Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Aug 11, 2026
Natera, Inc. (NTRA)
A forensic read on Natera, 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
Safe
Financial health
10.8
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-235.6
P / E (ttm)
-12.2%
ROE
$45.9B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
35.9%
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.
Natera, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 10.8, 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
+33.7%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +33.7% 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 +53% on the year. This is the third straight fiscal year of building accruals — a multi-year streak is a materially stronger tell than a single year's move. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 28% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
-12.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -12.0% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -61% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+11.6%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +39% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+11.6%/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 ~11.6% 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 ~28%.
26d
FY2017→FY2018
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 21 to 26 FY2017→FY2018 (against cost of goods sold; inventory +52% vs +17% in cost of sales). Inventory is building a little faster than sales — watch for markdowns.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.31B
Revenue Growth YoY+35.9%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+41.1%
Net Margin-9.0%
Free Cash Flow$109.1M
Return on Equity-12.2%
Debt / Equity0.05x
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 Natera, 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.
Natera, Inc. (NTRA) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
15% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 15% of revenue and 325% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $2.59 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 11.6% a year and is falling.