Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Aug 7, 2026
Chevron Corp (CVX)
A forensic read on Chevron 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
5.6
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
18.3
P / E (ttm)
6.6%
ROE
$371.6B
Market cap
3.76%
Dividend yield
-6.8%
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.
Chevron Corp earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 5.6, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+27.7%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +27.7% 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 sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. The build is led by payables paid down 13% against -9% in cost of sales. 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.
4.7%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.7% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 17% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
150% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $24.8B to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 150% of free cash flow, but 73% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow, with the gap funded by debt or cash reserves rather than the cash the business itself throws off; the payout itself is still covered by operating cash.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$189.03B
Revenue Growth YoY-6.8%
Net Margin6.5%
Free Cash Flow$16.59B
Return on Equity6.6%
Debt / Equity0.21x
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 Chevron Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?