Forensic Analysis · Communication Services / Telecom · as of Aug 11, 2026

Telephone & Data Systems Inc /De/ (TDS)

A forensic read on Telephone & Data Systems Inc /De/ 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

2.1

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

28.6

P / E (ttm)

-0.1%

ROE

$3.8B

Market cap

0.44%

Dividend yield

-5.3%

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.

Telephone & Data Systems Inc /De/ earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.1, placing it in the Grey zone. 2 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

-1.2%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is -1.2% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 1% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

+1.3%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share-count dilution. Diluted share count changed +4% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+1.3%/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 ~1.3% 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 ~4%.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$1.23B

Revenue Growth YoY-5.3%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)-39.0%

Net Margin-0.5%

Free Cash Flow$199.4M

Return on Equity-0.1%

Debt / Equity0.17x

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 Telephone & Data Systems Inc /De/'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?

Generate the AI investment read →

No credit card · informational only, not investment advice · see the track record

← Browse all forensic stock analyses

Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.