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Forensic Analysis · Software & SaaS · as of Nov 9, 2026

Cars.com Inc. (CARS)

A forensic read on Cars.com 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
1
Forensic signals
4.1%
ROE
0.6%
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 (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.

Cars.com 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. 1 forensic signal was flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

4.3%
FY2025
Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 4.3% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 0.6-point range. After-tax operating profit was $49M in FY2023 and $39M in FY2025, with operating income at 7.9% of revenue in FY2023, 7.4% in FY2024 and 8.3% 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.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$723.2M
Revenue Growth YoY+0.6%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+2.4%
Net Margin2.8%
Free Cash Flow$125.7M
Return on Equity4.1%
Debt / Equity0.96x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Nov 9, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.

See a wrong number? Report an error with the filing it should match.