Forensic Analysis · Upstream Exploration & Production · as of Nov 10, 2026
Comstock Resources Inc (CRK)
A forensic read on Comstock Resources Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.5
Distress distance
4
Forensic signals
16.2%
ROE
77.0%
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.
Comstock Resources Inc earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.5, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by shareholder returns — halted.
What the filings flag
stopped
FY2023→FY2025
Shareholder returns — halted.Capital returns have STOPPED — $139M of buybacks + dividends in FY2023, but ~$0 in FY2025. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.
8.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 8.9% in the latest fiscal year, against 3.5% in FY2023, having run between -2.4% and 8.9% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was $194M in FY2023 and $533M in FY2025, with operating income at 14.5% of revenue in FY2023, -13.4% in FY2024 and 29.1% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $5.6B in FY2023 to $6.0B in FY2025 (+8%), while the revenue it carried went from $1.6B to $2.2B. Across FY2024–FY2025, $2.4B went into capital expenditure against $1.4B 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.
+3.1%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +6% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+3.1%/yr). The count is growing — 276.8M shares in FY2023, 294.1M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~3.1% 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 ~6%.
1.0% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.0% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.07 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 3.1% a year across FY2023–FY2025, 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$2.22B
Revenue Growth YoY+77.0%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+19.1%
Net Margin17.8%
Free Cash Flow-$449.7M
Return on Equity16.2%
Debt / Equity1.06x
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 Comstock Resources Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?