Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Nov 10, 2026
Wayfair Inc. (W)
A forensic read on Wayfair 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
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
5.1%
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.
Wayfair Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-766.7%
FY2024
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -766.7% in the latest fiscal year, against -746.8% in FY2023. After-tax operating profit was ($642M) in FY2023 and ($364M) in FY2024, with operating income at -6.8% of revenue in FY2023 and -3.9% in FY2024. The capital base behind it came down -45% across FY2023–FY2024, from $86M to $48M, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on. $42M of the $48M base at FY2024 is short-term investments (89.5%) — securities held beside cash, which the base keeps because only cash is subtracted from it; they earn the balance sheet's yield, which is not in the operating profit above, so the loss on the operating capital is larger than this rate shows. FY2024's operating profit carried a $79M restructuring charge and a $34M asset write-down that alone took about 187.9 points off that year's return, so more than the whole 19.9-point fall across FY2023–FY2024 is that charge landing in the latest year rather than the capital earning less. A non-cash write-down lowers the reported return in the year it lands.
+6.0%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +12% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+6.0%/yr). The count is growing — 114.0M shares in FY2023, 128.0M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~6.0% 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 ~11%.
3% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 3% of revenue and 72% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $2.62 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 6.0% 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$12.46B
Revenue Growth YoY+5.1%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+1.9%
Net Margin-2.5%
Free Cash Flow$464.0M
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 Wayfair Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?