Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Aug 11, 2026
California Resources Corp (CRC)
A forensic read on California Resources Corp 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
2.6
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
-10.1
P / E (ttm)
9.9%
ROE
$4.8B
Market cap
3.08%
Dividend yield
14.7%
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 (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.
California Resources Corp earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.6, placing it in the Safe zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.
What the filings flag
+4.0%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +13% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+4.0%/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 ~4.0% 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 FY2022 has been diluted ~11%.
1.1% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.1% of revenue and 7% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.45 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 4.4% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
+11.6%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +11.6% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). 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 inventory up +18% on the year. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 11% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
7.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 7.0% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 20% — around its ~8% cost of capital, so growth is roughly value-neutral.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.67B
Revenue Growth YoY+14.7%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+10.7%
Net Margin9.9%
Free Cash Flow$543.0M
Return on Equity9.9%
Debt / Equity0.35x
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 California Resources Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
94% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $513M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 94% 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 ~120% of free cash flow a few years back. Counting the $39M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 102%.
-96%
FY2014→FY2015
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~96% in FY2015 (from FY2014) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies. Measured on total dividend dollars rather than per share: the reported share count steps sharply around FY2021, a stock-split seam between filing vintages rather than a change in the payout, and a split leaves the dollars paid untouched.
California Resources Corp (CRC) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy