The flag registers
Five named ways to die. Each register lists the companies where one specific disqualifying fact fired, with the figure that fired it.
These are the cheap checks that end most inquiries in seconds. A register is a list of a single kind of fact, ordered by that fact's own size; no score is formed across registers, and nothing here is a verdict on a business — the figure is stated and the reader draws the conclusion, on the company page if the inquiry survives.
From the latest filings · data as of August 17, 2026.
- Restated, or admitted a control weakness 293 companies
The filing itself concedes the books: prior financials restated, or management admitting a material weakness in its controls over reporting. The gravest register, in the company's own words.
- Serial diluters 337 companies
The split-adjusted share count at least doubled across the record — the owner's stake halved by issuance — measured net of splits, with any buyback spend over the same span shown beside it.
- Earnings ahead of cash 71 companies
Reported profit ran persistently ahead of operating cash (the through-cycle accrual gap), corroborated by a manipulation screen of eight balance-sheet ratios or wide enough to stand alone. Sometimes inventory in a real grower; sometimes earnings leaning on estimates.
- Bought their growth 727 companies
Goodwill from past deals at or above all book equity — the business on the balance sheet is mostly the premium paid for other businesses — or acquisitions already conceded by write-down.
- Sells hard, steers past GAAP 15 companies
The MD&A leans on promotional language and non-GAAP figures at rates near the top of the catalog. Not an accounting fact; a reading of how management talks when it reports to owners.
A sixth basket is the publication's own: the records it could not read reliably from the filings, each with its reason. A limitation of ours, not a flag.
Every figure comes from the company's SEC filings and its MD&A, computed the same way as on its page, so a register and the page it links to can never disagree.