Dollar General reported a 107-basis-point gross margin recovery in its FY2025 10-K — but the filing's custom XBRL disclosure reveals that 75% came from inventory shrink reduction, a one-time operational fix with a calculable ceiling. Meanwhile, the WOTC tax credit expiration creates a $0.29-$0.46 EPS headwind that $69M in interest savings from $1.65B in debt paydowns can only partially offset. With ROIIC at -137% and the stock at 20.9x earnings, the filing shows a bridge year — not the steady-state compounder the multiple implies.
Moderna reported a -158% operating margin on $1.9 billion in FY2025 revenue. But the 10-K reveals something the earnings release doesn't: Moderna's mRNA manufacturing platform produces vaccines at a 78.2% core gross margin — 23 percentage points higher than reported. The gap? $472 million in transitional costs that have declined 87% since 2023. With $8.1 billion in total financial assets providing 4.3 years of runway, and two date-certain catalysts (Europe lockout expiry Dec 2026, FDA flu vaccine decision Aug 5, 2026) approaching, the central question shifts from survival to revenue inflection timing.
Natera reported its first quarterly profit in company history — $47.2 million in Q4 2025. But the 10-K reveals $60.6 million came from a one-time tax benefit, $135 million in annual revenue reflects prior-period catch-ups rather than current tests, and $1.17 billion in identified future dilution sits in the footnotes. The profitability transition is real, but it has three layers — and the quality of each determines whether NTRA is a compounder or a value trap.
Fortinet's 80.5% gross margin is one of the highest in enterprise technology. But the FY 2025 10-K reveals a cost inflection that blended margins conceal: service COGS grew 1.5x faster than service revenue, flipping from tailwind to headwind in a single year. Meanwhile, the company sits on $7.05 billion in deferred revenue — more than a full year of sales already paid for but not yet recognized — generating cash 26% ahead of GAAP earnings. With 98.1% of free cash flow consumed by buybacks and a 37-76% CapEx increase guided for FY2026, Fortinet is simultaneously more valuable than its P/E suggests and more vulnerable than its gross margin implies.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals reported $12.0 billion in FY 2025 revenue with an 86.2% gross margin — numbers that suggest a well-oiled biotech machine. But newly disclosed segment data reveals that $1.05 billion of Vertex's $1.65 billion COGS is royalty payments, not manufacturing costs. Strip out the royalties and the real product margin is 95.0%. The problem: Royalty Pharma is now seeking to double the royalty rate on ALYFTREK, Vertex's next-gen CF product — putting $200 million or more in annual EBIT at stake in a company where 98.5% of product revenue comes from cystic fibrosis.
Shopify's gross margins have declined from 50% to 46% over six quarters. Most investors see this as a red flag. But Shopify's FY2025 10-K reveals a counter-intuitive dynamic: as lower-margin Merchant Solutions grows to dominate the revenue mix, operating margins are actually expanding — because it needs dramatically less incremental S&M and R&D. The question is whether fintech risk changes this equation.
Micron Technology reported Q2 FY2026 revenue of $23.9 billion, nearly tripling year-over-year as the AI-driven memory supercycle delivered unprecedented pricing power. Gross margins hit 74.4% — double the year-ago level — while the balance sheet flipped from net debt to $6.5 billion net cash after $4.6 billion in debt prepayments. But the 10-Q reveals a deteriorating risk landscape with new tariff and trade investigation risks, a widening patent litigation front, and $27 billion in FY2026 capital commitments that test whether peak-cycle returns can fund the next generation of capacity.
Our analysis of 2,100+ SEC filers reveals that cost of revenue reporting in XBRL is even more fragmented than revenue. Only 38% of filers use the most common element (CostOfGoodsAndServicesSold), 36% have no standard COGS element at all, and ExxonMobil's $199.5 billion in crude oil purchases is invisible to standard extraction — producing a misleading 100% gross margin.