Green Plains Inc. (GPRE) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Aug 11, 2026
Green Plains Inc. (GPRE)
A forensic read on Green Plains 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
Distress
Financial health
1.1
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
83.3
P / E (ttm)
-15.8%
ROE
$1.1B
Market cap
0.48%
Dividend yield
-14.9%
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.
Green Plains Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.1, placing it in the Distress zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-4.7%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -4.7% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -7% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+6.7%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +22% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+6.7%/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 ~6.7% 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 ~18%.
0.8% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.8% of revenue and 23% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.25 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 6.7% a year and is falling.
$24M
FY2020–FY2020
Goodwill impairments.Took $24M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2020 ($24M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
-87%
FY2024→FY2025
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~87% 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$2.09B
Revenue Growth YoY-14.9%
Net Margin-5.8%
Free Cash Flow$73.7M
Return on Equity-15.8%
Debt / Equity0.48x
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 Green Plains Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?