Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Nov 9, 2026
BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. (BJ)
A forensic read on BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, 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
1.1
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
2
Forensic signals
28.6%
ROE
4.7%
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.
BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.1, placing it in the Distress zone. 2 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of NOA).
What the filings flag
+11.0%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +11.0% 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 faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by PP&E up +25% against revenue +5%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 18% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 11.0%. 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.
12.7%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 12.7% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2024–FY2026, inside a 0.2-point range. After-tax operating profit was $570M in FY2024 and $610M in FY2026, with operating income at 4.0% of revenue in FY2024, 3.8% in FY2025 and 3.8% in FY2026. The capital base behind it went from $4.5B in FY2024 to $4.8B in FY2026 (+7%), while the revenue it carried went from $20.0B to $21.5B. Across FY2025–FY2026, $1.3B went into capital expenditure against $551M of total depreciation and amortisation. The base is struck net of amortisation, write-downs and the current liabilities that fund it, so it moved by less than that spending net of the wear, and this row does not say which of those absorbed the difference.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$21.46B
Revenue Growth YoY+4.7%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+3.7%
Net Margin2.7%
Free Cash Flow$328.0M
Return on Equity28.6%
Debt / Equity0.24x
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 BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?