Forensic Analysis · Transportation / Logistics · as of Sep 25, 2026
Covenant Logistics Group, Inc. (CVLG)
A forensic read on Covenant Logistics Group, 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
Grey Zone
Financial health
2.5
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
226.3
P / E (ttm)
1.8%
ROE
$867M
Market cap
1.02%
Dividend yield
2.9%
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 (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). 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.
Covenant Logistics Group, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.5, placing it in the Grey zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
0.3%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 0.3% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 5.4%. After-tax operating profit was $44M in FY2023 and $2M in FY2025, with operating income at 5.3% of revenue in FY2023, 4.0% in FY2024 and 0.3% in FY2025. The capital base behind it barely moved across FY2023–FY2025 ($830M to $895M, +8%), so there has been little new capital for that return to be earned on. FY2025's operating profit carried a $11M goodwill write-off that alone took about 0.9 points off that year's return, so about 0.9 of the 5.1-point fall across FY2023–FY2025 is that charge landing in the latest year rather than the capital earning less.
FCF ($34M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $44M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($34M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $114M — 38% of that. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
$11M
FY2025–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $11M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2025 ($11M)) — about 148% of net income over the span. A large writedown means an acquisition turned out worth far less than was paid — a real mark against M&A discipline.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.16B
Revenue Growth YoY+2.9%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+2.7%
Net Margin0.6%
Free Cash Flow-$33.9M
Return on Equity1.8%
Debt / Equity0.74x
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 Covenant Logistics Group, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?