Forensic Analysis · Consumer Staples / Food & Beverage · as of Aug 11, 2026
Smithfield Foods Inc (SFD)
A forensic read on Smithfield Foods Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
5.5
Distress distance
Watch
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
9.8
P / E (ttm)
14.5%
ROE
$9.7B
Market cap
4.73%
Dividend yield
9.8%
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.
Smithfield Foods Inc earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 5.5, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.
What the filings flag
+1.1%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +3% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+1.1%/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 ~1.1% 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 ~3%.
+11.9%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +11.9% 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 +83% against revenue +10%. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 1% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
9.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 9.6% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 12% — a modest positive spread over its ~8% cost of capital — growth adds value, though not dramatically.
-35%
FY2022→FY2023
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~35% in FY2023 (from FY2022) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$15.53B
Revenue Growth YoY+9.8%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-1.4%
Net Margin6.4%
Free Cash Flow$718.0M
Return on Equity14.5%
Debt / Equity0.29x
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 Smithfield Foods Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?