Norfolk Southern Corporation — Earnings Quality Grade F
NSC · Industrials
Major red flags
Screening Summary
Financial Trends
Revenue & Net Income ($B)
Margins (%)
18-Point Screening
Revenue Quality
DSO 21 days, change -2 days YoY
AR growth -9.1% vs revenue growth 0.5%
Revenue 0.5%, CFFO 7.6%. Cash follows revenue
Expense Quality
Inventory -2.2% vs COGS 2.3%. Normal
CapEx growth -7.4% vs revenue 0.5%. Normal
SG&A/Gross Profit = -1.9%, excellent (<30%)
Gross margin 36.3%, change -1.1pp. Stable
Cash Flow Quality
CFFO/NI = 1.52. Profits backed by cash
FCF $2.2B, FCF/NI = 0.75
Accruals ratio = -3.3%. Low accruals
Cash $1.5B covers only 9% of debt $17.3B
Balance Sheet Health
No goodwill. Clean balance sheet
Debt/EBITDA = 3.0x. Healthy
Other assets 13.7% vs revenue 0.5%. Normal
No write-off data
Acquisition Risk
FCF after acquisitions positive
No goodwill
Manipulation Score
M-Score = -2.70 (< -2.22). Unlikely manipulator
Beneish M-Score
Altman Z-Score
Generated from public financial data using forensic accounting frameworks. Not investment advice. Data: Yahoo Finance · 2026-04-09