Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Sep 25, 2026
Zebra Technologies Corp (ZBRA)
A forensic read on Zebra Technologies Corp 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
6.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
30.4
P / E (ttm)
11.7%
ROE
$17.6B
Market cap
8.3%
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, going concern, valuation). 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.
Zebra Technologies Corp earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 6.3, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+20.5%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +20.5% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. The build is led by receivables up +16% against revenue +8%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 9% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 20.5%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.
7.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 7.9% in the latest fiscal year, against 7.4% in FY2023, having run between 7.4% and 11.3% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was $426M in FY2023 and $524M in FY2025, with operating income at 10.5% of revenue in FY2023, 14.9% in FY2024 and 13.0% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +16% across FY2023–FY2025, from $5.7B to $6.7B, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the 7.4% the older base was already earning. FY2023's operating profit carried a $98M restructuring charge that alone took about 1.5 points off that year's return, so more than the whole 0.5-point rise across FY2023–FY2025 is that charge leaving the base year rather than the capital earning more.
-0.5%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed -1% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (-0.5%/yr). Roughly flat — buybacks ($587M) are about offsetting stock comp ($163M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$5.40B
Revenue Growth YoY+8.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+8.5%
Net Margin7.8%
Free Cash Flow$831.0M
Return on Equity11.7%
Debt / Equity0.70x
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 Zebra Technologies Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?