate) to the power t.
04Terminal value = final-year cash flow × (1 + terminal growth) ÷ (discount rate − terminal growth).
05Discount the terminal value by the same N years as the final cash flow.
06Enterprise value is the sum of the discounted cash flows and the discounted terminal value.

Comes up inIB first-round technicalsIB superdayModeling testEquity research case

How this is graded

Signed out, nothing is recorded: work it as many times as you like. Signed in, each graded attempt is saved to your account so your dashboard can track it.