Forensic Analysis · Aerospace & Defense · as of Nov 9, 2026
AeroVironment Inc (AVAV)
A forensic read on AeroVironment 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
Safe
Financial health
4.8
Distress distance
Watch
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
-10.0%
ROE
140.9%
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 (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). 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.
AeroVironment Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 4.8, placing it in the Safe zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by cash conversion.
What the filings flag
-0.25×
FY2024–FY2026
Cash conversion.Over FY2024–FY2026, cumulative operating cash flow was -0.25× cumulative net income before $415.1M of non-cash goodwill impairment. Reported profit is not turning into cash. The shortfall is profit tied up in working capital rather than collected — the accrual and receivables lines below show where.Cash conversion: operating cash flow divided by net income, the share of profit that arrived as cash.
+34.5%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +34.5% relative to their own average in FY2026 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. Net operating assets also rose $2.9B through acquisitions (increase in goodwill and intangibles); that purchase is investing and is excluded from this ratio. The build is led by receivables up +210% against revenue +141% and inventory up +117% against +194% in cost of sales. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 7% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 34.5%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.Accruals ratio: the year-over-year change in net operating assets, relative to their own average.NOA (net operating assets): the money tied up in running the business, operating assets minus operating liabilities.
58d DSO
FY2025→FY2026
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 45 to 58 days FY2025→FY2026 (receivables +210% vs revenue +141%). Receivables are outrunning sales — a flag for aggressive revenue recognition or slipping collections. Only -25¢ of operating cash arrived for every dollar of profit reported over FY2024–FY2026 (-$64.4M against $253.2M), and the receivables balance is one of the places the rest is sitting. Across FY2024–FY2026 the day count ran 36 → 45 → 58 days — the latest step continues a climb that was already under way, which is the persistence that separates a collection problem from a busy quarter. Deferred revenue grew +399% over the same period, but billing ahead of recognition does not account for this one: that pattern leaves the day count steady and the cash arriving early, and here the day count has climbed across the years on file while the cash did not arrive. 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 — FY2025's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2024–FY2026) the average yields only 2 day counts (1 step), too few to tell a climb from one year's move.DSO (days sales outstanding): the average days the company waits to collect cash after a sale.
-8.5%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -8.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2024–FY2026 from 8.0%. After-tax operating profit was $65M in FY2024 and ($246M) in FY2026, with operating income at 10.0% of revenue in FY2024, 5.0% in FY2025 and -15.7% in FY2026. The capital base behind it cannot be compared across FY2024–FY2026: 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. FY2024's operating profit carried a $156M goodwill write-off that took about 17.4 points off that year's return, and FY2026's carried a $241M goodwill write-off that took about 6.5 points off the latest; so, net of each other, the two charges add about 10.9 points to the -16.5-point change across FY2024–FY2026. FY2025's operating profit carried a $18M goodwill write-off that alone took about 1.9 points off that year's return; FY2025 sits between the two ends of FY2024–FY2026, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it. A non-cash write-down lowers the reported return in the year it lands.
+34.0%/yr
FY2024–FY2026
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +80% over the last 2 years to FY2026 (+34.0%/yr). The count is growing — 27.3M shares in FY2024, 49.1M in FY2026: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~34.0% 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 FY2024 has been diluted ~44%.
1.9% of rev
FY2026
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.9% of revenue in FY2026 — about $0.78 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 34.0% a year across FY2024–FY2026 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. 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$1.98B
Revenue Growth YoY+140.9%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+66.1%
Net Margin-13.4%
Free Cash Flow-$140.9M
Return on Equity-10.0%
Debt / Equity0.17x
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 AeroVironment Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?