Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Sep 25, 2026
Insteel Industries Inc (IIIN)
A forensic read on Insteel Industries Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
12.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
15.8
P / E (ttm)
11.0%
ROE
$572M
Market cap
0.35%
Dividend yield
22.4%
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.
Insteel Industries Inc earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 12.0, placing it in the Safe zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+32.7%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +32.7% relative to their own average in FY2025 — 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. The build is led by inventory up +55% against +16% in cost of sales and receivables up +35% against revenue +22%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 5% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 32.7%. 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.
11.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 11.5% in the latest fiscal year, against 11.8% in FY2023, having run between 7.3% and 11.8% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was $32M in FY2023 and $41M in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +30% across FY2023–FY2025, from $276M to $358M, while the return fell 0.3 points, so the dollars added over that window earned less than the 11.8% the older base was already earning.
0.0%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed 0% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (0.0%/yr). Roughly flat — buybacks ($2M) are about offsetting stock comp ($3M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
127% of FCF
FY2025
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$647.7M
Revenue Growth YoY+22.4%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-0.1%
Net Margin6.3%
Free Cash Flow$18.9M
Return on Equity11.0%
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 Insteel Industries Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Sep 25, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
Shareholder returns.Returned $24M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 127% of free cash flow, but 88% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow, with the gap funded by debt or cash reserves rather than the cash the business itself throws off; the payout itself is still covered by operating cash. Counting the $3M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 145%.
-57%
FY2024→FY2025
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~57% in FY2025 (from FY2024). It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.