Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Aug 11, 2026
Quanex Building Products Corp (NX)
A forensic read on Quanex Building Products Corp 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
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.4
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-4.0
P / E (ttm)
-34.5%
ROE
$968M
Market cap
1.53%
Dividend yield
43.8%
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.
Quanex Building Products Corp earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.4, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-9.4%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -9.4% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 17% — well below its ~8% 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%.
0.2% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.2% of revenue and 4% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.08 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 12.1% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
$377M
FY2019–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $377M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2019 ($75M), FY2025 ($302M)) — about 20527% of net income over the span. A large writedown means an acquisition turned out worth far less than was paid — a real mark against M&A discipline.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.84B
Revenue Growth YoY+43.8%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+14.6%
Net Margin-13.6%
Free Cash Flow$102.3M
Return on Equity-34.5%
Debt / Equity0.97x
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 Quanex Building Products Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?