Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Aug 11, 2026

Diamondback Energy, Inc. (FANG)

A forensic read on Diamondback Energy, 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

2.2

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

187.0

P / E (ttm)

4.5%

ROE

$55.5B

Market cap

2.32%

Dividend yield

35.8%

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.

Diamondback Energy, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.2, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

1.6%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 1.6% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 21% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

+17.9%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share-count dilution. Diluted share count changed +64% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+17.9%/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 ~17.9% 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 ~39%.

0.6% of rev

FY2024

Stock-based comp load. Stock-based compensation ran 0.6% of revenue in FY2024 — about $0.30 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 18.7% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.

-46%

FY2024→FY2025

Dividend — cut. The payout was CUT ~46% in FY2025 (from FY2024). It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$15.03B

Revenue Growth YoY+35.8%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+15.9%

Net Margin11.1%

Return on Equity4.5%

Debt / Equity0.39x

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 Diamondback Energy, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.