Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Aug 8, 2026

Five Below, Inc (FIVE)

A forensic read on Five Below, Inc 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 compounder

Forensic grade

Safe

Financial health

8.4

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

29.0

P / E (ttm)

16.4%

ROE

$13.5B

Market cap

22.9%

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). 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.

Five Below, Inc earns an A (High-quality compounder) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 8.4, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by shareholder returns — halted.

What the filings flag

stopped

FY2025→FY2026

Shareholder returns — halted. Capital returns have STOPPED — $40M of buybacks + dividends in FY2025, but ~$0 in FY2026. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.

+19.2%

FY2025→FY2026

Accruals ratio (% of NOA). Net operating assets grew +19.2% relative to their own average in FY2026 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). 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 inventory up +28% against +21% 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.

8.6%

FY2026

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 8.6% in the latest fiscal year and steady — around its ~9% cost of capital, so growth is roughly value-neutral.

-0.1%/yr

FY2022–FY2026

Share count. Diluted share count changed -1% over the last 4 years to FY2026 (-0.1%/yr). Roughly flat — the count is neither shrinking nor growing meaningfully. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$4.76B

Revenue Growth YoY+22.9%

Net Margin7.5%

Free Cash Flow$411.7M

Return on Equity16.4%

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 8, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.