Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Nov 9, 2026
Dick'S Sporting Goods, Inc. (DKS)
A forensic read on Dick'S Sporting Goods, 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
Safe
Financial health
3.1
Distress distance
4
Forensic signals
19.4%
ROE
28.1%
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.
Dick'S Sporting Goods, Inc. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.1, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of NOA).
What the filings flag
+21.3%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +21.3% 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 sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. Net operating assets also rose $2.1B through acquisitions (shares issued for businesses); that purchase is investing and is excluded from this ratio. The build is led by PP&E up +70% against revenue +28% and inventory up +47% against +34% in cost of sales. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 15% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 21.3%. 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.Accruals ratio: the year-over-year change in net operating assets, relative to their own average.NOA (net operating assets): the money tied up in running the business, operating assets minus operating liabilities.
9.5%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 9.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2024–FY2026 from 21.4%. After-tax operating profit was $1.0B in FY2024 and $815M in FY2026, with operating income at 9.9% of revenue in FY2024, 11.0% in FY2025 and 6.4% in FY2026. The capital base behind it cannot be compared across FY2024–FY2026: long-term debt is tagged in one of those two fiscal years and not the other, and an untagged line enters this calculation as zero, so any change in the base would be a change in what the filer tagged.
190% of FCF
FY2026
Shareholder returns.Returned $761M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2026 — 190% of free cash flow, but 50% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow because the business is also funding heavy growth capex (usually debt-financed); the payout itself is covered by operating cash — sustainable as long as that spending is genuine expansion, not upkeep. Counting the $124M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 221%.
$5M
FY2024
Goodwill impairments.Took $5M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2024 ($5M)) — about 0% of net income over the span. Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$17.22B
Revenue Growth YoY+28.1%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+15.1%
Net Margin4.9%
Free Cash Flow$400.2M
Return on Equity19.4%
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 Dick'S Sporting Goods, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?