Forensic Analysis · Upstream Exploration & Production · as of Nov 9, 2026
Talos Energy Inc. (TALO)
A forensic read on Talos Energy 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
Distress
Financial health
-0.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
-20.1%
ROE
-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 (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). 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.
Talos Energy Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -0.3, placing it in the Distress zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-8.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -8.9% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 4.5%. After-tax operating profit was $189M in FY2023 and ($443M) in FY2025, with operating income at 14.4% of revenue in FY2023, 8.8% in FY2024 and -31.5% in FY2025. The capital base behind it cannot be compared across FY2023–FY2025: short-term debt is tagged in one of those two fiscal years and not the other, and an untagged line enters this calculation as zero, so any change in the base would be a change in what the filer tagged.
+20.4%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +45% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+20.4%/yr). The count is growing — 120.8M shares in FY2023, 175.1M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~20.4% 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 ~31%.
1.0% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.0% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.11 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 20.4% a year across FY2023–FY2025, and the rate is falling. 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.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.78B
Revenue Growth YoY-9.8%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+10.5%
Net Margin-27.8%
Return on Equity-20.1%
Debt / Equity0.57x
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 Talos Energy Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?