Mueller Water Products, Inc. (MWA) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Sep 13, 2026
Mueller Water Products, Inc. (MWA)
A forensic read on Mueller Water Products, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
A · High-quality, lumpy growth
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
7.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
15.4
P / E (ttm)
19.5%
ROE
$3.4B
Market cap
1.92%
Dividend yield
8.7%
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.
Mueller Water Products, Inc. earns an A (High-quality, lumpy growth) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 7.9, 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
+12.9%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +12.9% 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 faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by inventory up +9% against +7% in cost of sales. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 2% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 12.9%. 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.
12.7%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 12.7% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 7% — a modest positive spread over its ~9% 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 ($15M) are about offsetting stock comp ($11M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
$23M
FY2022–FY2024
Goodwill impairments.Took $23M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2022 ($7M), FY2024 ($16M)) — about 8% of net income over the span. Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Net Margin13.4%
Debt / Equity0.46x
Free Cash Flow$172.0M
Latest Revenue$1.43B
Return on Equity19.5%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+4.7%
Revenue Growth YoY+8.7%
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 Mueller Water Products, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?