Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Sep 25, 2026
Daktronics Inc /Sd/ (DAKT)
A forensic read on Daktronics Inc /Sd/ built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
A · High-quality, not compounding
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
8.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
17.3
P / E (ttm)
15.1%
ROE
$849M
Market cap
10.9%
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.
Daktronics Inc /Sd/ earns an A (High-quality, not compounding) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 8.3, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.
What the filings flag
+3.0%/yr
FY2024–FY2026
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +6% over the last 2 years to FY2026 (+3.0%/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 ~3.0% 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 FY2024 has been diluted ~6%.
0.6% of rev
FY2026
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.6% of revenue and 14% of free cash flow in FY2026 — about $0.10 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 3.0% a year and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. 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.
+14.0%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +14.0% relative to their own average in FY2026 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. 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 receivables up +28% against revenue +11%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 2% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 14.0%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$838.7M
Revenue Growth YoY+10.9%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+1.2%
Net Margin5.4%
Free Cash Flow$34.3M
Return on Equity15.1%
Debt / Equity0.04x
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 Daktronics Inc /Sd/'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?