Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. (AQST) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Sep 25, 2026
Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. (AQST)
A forensic read on Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
-4.7
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-7.1
P / E (ttm)
$590M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
-22.6%
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, going concern, valuation). 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.
Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -4.7, placing it in the Distress zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-45.7%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -45.7% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from -30.5%. After-tax operating profit was ($12M) in FY2023 and ($56M) in FY2025, with operating income at -29.9% of revenue in FY2023, -53.5% in FY2024 and -159.5% in FY2025. The capital base behind it cannot be compared across FY2023–FY2025: short-term debt is tagged in one of those two fiscal years and not the other, and an untagged line enters this calculation as zero, so any change in the base would be a change in what the filer tagged.
+32.1%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +75% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+32.1%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~32.1% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2023 has been diluted ~43%.
n/m (sign flip)
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets flipped from negative to positive FY2024→FY2025 (FY2024 $-27.7M to FY2025 $+3.9M) — the standard accruals ratio divides by the average of the two, which collapses toward zero right as the sign changes, so the resulting percentage is a denominator artifact, not a real accrual measurement. Treat this as a structural balance-sheet shift to understand on its own terms rather than a clean or dirty accruals read.
146d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 47 to 146 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables +142% vs revenue -23%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Across FY2023–FY2025 the day count ran 61 → 47 → 146 days, so the latest reading sits on top of a record that was flat or falling before it — one year's move, not a direction the business has been travelling in. Deferred revenue was roughly flat (+4%) over the same period, which doesn't corroborate a benign upfront-billing explanation for the receivables build. Both figures are measured on period-end balances rather than the beginning-plus-ending average, because averaging needs the balance a year before every reading — FY2024's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2023–FY2025) the average yields only 2 day counts (1 step), too few to tell a climb from one year's move.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$44.5M
Revenue Growth YoY-22.6%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-6.2%
Net Margin-188.1%
Free Cash Flow-$53.0M
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 Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Sep 25, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
17% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 17% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.07 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 32.4% a year, and the rate is falling. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.