Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Aug 11, 2026

Veeco Instruments Inc (VECO)

A forensic read on Veeco Instruments 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

9.7

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

136.3

P / E (ttm)

4.0%

ROE

$3.1B

Market cap

-7.4%

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.

Veeco Instruments Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 9.7, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

3.3%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 3.3% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 7% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

FCF ($50M)

FY2018

Shareholder returns. Returned $11M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2018, but free cash flow was ($50M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.

239d

FY2024→FY2025

Inventory days. Days inventory outstanding moved from 214 to 239 FY2024→FY2025 (against cost of goods sold; inventory +12% vs -3% in cost of sales). Inventory is building a little faster than sales — watch for markdowns.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$664.3M

Revenue Growth YoY-7.4%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+0.9%

Net Margin5.3%

Free Cash Flow$53.3M

Return on Equity4.0%

Debt / Equity0.29x

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