Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Aug 11, 2026

Academy Sports & Outdoors, Inc. (ASO)

A forensic read on Academy Sports & Outdoors, 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

4.0

Distress distance

Watch

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

7.8

P / E (ttm)

17.4%

ROE

$3.0B

Market cap

1.18%

Dividend yield

2.0%

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.

Academy Sports & Outdoors, Inc. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 4.0, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by inventory days.

What the filings flag

130d

FY2025→FY2026

Inventory days. Days inventory outstanding moved from 116 to 130 FY2025→FY2026 (against cost of goods sold; inventory +15% vs +1% in cost of sales). Inventory is building a little faster than sales — watch for markdowns.

10.1%

FY2026

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 10.1% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 20% — around its ~9% cost of capital, so growth is roughly value-neutral.

105% of FCF

FY2026

Shareholder returns. Returned $234M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2026 — 105% of free cash flow. Right at the limit of what free cash flow covers — little room before it's funded by debt or the balance sheet. That ratio has actually been EASING, not tightening further — down from ~116% of free cash flow a few years back. Counting the $21M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 115%.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$6.05B

Revenue Growth YoY+2.0%

Net Margin6.2%

Free Cash Flow$222.1M

Return on Equity17.4%

Debt / Equity0.22x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.