Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Aug 11, 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
12.6
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
17.4
P / E (ttm)
11.0%
ROE
$627M
Market cap
0.37%
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). 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 12.6, 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
+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 total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. The build is led by inventory up +55% against +16% in cost of sales and receivables up +35% against revenue +22%. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 5% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
11.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 11.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 35% — a modest positive spread over its ~8% cost of capital — growth adds value, though not dramatically.
-0.1%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed -0% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (-0.1%/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
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%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$647.7M
Revenue Growth YoY+22.4%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-7.8%
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?