Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Aug 11, 2026
Dnow Inc. (DNOW)
A forensic read on Dnow 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
Safe
Financial health
3.2
Distress distance
Watch
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
-15.4
P / E (ttm)
-4.0%
ROE
$3.0B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
18.8%
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.
Dnow Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.2, placing it in the Safe zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+96.1%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +96.1% 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 inventory up +239% against +27% in cost of sales and receivables up +125% against revenue +19%. This is the fifth straight fiscal year of building accruals — an even longer streak than the 3-year mark that already signals a materially stronger tell. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 15% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
120d
FY2024→FY2025
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 71 to 120 FY2024→FY2025 (against cost of goods sold; inventory +239% vs +27% in cost of sales). Inventory is outrunning what's being sold — a flag for softening demand or obsolescence risk ahead.
-2.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -2.6% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 18% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+2.0%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +6% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+2.0%/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 ~2.0% 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 FY2022 has been diluted ~6%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.82B
Revenue Growth YoY+18.8%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+9.7%
Net Margin-3.2%
Free Cash Flow$134.0M
Return on Equity-4.0%
Debt / Equity0.18x
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 Dnow Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
Dnow Inc. (DNOW) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
1.0% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.0% of revenue and 22% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.25 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 2.1% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
$311M
FY2019–FY2020
Goodwill impairments.Took $311M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2019 ($81M), FY2020 ($230M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.