Nisource Inc. (NI) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Utilities · as of Aug 11, 2026
Nisource Inc. (NI)
A forensic read on Nisource 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
0.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
22.8
P / E (ttm)
9.8%
ROE
$20.0B
Market cap
2.77%
Dividend yield
23.5%
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.
Nisource Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.9, placing it in the Distress zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.
What the filings flag
+2.3%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +7% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+2.3%/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 ~2.3% 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 ~7%.
0.8% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.8% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.11 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 2.3% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
FCF ($420M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $530M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($420M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $2.4B — 22% of that. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
+12.6%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +12.6% 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 faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by receivables up +24% against revenue +23% and PP&E up +13% against revenue +23%. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 6% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$6.52B
Revenue Growth YoY+23.5%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+4.4%
Net Margin14.3%
Free Cash Flow-$420.0M
Return on Equity9.8%
Debt / Equity1.64x
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 Nisource Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
4.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.5% in the latest fiscal year and steady — slightly below its ~6% cost of capital — reinvestment is roughly a wash.