Aqua Metals Inc. Common Stock (AQMS)

FairStock Score: 68/100 — STEADY

Key Financials

AI Analysis

AI-generated, general educational analysis — not personal investment advice.

I approach Aqua Metals as a pre-commercial technology venture, not a mature waste-management business. AquaRefining aims to recover critical minerals from battery and metal-bearing feedstocks using a closed-loop electro-hydrometallurgical process, and those markets may be real. But the filed figures show almost no commercial traction: FY2023 revenue was $25,000, and later periods in the filed data show revenue as n/a. Losses are huge relative to size: FY2023 net loss $23.9M, FY2024 $24.6M, FY2025 $22.6M. In fiscal Q2 2026, the quarter ended 2026-06-30, net loss was $4.5M, or diluted EPS -$1.31; fiscal Q1 2026 lost $4.0M, or diluted EPS -$1.22. Trailing free cash flow is -$11.4M, a -167.1% FCF yield, against a $6.8M market cap. That is not a margin of safety; it is a countdown clock unless financing or revenue arrives. The balance sheet offers one comfort: D/E is 0.05, so debt is not the immediate problem. At the 2026-10-13 close of $1.92, FairStock's P/B is 0.71, so the market values it below stated book. Yet with ROE -218.39%, ROCE -92.88%, Piotroski 0/9, Altman Z -29.22, and a Lynch category of none because it lost money in each of the last four years, that book value is not a durable anchor. The 52-week range of $1.64 to $19.48 shows how far expectations have fallen. The provided profit growth of 33.83% sounds encouraging, but it is not enough: FY2025 loss improved modestly from FY2024, yet the company still consumes capital. A moat would require proven commercial recovery, scale, and cost advantage, none visible in the numbers. For me, evidence of revenue and self-funding would be required before this looks like a business rather than a hope.

In plain English: The company develops recycling technology to recover metals from batteries and other metal-bearing materials, but it has almost no sales and loses money every year. Its stock price is low compared with the value of its net assets on paper, yet the losses and cash burn make it hard to call the price a true bargain. Overall, this looks like a weak, speculative business rather than a proven money-maker.

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Data as of 2026-10-13 close · note generated 2026-10-15 · model deepseek-flash

Sources (SEC EDGAR): fiscal Q2 2026 10-Q (period ended 2026-06-30) · fiscal Q1 2026 10-Q (period ended 2026-03-31) · fiscal Q3 2025 10-Q (period ended 2025-09-30) · fiscal Q2 2025 10-Q (period ended 2025-06-30) · FY2025 10-K (period ended 2025-12-31) · FY2024 10-K (period ended 2024-12-31) · FY2023 10-K (period ended 2023-12-31)

Fundamentals from company filings and market-data providers; prices are end-of-day, not real-time. AI-generated analysis is general and educational — not personal investment advice. Scoring methodology · Score test · Disclaimer