Green Plains GPRE
Basic Materials · Chemicals · Synthos Deep Dive · 2026-07-06
The Overview
Green Plains turns corn into ethanol (the fuel blended into gasoline), plus co-products like corn oil and high-protein feed. It's a classic commodity processor: its profit is the "crush spread" — the gap between what corn costs and what ethanol sells for — and that spread swings wildly with markets and government policy.
For six straight years the company lost money. Then, over the last three quarters, it flipped to solid profits — and the stock more than doubled in a year. The catch: a big part of those profits comes through tax credits (government incentives for lower-carbon fuel) rather than from selling more product — revenue is actually shrinking. And after the huge run, the stock now trades almost exactly where Wall Street's average analyst says it's worth.
Here's what our three scores mean in everyday terms:
- Downside Risk 8/10 (high). Commodity spreads, meaningful debt for the earnings power ($326M net debt), profits that depend on policy, and a history of brutal drawdowns (−64% from its past peak).
- Growth Quality 3/10 (weak). Sales are flat-to-down; the profit turn is real but comes from margins and credits, not expansion, and returns on invested capital are near zero.
- Exponential Potential 3/10 (low). There's no acceleration here — the rosy multi-year earnings forecasts rest on a single analyst.
The one big worry: if crush margins roll over or Washington trims the clean-fuel credits, the earnings that appeared in three quarters can disappear just as fast — and a stock that already doubled has a long way to fall.
Putting a number on it: our fair-value estimate is $16.50 against a current price of $14.66 — real upside if our numbers are right.
Our summary metrics
Commodity ethanol crush spreads, earnings that lean on tax credits, TTM interest coverage 0.46×, net-debt/EBITDA 2.6×, six straight GAAP-loss years (FY20–FY25), and a −64% historical max drawdown — the 1.19 beta understates how violently this name actually trades.
Revenue shrank ~15% in FY25 and is forecast roughly flat (~$2.1–2.2B) through 2027; the EPS swing from −$1.80 to +$1.82E is real but credit/tax-line-driven (analyst EBIT stays negative through 2030), ROIC ~0.6%, zero R&D.
The paper EPS ramp ($1.82E 2026 → $4.63E 2030) rests on a single analyst in the outer years, revenue is flat in a commodity TAM, and there is no organic acceleration — a margin/policy story, not an exponential.
What does “fair value” mean?
Fair value is Synthos’s estimate of what one share is worth today, based on our model of the company’s future cash generation and the risks to it. It is not a price target or a prediction of where the stock trades next quarter — it’s the price where we think risk and reward are balanced. Above it, you’re paying for outcomes better than our base case; below it, the market is offering a margin of safety.
The model’s inputs and weightings are proprietary — they’re the product. What we publish is the output, We don’t publish a reverse-DCF cross-check for pre-profit companies — negative or missing earnings break that math — so take this number on our modeling alone.
What do the 5 tiers mean? (Core · Tactical · Watch · Hold · Avoid)
Exponential Potential
The paper EPS ramp ($1.82E 2026 → $4.63E 2030) rests on a single analyst in the outer years, revenue is flat in a commodity TAM, and there is no organic acceleration — a margin/policy story, not an exponential.
What could take this further than the base case — and where the market may be underpricing it. Full forward-growth and acceleration math in Deeper analysis, §4 below.
Deeper analysis
Technicals, fundamentals, valuation, and the full expert-claim evidence panel — the detail behind the numbers above.
Reference table
| Street consensus | $16.50 (high $20 / low $12, median $17; 13 Buy · 6 Hold · 1 Sell) — our anchor this time, labeled as such |
| Valuation | Trailing P/E negative (TTM EPS −$0.22) · 8.6× 2026E · 10.6× 2027E · EV/S 0.76× · EV/EBITDA 10.3× · P/B 1.38× · FCF yield 8.2% |
| Technicals | Cooling — $15.75, −14% off the 52-wk high ($18.25), just below the 50-DMA ($15.92), above the 200-DMA ($13.00), RSI 58, MACD flat; −7% 3-mo vs SPY +15% |
| Conviction | None — 0 KB claims, 0 voices; fundamentals-driven note (honest house standard for screen-surfaced names) |
| Position sizing | None yet — Watch; if triggered, treat as a tactical commodity position, ≤1% |
What the experts actually said
No independent expert claims in the Synthos knowledge base yet for GPRE — this dive is fundamentals- and technicals-driven, not panel-driven.
Price & moving averages 12 months · 50 & 200-day averages · 52-week range
Solid line = price · dashed line = 50-day average · dotted line = 200-day average · the two thin horizontal lines mark the 52-week high and low. Price above both averages is an uptrend.
Data summary: last close $14.66, 8% below the 50-day average ($16), 3% above the 200-day average ($14) — a mixed trend. 24% below the 52-week high of $19, 67% above the 52-week low of $9.
Bollinger Bands 20-day average ± 2 standard deviations
The shaded band widens when the stock gets more volatile. Riding the upper edge = strong momentum (sometimes stretched); the lower edge = weak / potentially oversold.
Data summary: price $14.66 is currently inside the band (band $14–$17).
RSI (14) momentum gauge · 0–100
Above 70 (overbought zone, shaded) = overbought, below 30 (oversold zone, shaded) = oversold. Currently 42.
MACD 12 / 26 / 9 · trend & momentum
The MACD line crossing above the signal line (bars flip to the up color) = momentum turning up; crossing below (bars flip to the down color) = turning down. Bar height = the size of that gap.
Data summary: MACD is currently below its signal line by 0.14, negative momentum.
Relative performance vs S&P 500 & its sector (XLB (sector)), set to 100 a year ago
Solid = GPRE · dashed = S&P 500 · dotted = XLB (sector). A rising line means it is beating that benchmark — the sector line shows whether it is a leader or laggard within its own group.
Forward revenue & earnings actual → estimate · "FY" = fiscal year, "E" = estimate
Darker bars = actual results, brighter = analyst estimates. Taller bars to the right = expected growth.
Key stats an RIA wants
1. What it is
Green Plains Inc. (Nasdaq: GPRE) manufactures, markets, and distributes ethanol, with co-products including distillers grains, ultra-high protein, and corn oil. Per the (dated) FMP profile its operations span three divisions — Ethanol Production, Agribusiness & Energy Services, and Partnership (fuel storage/transport, ~2,300 leased railcars as of the 2021-era description) — though the Partnership was consolidated years ago and recent segment data no longer breaks these out (see the data caveat below). Founded 2004, IPO 2006, headquartered in Omaha, NE; CEO Chris G. Osowski; 923 full-time employees. Fiscal year ends December 31.
Revenue mix — honestly limited data:
- By segment: the last clean segment split in the data is FY2022: Ethanol Production $3.07B, Agribusiness & Energy Services $616M, Partnership $80M — ethanol production ~82% of revenue. FY2023–FY2025 segment data in the pull is incomplete (FY25 shows only a $93.6M "Products & Services Other" line), so we cannot state the current split precisely. Directionally this remains overwhelmingly an ethanol producer.
- By geography: no geographic segment data in the pull (
seg_geois empty). The profile describes domestic and international ethanol distribution; we won't invent a split.
The investment story is not the mix — it's the margin regime change: from six years of GAAP losses to three consecutive profitable quarters, driven by firmer crush economics and large tax-line benefits consistent with clean-fuel production credits.
2. The expert thesis (traceable)
No expert-panel coverage — this note is fundamentals-driven. A search of the Synthos knowledge base returns zero traceable claims on GPRE (0 voices, 0 claims). That is the honest house standard for a momentum-screen-surfaced name: no borrowed conviction, no paraphrased "street chatter" dressed up as expert insight. Everything below is built from the FMP fundamentals, estimates, and technicals pull dated 2026-07-06.
What we can cite is the sell side, clearly labeled as consensus rather than conviction: 13 Buy / 6 Hold / 1 Sell (FMP consensus "Buy"), price targets $12–$20 with consensus $16.50 and median $17 — a narrow band whose midpoint sits ~5% above the price. FMP's own quant letter rating is a C− (overall score 1/5; DCF, ROE, ROA, D/E, and P/E scores all 1/5; only P/B scores 3/5) — a useful reminder that on trailing quality metrics this remains a weak business, whatever the momentum says.
3. Synthos scores & the Bull / Base / Bear cases
The one-glance judgment — three scores, 0–10, each anchored to real metrics (not probabilities we can't honestly calibrate):
| Score | 0–10 | The read |
|---|---|---|
| Downside Risk (lower = safer) | 8 · Very High | Commodity crush-spread economics; TTM interest coverage 0.46× and net-debt/EBITDA 2.62×; GAAP losses every year FY20–FY25; earnings now lean on tax-line credits (policy risk); historical max drawdown −64%; dividend already eliminated (FY23 $22.7M → FY24 $5.2M → now $0). The 1.19 beta flatters a stock that ranged $6.98–$18.25 in 52 weeks. |
| Growth Quality | 3 · Low | Revenue fell 14.9% in FY25 ($2.46B → $2.09B) and is estimated roughly flat (~$2.1–2.2B) through 2027. The margin inflection is genuine (Q1 2026 gross margin 17.1% vs 0.5% a year earlier) but ROIC is 0.6%, TTM ROE −2.0%, R&D is zero, and consensus EBIT stays negative through 2030 — the modeled net income lives below the operating line. |
| Exponential Potential | 3 · Low | 2026E EPS $1.82 → 2030E $4.63 looks like a ramp, but 2027E ($1.49) is below 2026E, the 2028–2030 figures are single-analyst, and revenue is flat in a commodity TAM. A margin/policy re-rating story, not a compounding exponential. |
The three cases (our own scenario model — assumptions shown; each target is a ~12-month fair value). We deliberately do not attach probabilities: the base case is the expected path; the cases bound the range.
| Case | Key assumptions | Fair value |
|---|---|---|
| Bull | Crush margins and credit capture hold; 2026E EPS $1.82 lands and the market pays ~11× on policy-assisted earnings; matches the Street-high target. | ~$20 (+27%) |
| Base (our anchor) | Consensus roughly right — we anchor on the Street's $16.50 (labeled anchor), cross-checked at ~11× 2027E EPS $1.49 ≈ $16.4; the stock digests its +141% year. | ~$16.5 (+5%) |
| Bear | Crush spreads compress or the clean-fuel credit tailwind is trimmed; earnings revert toward the FY20–FY25 loss regime and the stock falls to ~1.0× tangible book (TBVPS $11.49). | ~$11 (−30%) |
Synthos fair value = the base case, ~$16.5 (+5%) — deliberately anchored on Street consensus for a name where we have no expert edge and the earnings model is policy-dependent; our multiple cross-check lands within a dollar of it. Upside to base (+5%) does not compensate for an 8/10 risk score — hence Watch, not Buy. This is a tracked call — the Forecaster Scorecard grades it once it matures.
4. Exponential Potential
Synthos separates compounders (durable high returns on capital) from exponentials (accelerating multi-baggers). GPRE is neither — it is a cyclical margin-inflection trade:
- Forward growth: consensus revenue is flat: $2.11B (2026E) → $2.24B (2027E) vs $2.09B actual FY25. The 2028E jump to $3.6B (and $4.0B by 2030E) comes from one analyst and contradicts the 3-analyst 2027 figure — we treat it as unreliable extrapolation, and say so.
- Acceleration (the 2nd derivative): negative-to-absent. Revenue fell 15% in FY25 and 24% YoY in Q1 2026 ($455M vs $602M). The EPS "acceleration" ($1.82E → $1.49E → $2.88E…) is non-monotonic and thin-coverage — noise, not signal.
- Room to run: a $1.10B cap in a mature, policy-shaped US ethanol market. Optionality exists (ultra-high protein, corn oil, carbon-adjacent economics implied by the credit capture) but nothing in this data quantifies a TAM expansion.
- Reinvestment runway: capex has been cut to maintenance levels (~$37M FY25, 1.4% of revenue, 0.27× depreciation) — good for near-term FCF, the opposite of an aggressive growth ramp.
Exponential Potential: Low (3/10). The stock already had its exponential move (+141% in 12 months); the business underneath is a flat-revenue commodity processor whose earnings quality depends on the tax line.
5. Financials (real numbers — FMP annual/quarterly)
- Revenue: FY25 $2.09B, −14.9% (FY24 $2.46B, itself −25.4% from FY23's $3.30B; peak was FY22 $3.66B). The decline reflects volume/divestiture shrinkage, not growth.
- Quarterly trajectory (the whole story): Q1'25 $601.5M (EPS −$1.14) → Q2'25 $552.8M (−$1.09) → Q3'25 $508.5M (+$0.17) → Q4'25 $428.8M (+$0.17) → Q1'26 $455.2M (EPS $0.48 basic / $0.39 diluted). Revenue down 24% YoY in Q1'26 while gross margin exploded from 0.5% → 17.1% ($3.0M → $77.6M gross profit) — a margin regime change, not a demand recovery.
- Read the tax line carefully. Q3'25 and Q4'25 were profitable only via large tax benefits (pretax −$14.7M and −$15.6M, tax lines −$25.6M and −$28.5M). Q1'26 was the first quarter with genuinely positive operating income ($58.1M; EBITDA $71.5M). Consensus models EBIT staying negative through 2030 while net income is strongly positive — consistent with earnings that flow through credits below the operating line. That is the earnings-quality caveat this whole note hangs on.
- FY25 GAAP: gross profit $38.5M (1.8% margin), operating income −$84.2M, net income −$121.3M, EPS −$1.80. Interest expense $76.7M (Q3'25 alone shows $47.8M — an outsized item vs the $35.2M of cash interest actually paid, so likely including a one-time financing charge; the data doesn't itemize it and we won't guess).
- Cash flow (better than the P&L): FY25 operating CF $101.6M, capex −$37.2M, FCF $64.4M — versus FCF of −$125.0M (FY24), −$51.7M (FY23), −$142.7M (FY22). FY25 also shows +$179.9M on the acquisitions line (i.e., net divestiture proceeds), which funded $206.9M of debt paydown and a $30M buyback. TTM FCF yield 8.2% — the most honestly attractive number in the file.
- Balance sheet: cash $182.3M, total debt $508.4M (incl. $65.2M leases), net debt $326.0M, net-debt/EBITDA (TTM) 2.62×, current ratio 1.71. Equity $766M; zero goodwill/intangibles remain — tangible book value per share $11.49, so the stock trades at 1.38× tangible book. TTM interest coverage 0.46× — EBIT does not yet cover interest; the cash-flow statement, not the income statement, is carrying the balance sheet.
6. Valuation — priced in or room?
Trailing multiples are meaningless (TTM EPS −$0.22, trailing P/E negative). The forward case: 8.6× 2026E EPS ($1.82, 3 analysts) and 10.6× 2027E ($1.49, 3 analysts) — optically cheap, but those are policy-assisted earnings on negative modeled EBIT, so a single-digit multiple is the market charging a fair discount for earnings quality, not mispricing. Supporting marks: EV/sales 0.76×, EV/EBITDA 10.3× (TTM), P/B 1.38×, P/FCF 12.2×, FCF yield 8.2%. FMP's quant rating is C− (overall 1/5). Street targets: consensus $16.50, median $17, high $20, low $12 — the price at $15.75 sits 95% of the way to consensus. The honest read: after +141% in 12 months, the turnaround is largely priced; the residual upside is the bull case ($20, +27%) against a bear case ($11, −30%) — roughly symmetric, which is exactly what a Watch looks like.
7. Technicals (from the tech block)
- Trend: intact but cooling. $15.75 is just below the 50-DMA ($15.92) and comfortably above the 200-DMA ($13.00); the 50 sits above the 200 (golden-cross posture preserved).
- Location: −13.7% off the 52-week high ($18.25) and +125.6% off the 52-week low ($6.98). Historical max drawdown from peak: −64.1% — this name's downside, when it breaks, is severe.
- Momentum: RSI(14) 58 — neutral-positive, no overbought signal; MACD −0.04 — essentially flat, momentum has stalled.
- Relative strength (the tell): +141.2% 12-mo vs SPY +21.1% / QQQ +31.2% and +60.7% 6-mo vs SPY +10.2% — but −7.1% over 3 months vs SPY +14.6% / QQQ +23.6%. The stock has gone from leader to laggard over the last quarter: the momentum that surfaced it on our screen is already fading.
- Read: a mature uptrend in consolidation. The 200-DMA (~$13) is the structural support that matters — a hold-and-turn there is the lower-risk entry the strategic line points at; a decisive break below it would say the margin-regime trade is over.
8. Moat & competitive position
There is no durable moat in commodity ethanol — GPRE is a price-taker on both corn (input) and ethanol (output), and its profitability is the crush spread plus whatever policy support attaches to lower-carbon production. The differentiation the company has pursued (per the profile description) is co-product upgrading — ultra-high protein, corn oil — which raises revenue per bushel but has not, in this data, produced positive returns on capital (ROIC 0.6% TTM; six straight GAAP-loss years through FY25). What GPRE does now have: a cleaner balance sheet ($207M of debt repaid in FY25, zero goodwill), maintenance-level capex, and positive FCF — a leaner cost base into a firmer margin environment.
Peer set (FMP-supplied, market cap): a heterogeneous "Chemicals - Specialty" bucket rather than clean comps — Compass Minerals $1.25B, Cementos Pacasmayo $1.02B, Gevo $0.35B (the only biofuel name), i-80 Gold $1.26B, Koppers $0.91B, Kronos $0.67B, Lightwave Logic $1.14B, Oil-Dri $1.39B, Tronox $0.96B, Westlake Chemical Partners $0.78B. The relevant ethanol/ag-processing cohort (ADM, Valero's renewables arm, Alto Ingredients, REX American) is absent from the supplied list — judge GPRE against that cohort, not this one.
9. Management, capital allocation & guidance
- Leadership: CEO Chris G. Osowski (per the FMP profile). Note the profile text itself is stale (describes the asset footprint "as of December 31, 2021"), so we treat qualitative company-description details with caution.
- Capital allocation — the genuinely encouraging part: FY25 shows $206.9M of net debt repayment, funded by $101.6M operating cash flow plus ~$180M of net divestiture proceeds, alongside a modest $30M buyback at depressed prices and capex held to $37.2M (0.27× depreciation). The dividend was eliminated (FY23 $22.7M → FY24 $5.2M → FY25 $0) — the right call for a levered commodity business, even if it removes the income cushion.
- Insider activity: the most recent Form 4s (filed 2026-06-09) are seven routine director RSU awards of 9,019 shares each at $14.97 on 2026-06-05. No open-market insider buys — and no sells — appear in the data. Neutral signal; nobody with inside knowledge is backing up the truck at $15.
- Guidance: no management guidance is present in this data pull (no earnings-call content on our plan for this name), so none is cited. The estimate revisions embedded in the earnings calendar — Q1'26 actual $0.42 vs a −$0.01 estimate, Q4'25 $0.17 vs $0.09, Q3'25 $0.35 vs −$0.03 — show three consecutive large beats, which is what re-rated the stock.
10. Catalysts & what to watch
- Next earnings: 2026-08-10 (Q2 2026; Street EPS est $0.52, revenue est ~$513M). The two lines that matter: operating income (was Q1'26's $58.1M positive-EBIT quarter the start of a regime, or the peak?) and the tax/credit line (how much of net income is policy).
- Crush-spread economics: corn cost vs ethanol price — the entire margin story. Not in this data pull; monitor externally.
- Clean-fuel credit policy: the below-the-line earnings engine implied by consensus (negative EBIT, positive net income through 2030). Any legislative trimming is the bear case trigger.
- Balance-sheet progress: further debt paydown from the $508M gross / $326M net position; watch interest coverage climbing through 1×.
- Estimate breadth: 2028–2030 numbers are single-analyst; a second or third analyst modeling the out-years (or the first one capitulating) moves the "cheap on 2028E" argument.
Thesis tripwires (what would change the call): upgrade to Buy — Tactical on a hold of the ~$13 area (200-DMA) with a second consecutive positive-operating-income quarter, or a pullback below ~$13 with fundamentals intact; downgrade to Avoid on a credit-policy cut, a return to negative operating income, or a decisive 200-DMA break.
11. Key risks
- Policy / earnings-quality (the dominant risk): consensus has EBIT negative through 2030 with net income positive — the earnings model runs through tax credits. Policy is a stroke-of-a-pen risk that no operational excellence offsets.
- Commodity cyclicality: crush spreads gave this company six straight GAAP-loss years (cumulative net losses of ~$599M FY20–FY25). The current margin regime is quarters old, not proven.
- Leverage vs earnings power: $326M net debt, 2.62× net-debt/EBITDA, interest coverage 0.46× — safe only if the new margin regime persists.
- Revenue shrinkage: −15% FY25, −24% YoY in Q1'26; a company earning more on less can also simply be shrinking.
- Momentum reversal: −7% over 3 months while the market rose 15%; screens that surface on 12-month momentum often catch names just as leadership rolls.
- Estimate fragility: 3 analysts on 2026/2027, 1 on 2028–2030; the out-year EPS ramp is closer to a spreadsheet than a forecast.
- Drawdown history: −64% max drawdown from peak; the 52-week range itself is 2.6× low-to-high.
12. Verdict, position sizing & monitoring
Watch. The turnaround is real — three straight profitable quarters, three big beats, a first genuinely positive operating-income quarter (Q1'26: $58.1M EBIT, 17.1% gross margin), $207M of debt repaid, 8.2% FCF yield, 1.38× tangible book. But the stock has already re-rated +141% in twelve months to within 5% of the Street's $16.50 target, the earnings that justify the forward multiple flow through a policy-dependent tax line on negative modeled EBIT, and the 3-month tape has gone flat-to-negative. Paying up here means underwriting both a young margin regime and Washington. We'd rather own it at a price that pays us for the 8/10 risk.
- Sizing: none today. If a trigger hits (~$13 zone with fundamentals intact, or a second positive-EBIT quarter at a non-extended price), treat it as a tactical commodity position, ≤1% of the flagship with a defined exit below the 200-DMA — never a core holding.
- Monitoring: re-underwrite on the §10 tripwires; formal re-score at each print (next 2026-08-10). This verdict is logged as a tracked Synthos call as of 2026-07-06 at $15.75.
- Single biggest risk: the profit inflection is rented from tax policy and crush spreads — either landlord can raise the rent without notice.
Provenance & disclosures
- Traceability: 0 KB claims, 0 voices — a
\bGPRE\bsearch of the labeled knowledge base returns nothing, so no expert conviction is claimed andkb_net_convictionis null by construction. This note is built solely from the FMP data pull (profile, statements, estimates, targets, grades, insider filings, technicals). - Data as-of: fundamentals 2026-03-31 (Q1 2026, filed 2026-05-07) · estimates & prices 2026-07-06 · expert claims: none. Forward figures are analyst consensus (FMP), labeled as estimates.
- Estimate-breadth caveat: 2026/2027 estimates carry 3 analysts; 2028–2030 carry one — the out-year EPS ramp ($2.88 → $4.63) should be treated as low-confidence extrapolation. Consensus also models negative EBIT alongside positive net income through 2030 (credit-driven earnings) — the central earnings-quality caveat of this note.
- Data-gap caveats: segment revenue for FY2023–FY2025 is incomplete in the pull (last clean split is FY2022); geographic segments are absent; the company profile text is stale (describes the 2021 asset footprint); minor source discrepancies exist (earnings-calendar Q1'26 revenue $445.8M vs income-statement $455.2M; quote 52-wk high $18.94 vs technicals-block $18.25 — the technicals block is used for chart consistency).
- Anchor disclosure: base-case fair value is deliberately anchored on the Street's $16.50 consensus (no expert edge on this name), cross-checked at ~11× 2027E EPS of $1.49; bear case anchors at ~1× tangible book ($11.49). No DCF is presented because credit-dependent, negative-EBIT earnings make a house DCF false precision.
- Not investment advice. Independent research, educational and informational only, never personalized. Hypothetical/forward figures are labeled; the only performance numbers Synthos will headline are the live, real-money Flagship's.
- Version: 2026-07-06. Prior versions available via the deep-dive version dropdown ("based on the info at the time").