Clearfield's quality sits below the engine's floor amid declining revenue, notable insider selling, and an elevated put/call ratio, though the recent RSI pullback is framed by the engine as a buying opportunity within an ongoing uptrend.
Thesis pillars
- Declining Revenue→Stable
- Quality Below Floor Value Trap→Stable
- Notable Insider Selling→Stable
- +2 more pillars — see the Why tab for full reasoning
Clearfield, Inc. (CLFD) Stock Analysis
Technology · Communication Equipment
Sell if holding. Engine safety override at $34.79: Quality below floor (2.1 < 4.0) triggers a hard block regardless of the otherwise-positive setup — overall score 3.2/10. Specifically: High short interest: 13%; Elevated put/call ratio: 1.67; Below-average business quality.
Clearfield designs, manufactures, and distributes fiber protection, fiber management, and fiber delivery products that speed up fiber network deployment for broadband service providers, primarily across North America. The company builds most of its products at plants in Brooklyn... Read more
Sell if holding. Engine safety override at $34.79: Quality below floor (2.1 < 4.0) triggers a hard block regardless of the otherwise-positive setup — overall score 3.2/10. Specifically: High short interest: 13%; Elevated put/call ratio: 1.67; Below-average business quality. Chart setup: No clear chart pattern; technical signals are mixed. Score 3.2/10, high confidence.
Passes 5/8 gates (no SEC red flags, news events none recent, earnings proximity 31d clear, semi cycle peak clear, materials cycle peak clear). Fails on weak momentum and favorable risk/reward ratio. Suitability: aggressive.
About Clearfield, Inc.
About Clearfield, Inc.
Clearfield generated net sales primarily from fiber management, fiber protection, and fiber delivery products for the broadband industry, following its November 2025 divestiture of the Nestor Cables business, which leaves the company with a single reportable segment. The company builds and assembles most of its products at plants in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota and Tijuana, Mexico, employing approximately 243 full-time U.S. workers plus roughly 375 contracted Maquiladora personnel in Mexico as of September 30, 2025.
Clearfield sells across five customer categories — national Tier 1 carriers, Community Broadband providers (Tier 2/3 telcos, utilities and municipalities), large regional ILECs, cable multiple-system operators, and international customers in Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America — through a mix of direct sales, distributors and manufacturing representatives. Two distributor customers, identified only as Customer A and Customer B, accounted for approximately 18% and 13% of net sales in fiscal 2025, both down slightly from the prior year. The company competes against larger, better-resourced suppliers including Corning, OFS, AFL Telecommunications, Nokia and CommScope, and describes its edge as serving customers who value the cost savings of its Clearview Cassette design and quick-turn, customized products over large-volume commodity buyers. Some critical components, including injected molded parts, cabling and optical connectors, come from single- or limited-source suppliers, and a portion of final assembly work in Mexico depends on personnel contracted through a single Maquiladora services provider.
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Clearfield's own risk factors flag a concentrated dependency structure on both ends of its supply chain: it warns that it relies on single-source suppliers for critical components such as connectors and optical parts, and separately discloses contracting with a single company to provide the personnel who complete final build and assembly of a significant portion of its products at the Tijuana, Mexico Maquiladora facility. On the demand side, the loss of either top distributor customer, which together represented roughly 31% of fiscal 2025 net sales, would, in the company's own assessment, likely be redirected through other channels, though management concedes there is no assurance such a transition would avoid harming sales or gross margins.
See also: Technology · Communication Equipment
From Clearfield, Inc.'s most recent 10-K filing, extracted July 6, 2026.
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Rating Breakdown
6 floor-breakers
Revenue shrinking — -15.3% YoY. Growth thesis broken unless recovery story develops.static
Ranks in the bottom of its industry peers on the composite signal. Better names in the same sector exist.static
Unprofitable operations — net margin -5.8%. Quality floor flags this regardless of sector context.static
Volatile — 6.9% daily ATR makes tight stops impractical. Position-size conservatively.static
No near-term catalyst priced in. Thesis progression will come from fundamentals grinding, not event reaction.static
Momentum below the gate floor. Component breakdown shows what dragged the score down.static
Price Targets
Position Sizing
Risk Alerts
Earnings
Verdict History
Frequently Asked Questions
Sell if holding. Engine safety override at $34.79: Quality below floor (2.1 < 4.0) triggers a hard block regardless of the otherwise-positive setup — overall score 3.2/10. Specifically: High short interest: 13%; Elevated put/call ratio: 1.67; Below-average business quality. Chart setup: No clear chart pattern; technical signals are mixed. Prior stop was $32.70. Score 3.2/10, high confidence.
Take-profit target: $37.19 (+6.4% upside). Prior stop was $32.70. Stop-loss: $32.70.
Quality below floor (2.1 < 4.0).
Clearfield, Inc. trades at a P/E of 147.7 (forward 23.4). TrendMatrix value score: 5.9/10. Verdict: Sell.
10 analysts cover CLFD with a consensus score of 4.1/5. Average price target: $44.
What does Clearfield, Inc. do?Clearfield designs, manufactures, and distributes fiber protection, fiber management, and fiber delivery products that...
Clearfield designs, manufactures, and distributes fiber protection, fiber management, and fiber delivery products that speed up fiber network deployment for broadband service providers, primarily across North America. The company builds most of its products at plants in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota and Tijuana, Mexico, selling to national carriers, community broadband providers, cable operators, and international customers, with its two largest customers, both distributors, accounting for a combined 31% of fiscal 2025 net sales.