NSCNorfolk Southern
Is it safe?
Strong, no red flags: a safe balance sheet and steady price behavior.
Financially healthy, low distress risk Altman Z-score, a bankruptcy-risk model from five balance-sheet ratios.
Investment-grade balance sheet. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Relatively steady, low volatility. Worst drawdown -44% · now 10% below its 52-week high.
Against the whole market›
Percentile against every name Ryufin tracks. Higher is better; the tick marks the middle of the market. Context, not one of the checks above.
Where this answer is blind. Altman sits structurally low for utilities and pipelines; Beneish runs high for fast growers, since sales growth alone lifts it; banks and REITs are excluded.
Can NSC take a bad year?
Norfolk Southern carries $15.5B of net debt at 2.85× EBITDA: a load its earnings can carry.
Net debt · as at Q2 2026 · between two and four years of EBITDA, normal for a stable business
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 2.85×
Net debt / EBITDA · 2.50× a year ago · the load is going up
- Altman Z-score
- 2.36
Altman Z-score · grey zone, between 1.8 and 3
- Interest cover
- 5.13×
Interest cover · operating profit covers the interest bill several times over
Details›
- Total debtQ2 2026
- $16.6B
- Cash and short-term investments
- $1.07B
- Net debt
- $15.5B
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $5.45B
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- $4.04B
- Debt / equity
- 1.02×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 3.05×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 24%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −44%
- Below its 52-week high
- 10%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.
Industrials
Ranks #165 of 400 by RyuScore