Five Below, Inc (FIVE) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Sep 24, 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.
B · Sound & dependable
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
8.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
20.8
P / E (ttm)
16.4%
ROE
$12.5B
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, 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.
Five Below, Inc earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 8.0, 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 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 inventory up +28% against +21% in cost of sales. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 11% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 19.2%. 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.
8.6%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 8.6% in the latest fiscal year, against 9% in FY2024, having run between 6.8% and 9.2% across FY2024–FY2026 with no direction held. The capital base behind it grew +26% across FY2024–FY2026, from $3.2B to $4.0B, while the return fell 0.6 points, so the dollars added over that window earned less than the 9% the older base was already earning.
-0.2%/yr
FY2024–FY2026
Share count.Diluted share count changed 0% over the last 2 years to FY2026 (-0.2%/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%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+15.8%
Net Margin7.5%
Free Cash Flow$411.7M
Return on Equity16.4%
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 Five Below, Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?