Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Aug 10, 2026
Friedman Industries Inc (FRD)
A forensic read on Friedman Industries 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
8.8
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
12.8
P / E (ttm)
4.6%
ROE
$317M
Market cap
0.45%
Dividend yield
-13.9%
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.
Friedman Industries Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 8.8, placing it in the Safe zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
1.3%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 1.3% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 23% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+1.6%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +5% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+1.6%/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 ~1.6% 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 ~5%.
FCF ($8M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $1M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($8M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
95d
FY2024→FY2025
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 75 to 95 FY2024→FY2025 (against cost of goods sold; inventory -2% vs -10% in cost of sales). Inventory is building a little faster than sales — watch for markdowns.
-75%
FY2013→FY2014
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$444.6M
Revenue Growth YoY-13.9%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+15.9%
Net Margin1.4%
Free Cash Flow-$8.4M
Return on Equity4.6%
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 Friedman Industries Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 10, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
Dividend — cut.
The payout was CUT ~75% in FY2014 (from FY2013) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.