Forensic Analysis · Trading Companies & Distributors · as of Sep 25, 2026
Aspen Aerogels Inc (ASPN)
A forensic read on Aspen Aerogels Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
-8.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-3.3
P / E (ttm)
-165.4%
ROE
$471M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
-40.1%
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.
Aspen Aerogels Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -8.9, placing it in the Distress zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-140.3%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -140.3% in the latest fiscal year, against -8.0% in FY2023, having run between -140.3% and 8.3% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($39M) in FY2023 and ($299M) in FY2025, with operating income at -20.6% of revenue in FY2023, 12.0% in FY2024 and -139.5% in FY2025. The capital base behind it cannot be compared across FY2023–FY2025: short-term debt and long-term debt are 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.
+8.9%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +19% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+8.9%/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 ~8.9% 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 ~16%.
70d
FY2024→FY2025
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 59 to 70 FY2024→FY2025 (against cost of goods sold; inventory -20% vs -17% in cost of sales). Inventory is building a little faster than sales — watch for markdowns.
3% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 3% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.10 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 9.1% 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.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$271.1M
Revenue Growth YoY-40.1%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+6.6%
Net Margin-143.7%
Free Cash Flow-$4.6M
Return on Equity-165.4%
Debt / Equity0.49x
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 Aspen Aerogels Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?