Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Aug 11, 2026
Ouster, Inc. (OUST)
A forensic read on Ouster, 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
6.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
-51.1
P / E (ttm)
-23.1%
ROE
$3.0B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
52.5%
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.
Ouster, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 6.0, placing it in the Safe zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+35.8%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +35.8% 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 PP&E up +214% against revenue +52% and receivables up +55% against revenue +52%. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 12% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
-27.7%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -27.7% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -111% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
stopped
FY2022→FY2023
Shareholder returns — halted.Capital returns have STOPPED — $45,000 of buybacks + dividends in FY2022, but ~$0 in FY2023. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.
n/m (stock split)
FY2022–FY2025
Share count (stock split).Diluted share count changed +217% over the last 3 years to FY2025, but that includes a large one-time change around FY2023 consistent with a stock split or reverse split, not gradual buybacks or issuance — a split changes the count with NO effect on any holder's proportional ownership, so the raw +46.8%/yr figure isn't a real buyback/dilution read here.
24% of rev
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$169.4M
Revenue Growth YoY+52.5%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+60.4%
Net Margin-35.6%
Free Cash Flow-$64.8M
Return on Equity-23.1%
Debt / Equity0.00x
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 Ouster, 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.
Ouster, Inc. (OUST) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 24% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.72 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 23.3% a year and is falling.
$167M
FY2023–FY2023
Goodwill impairments.Took $167M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2023 ($167M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.