Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Aug 11, 2026
Advance Auto Parts Inc (AAP)
A forensic read on Advance Auto Parts Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
3.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
78.7
P / E (ttm)
2.0%
ROE
$3.3B
Market cap
1.73%
Dividend yield
-5.4%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Advance Auto Parts Inc earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.2, placing it in the Safe zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-0.8%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -0.8% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 6% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
FCF ($298M)
FY2026
Shareholder returns.Returned $60M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2026, but free cash flow was ($298M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
+17.3%
FY2024→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +17.3% relative to their own average in FY2026 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by payables paid down 13% against -14% in cost of sales. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 4% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
273d
FY2024→FY2026
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 232 to 273 FY2024→FY2026 (against cost of goods sold; inventory +1% vs -14% in cost of sales). Inventory is building a little faster than sales — watch for markdowns. FY2024 and FY2026 aren't consecutive filed years here, so FY2026's opening balance can't be taken from FY2024 — both figures are measured on period-end balances rather than the beginning-plus-ending average, which keeps the two endpoints comparable to each other.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$8.60B
Revenue Growth YoY-5.4%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-3.3%
Net Margin0.5%
Free Cash Flow-$298.0M
Return on Equity2.0%
Debt / Equity1.55x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Advance Auto Parts Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
Advance Auto Parts Inc (AAP) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
-0.0%/yr
FY2022–FY2026
Share count.Diluted share count changed -0% over the last 4 years to FY2026 (-0.0%/yr). Roughly flat — the count is neither shrinking nor growing meaningfully. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
-71%
FY2023→FY2024
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~71% in FY2024 (from FY2023) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.