Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Sep 25, 2026
Rocket Lab Corp (RKLB)
A forensic read on Rocket Lab Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
13.4
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-233.2
P / E (ttm)
-11.5%
ROE
$44.1B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
38.0%
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.
Rocket Lab Corp earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 13.4, 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
+136.9%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +136.9% 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 sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. The build is led by PP&E up +64% against revenue +38% and inventory up +33% against +23% in cost of sales. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 6% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 136.9%. 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.
-15.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -15.6% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2023–FY2025 from -24.5%. After-tax operating profit was ($141M) in FY2023 and ($181M) in FY2025, with operating income at -72.7% of revenue in FY2023, -43.5% in FY2024 and -38.0% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +103% across FY2023–FY2025, from $573M to $1.2B, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the -24.5% the older base was already earning.
+5.0%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +10% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+5.0%/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 ~5.0% 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 FY2023 has been diluted ~9%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$601.8M
Revenue Growth YoY+38.0%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+56.8%
Net Margin-32.9%
Free Cash Flow-$321.8M
Return on Equity-11.5%
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 Rocket Lab Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 12% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.13 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 5.0% a year and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.