What moves the needle: Operating margin has reached 25% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −47%) — so the question is which reading is truer: whether the median was pulled below zero by one-off charges, by the cycle, or by spending it is still growing into, and whether it settles back at a profit. Inventory runs near 17% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. Read this kind of business on the commodity price and the cost position. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −9%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$60M	$67M	$128M	$117M	$105M	$137M	$110M	$166M	$174M	$198M	$236M	RevenueRevenue
53%	33%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	81%	Gross marginGross mgn
21%	18%	9%	11%	9%	8%	11%	9%	10%	14%	14%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$15M	($26M)	($47M)	($64M)	($153M)	($64M)	($95M)	($162M)	($51M)	$3M	$52M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
25.4%	−39.0%	−36.8%	−54.6%	−146.2%	−47.1%	−86.4%	−97.5%	−29.0%	1.3%	21.8%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$21M	($11M)	($45M)	($60M)	($152M)	($57M)	($81M)	$55M	($44M)	$34M	$38M	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
$7M	($28M)	$487K	($40M)	($28M)	($20M)	($57M)	($40M)	$29M	$7M	$21M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1M	$3M	$9M	$25M	—	$25M	$20M	$30M	$31M	$28M	$29M	DepreciationDeprec.
($15M)	($20M)	$36M	($5M)	$124M	$11M	$5M	($125M)	$42M	($55M)	($46M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$1M	$5M	$62M	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$68M	CapexCapex
1.9%	7.5%	48.6%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	28.8%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$6M	($31M)	($9M)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	($8M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
10.4%	−46.0%	−6.8%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	−3.3%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$6M	($33M)	($62M)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	($47M)	Free cash flowFCF
10.4%	−48.5%	−48.3%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	−20.0%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
4%	-4%	-7%	-11%	-31%	-13%	-19%	-19%	-8%	0%	—	ROICROIC
5%	-2%	-9%	-12%	-42%	-15%	-23%	11%	-9%	6%	6%	Return on equityROE
5%	−2%	−9%	−12%	−42%	−15%	−23%	11%	−9%	6%	6%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$37M	$27M	$16M	$46M	$21M	$54M	$40M	$25M	$15M	$72M	$70M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$27M	$32M	$22M	$38M	$27M	$16M	$32M	$20M	$18M	$27M	$31M	InventoryInvent.
$20M	$35M	$31M	$34M	$36M	$40M	$43M	$23M	$28M	$45M	$48M	Accounts payablePayables
$7M	($3M)	($9M)	$4M	($9M)	($24M)	($11M)	($3M)	($10M)	($18M)	($14M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$79M	$87M	$59M	$92M	$53M	$85M	$82M	$53M	$41M	$108M	$110M	Current assetsCur. assets
$21M	$38M	$36M	$49M	$46M	$52M	$84M	$30M	$48M	$64M	$97M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
3.8×	2.3×	1.6×	1.9×	1.2×	1.6×	1.0×	1.8×	0.9×	1.7×	1.1×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$498M	$592M	$617M	$631M	$500M	$525M	$529M	$657M	$665M	$820M	$973M	Total assetsAssets
—	—	$62M	$20M	$48M	$49M	$74M	$40M	$40M	$126M	$126M	Total debtDebt
—	—	$46M	($27M)	$27M	($5M)	$34M	$15M	$25M	$54M	$56M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
—	—	—	—	—	—	-14.7×	-29.0×	-16.7×	—	10.6×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$443M	$521M	$486M	$499M	$365M	$390M	$356M	$502M	$495M	$546M	$652M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
											Per share
37.6M	39.2M	42.2M	45.2M	40.3M	45.5M	47.4M	47.5M	51.0M	65.6M	72.4M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$1.61	$1.72	$3.04	$2.59	$2.60	$3.00	$2.33	$3.50	$3.42	$3.01	$3.26	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.56	$-0.27	$-1.06	$-1.32	$-3.78	$-1.25	$-1.71	$1.16	$-0.86	$0.53	$0.53	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.17	$-0.79	$-0.21	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$-0.11	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.17	$-0.83	$-1.47	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$-0.65	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.03	$0.13	$1.48	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0.94	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$11.80	$13.29	$11.53	$11.04	$9.05	$8.57	$7.51	$10.57	$9.70	$8.33	$9.00	Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2020 are restated ×1/8 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+7.2%/yr	+3.0%/yr
EPS	−0.7%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	+587.8%/yr (2-yr)	+587.8%/yr (2-yr)
Book value / share	−3.8%/yr	−1.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

66Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

0%low FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

($9M)owner earningsvs.($45M)net incomelow FY2017

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2016–FY2018cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2018 the business earned ($9M) of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $9M it takes just to hold its position. It put $53M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($62M).

	FY2018	FY2017	FY2016
Reported net income	($45M)	($11M)	$21M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$9M	+$3M	+$1M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$36M	−$20M	−$15M
Cash from operations	$487K	($28M)	$7M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$9M	−$3M	−$1M
Owner earnings	($9M)	($31M)	$6M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$53M	−$2M	—
Free cash flow	($62M)	($33M)	$6M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-7%	-46%	10%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $9M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $53M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 0.9×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income $3M ÷ interest expense $3M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $64M · 24.1× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $51M + ST investments $21M − debt $136M

What this means
Netting $72M of cash and short-term investments against $136M of debt leaves $64M owed, about 24.1× a year's operating profit (51.3× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -11%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range -31%–4%; 0% latest = NOPAT $3M ÷ invested capital $631M

Industry peers: median -12%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 0% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin -7%

Consumes cash through the cycle

3-yr median margin, range -46%–10%; latest ($21M) = operating cash $7M − maintenance capex $28M

Industry peers: median -105%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's -11% of revenue this year, a -7% median across 3 years. It chose to put $34M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($55M) — the gap is investment, not weakness.
Are earnings backed by cash? 0.20×

Thinly cash-backed

Cash from ops $7M ÷ net income $34M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

No surplus to allocate

What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
Investing or harvesting? 2.24×

Expanding

Capex $62M ÷ depreciation $28M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $198M

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.69×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $136M vs $44M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 7 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.26/share (latest year $0.58), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $9.14/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 3 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 7 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 8 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −17% → −42% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
The recent-years average (−42%) sits below the early years (−17%), but the latest year (1%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is −47% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Worst year 2020 · −146.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$110M

Cash & short-term investments$70M
Receivables$2M
Inventory$31M
Other current assets$6M

Current liabilities$97M

Debt due within a year$3M
Accounts payable$48M
Other current liabilities$46M

Current ratio1.14×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.81×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.72×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$13Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$3M due · $70M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+107.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.7× → 1.1×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$652Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($211M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$126Mno operating-lease liability tagged this quarter, so debt alone

Deferred revenue$2Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Net income
2021	Mr. McEwen	$3,706	−$47k	($57M)
2022	Mr. McEwen	$3,586	−$69k	($81M)
2023	Mr. McEwen	$342k	$378k	$55M
2024	Mr. McEwen	$4,907	−$2,810	($44M)
2025	Mr. McEwen	$686k	$615k	$34M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why McEwen Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

None of the 3 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Income taxes, Acquisitions as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Gold & Precious Metals

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
CDECoeur Mining Inc.	$2.1B	79%	4.3%	2%	2%
MPMP Materials	$224M	—	-10.4%	-4%	-3%
MUXMcEwen Inc.	$198M	77%	-43.0%	-9%	-7%
IAUXi-80 Gold Corp.	$95M	—	-177.0%	-15%	-157%
UECUranium Energy Corp.	$67M	31%	-103.9%	-12%	-168%
EUenCore Energy Corp.	$43M	17%	-168.1%	-16%	-106%
IDRIdaho Strategic Resources Inc.	$42M	6%	-2.6%	-9%	-8%
URGUr Energy Inc Common Shares (Canada)	$27M	-9%	-167.4%	-32%	-105%
Group median	—	24%	-73.4%	-11%	-56%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

McEwen Inc. is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Required return 9% Years to get there 10 Revenue growth 0%

Revenue, delivered13%/yr’20→’25

Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−20%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Weigh MUX against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "McEwen Inc. (MUX), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/MUX, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← MUSA its page in the Manual MVBF →

Industry order: ← MTA the Gold & Precious Metals chapter NAMM →