Forensic Scores

What is Altman Zone?

The Altman Z-Score read as a verdict: safe, grey or distress.

How it is calculated

Safe when the Z’’ score is above 2.6, distress when it is below 1.1, grey in between.

How to read it

Use it to exclude the distress zone from a screen, then read the score itself for the companies that remain.

Keep in mind

Inherits every caveat of the score: buyback-heavy companies with negative equity land in distress without being in danger, and banks are not scored.

Where the numbers come from

Scrutar computes Altman Zone from the figures each company reports to the SEC in its annual and quarterly filings, using the XBRL data attached to those filings.

More Forensic Scores metrics

Piotroski F-ScoreA nine-point checklist of financial strength: profitability, cash generation, leverage, liquidity, share issuance and operating efficiency, each scored against the year before.How to read it →Altman Z-ScoreA bankruptcy-risk score that weighs working capital, retained earnings, operating profit and book equity against the size of the balance sheet.How to read it →Beneish M-ScoreA screen for manipulated earnings. It looks for the patterns that tend to precede restatements: receivables growing faster than sales, fading margins, softer asset quality, and profits that outrun cash.How to read it →

See it for a real company

Ten years of Altman Zone and every other metric on this page, for every company Scrutar covers, computed from SEC filings.

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