Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Nov 8, 2026
GameStop Corp. (GME)
A forensic read on GameStop Corp. 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
7.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
8.1%
ROE
-5.1%
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 (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). 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.
GameStop Corp. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 7.3, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of NOA).
What the filings flag
+177.2%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +177.2% 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 sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. 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 177.2%. 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.Accruals ratio: the year-over-year change in net operating assets, relative to their own average.NOA (net operating assets): the money tied up in running the business, operating assets minus operating liabilities.
+34.1%/yr
FY2024–FY2026
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +80% over the last 2 years to FY2026 (+34.1%/yr). The count is growing — 305.2M shares in FY2024, 549.1M in FY2026: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~34.1% 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 FY2024 has been diluted ~44%.
0.7% of rev
FY2026
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.7% of revenue and 4% of free cash flow in FY2026 — about $0.05 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 34.1% a year across FY2024–FY2026 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
10.7%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 10.7% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2024–FY2026 from -2.6%. After-tax operating profit was ($22M) in FY2024 and $209M in FY2026, with operating income at -0.7% of revenue in FY2024, -0.7% in FY2025 and 6.4% in FY2026. The capital base behind it grew +125% across FY2024–FY2026, from $864M to $1.9B, but the short-term investments inside it — only cash is subtracted from the base — grew $1.1B over the same years, at least the whole increase: no operating capital was added for that return to be earned on, and what the added dollars earned is the securities' yield, not the operation's. $1.4B of the $1.9B base at FY2026 is short-term investments (70.1%) — securities held beside cash, which the base keeps because only cash is subtracted from it; they earn the balance sheet's yield, which is not in the operating profit above, so this rate understates what the operating capital earns. FY2024's operating profit carried a $5M asset write-down that alone took about 0.4 points off that year's return, so about 0.4 of the 13.3-point rise across FY2024–FY2026 is that charge leaving the base year rather than the capital earning more. A non-cash write-down lowers the reported return in the year it lands.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.63B
Revenue Growth YoY-5.1%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-17.0%
Net Margin11.5%
Free Cash Flow$597.3M
Return on Equity8.1%
Debt / Equity0.76x
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 GameStop Corp.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?