Elme Communities

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

Elme Communities trades at $1.6, between stages. That is −74.4% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 1% of a 52-week range of $1 to $18. On relative strength it is currently behind the S&P 500 on a trailing-13-week view (31 weeks and counting).

Today the stock is between stages. At $1.6 it trades −74.4% versus its 200-day average and sits at 1% of its 52-week range ($1–$18).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 1.1 years the stock moved −90% while the S&P 500 moved +24% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock is currently behind (31 weeks and counting; last ahead the week of 2026-01-02) — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

Valuation P/E is the price of $1 of annual profit: how many dollars the market pays for each dollar the company earns in a year.

P/E does not price Elme Communities — earnings are negative, so there is no multiple to rank against its own history. The revenue and margin lines below are where a turn, when it comes, would show first. A P/E returns here the first period the bottom line turns positive.

With earnings negative, P/E does not price — there is no multiple to rank against its own history. The revenue and margin lines below are where the turn, when it comes, will show first.

Put together: the multiple is unremarkable against its own past, so the story rests on the earnings line underneath it, not the multiple.

Stage: No read Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

Elme Communities reads as no read on its fundamental arc. Under eight usable quarters on the growth trio — not enough history for an honest trajectory read. The read is built from 12 quarters across 2 curves, on partial evidence.

Why it matters: with too little history, an honest page says so instead of guessing a trajectory.

The latest quarter’s profit carries a one-off item larger than the operating base, so the profit curve is shown but does not vote in the stage call.

Fewer than eight usable quarters on the growth curves — this page will not guess a trajectory from a stub of history.

4-Factor Sector Score

38.3/100 — rank 20 of 22 in REIT - Residential · 40% evidence confidence · provisional, ranked below fully-evidenced peers

Elme Communities scores 38.3 out of 100 against the 22 companies it is compared with in REIT - Residential, ranking 20. Fill the missing evidence before acting; the ranking is deliberately pulled toward neutral.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 16.7 + 8.8 + 9.8 + 3 = 38.3. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if ROA rolls over or gross NPA rises while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Revenue Revenue is the top line: everything the company billed its customers in the period.

Elme Communities reported $0.1 B of revenue in the Sep 25 quarter, +0.0% year on year. Over 4 years it has compounded at 7.5% a year. The last full year, FY24, came in at $0.2 B. The last four reported quarters add to $0.2 B.

FY24 revenue came in at $0.2 B (+4.3% on the year), capping 4 years at 7.5% compound. The latest quarter (Sep 25) printed $0.1 B, +0.0% year on year.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged +0.0% growth against the decade's 7.5% — the current year is running slower than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew +0.0% over the last 4 quarters against +0.0%/yr over the last 8 — stabilising.

Operating margin Operating margin is what is left of every $100 of sales after running the business, before interest and tax. It is the cleanest read on pricing power and cost control.

Elme Communities's operating margin is −183.3% in the Sep 25 quarter, −200.0 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. That is the widest this company has ever printed on a full-year basis. Across 5 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged −8.7% to 8.3%. The current quarter is running below every full year in that window.

The latest quarter's operating margin is −183.3%, −200.0 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the operating margin has ranged −8.7%–8.3%, and FY24's 8.3% is the top of that band — a record year.

🚨 Why the margin moved: operating margin went −200.0 pp year on year while gross margin went +0.0 pp — the loss came mostly below the gross line: operating leverage, with costs spread over a bigger revenue base.

Worth repeating from the valuation section: cheap against its own history on record margins is not the same thing as cheap — a record margin flatters every ratio built on top of it.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

Elme Communities posted a net loss of $0.1 B in the Sep 25 quarter. That quarter carries a one-off item larger than its own revenue, so the year-on-year figure is an artefact rather than a trading result. The full FY24 year was a loss of $0.01 B. That loss is 200.0% of the quarter's revenue.

Sep 25 profit was $−0.1 B, null year on year. On the full year, FY24 printed $−0.0 B (null).

🚨 Read this profit with care: at $−0.1 B it is larger than the whole quarter's revenue of $0.1 B — no operating business earns more than it sells, so this is a one-off item (a debt-to-equity conversion, a tax write-back or an asset sale), not money the business earned. The underlying operations are running at −183.3% operating margin; the year-on-year jump and any P/E built on this number are artefacts of the one-off, not a real earnings turn.

Cash flow — the router The P&L says what was earned; the cash-flow statement says what actually arrived. Operating cash flow (CFO) against profit is the cleanest lie detector in the accounts.

Elme Communities's cash-flow history is too thin to judge how much reported profit converts into cash. In FY24 that was $0.1 B of operating cash against $−0.0 B of profit. After $0.1 B of capital spending, $0.1 B was left as free cash. Cash resolution here is annual, because quarterly cash statements are not published.

FY24: operating cash of $0.1 B against reported profit of $−0.0 B, leaving free cash of $0.1 B after $0.1 B of capital spending.

Cash-flow readings here are annual — that is the resolution our series carries, so this section moves once a year.

Router verdict: the visible cash user is investment — the next section checks what the spending is buying.

Where the cash goes Working capital is the cash tied up between paying suppliers and getting paid: debtor days (customers owe), inventory days (stock waits), and the cash conversion cycle (the whole loop, in days of sales).

Elme Communities does not report the debtor, inventory and payable day-counts a cash cycle is built from, so this section reads the investment side instead. Capital spending ran $0.0 B over the last 3 years. Averaged over those years that is 0.0% of FY24 revenue a year.

Working-capital day-counts are not in our numbers for this stock, so this section reads the investment side — where the cash is being put to work.

On the investment side: capital spending of $0.0 B over the last 3 fiscal years.

The synthesis: the cash is going into capacity, not disappearing into the cycle — the question becomes whether the new capacity earns.

Return on equity Return on equity (ROE) is the profit the business earns on its shareholders’ money. With the full capital-employed split not in our numbers, ROE is the cleanest long ladder we can draw here.

Elme Communities earns a ROE of −1% in FY24. That is up from a trough of −4% in FY23. A return-on-invested-capital spread against the cost of capital is not computable from what is held here. The wiring behind it is −4.2% net margin on 0.13× asset turns.

FY24 ROE is −1%, recovered from a FY23 trough of −4% — the full ladder below shows the fall and the climb, undoctored.

Why the return is what it is — the wiring (FY24): −4.2% net margin × 0.13× asset turns × 1.71× balance-sheet leverage ≈ −0.9% on equity. Margin does its share; leverage is a meaningful part of the equation.

Dividend

Elme Communities pays no dividend. Across the last 12 reported quarters it has declared no dividend per share, so there is no payout history to chart and no yield to quote. Companies at this stage typically reinvest earnings rather than distribute them, which makes the cash-flow and reinvestment sections the place that cash shows up.

Elme Communities does not currently pay a dividend. Across the last 12 reported quarters the company has declared no dividend per share, so there is no payout history to chart and no yield to quote. Companies at this stage typically reinvest earnings instead of distributing them.

Debt Debt-to-equity says how much of the business is funded by borrowings; interest cover says how many times operating profit pays the interest bill. Low and high, respectively, is the safe corner.

A borrowings history is not in our numbers for this stock.

A borrowings history is not in our numbers for this stock, so this section says that plainly rather than working around it.

Ownership There is no quarter-by-quarter holder register to read here, so we read the crowd through short interest — the slice of tradable shares currently sold short, positioned for a fall.

3.5% of Elme Communities's tradable float is currently sold short — some money is positioned against it. At typical trading volumes those positions would take about 1.1 days to buy back. There is no quarter-by-quarter holder register to read for this filer, so the crowd is read through short interest instead.

The latest reading: 3.5% of the float is sold short, and at typical trading volumes it would take about 1.1 days to buy those positions back. Some money is positioned against it. This is a single point-in-time reading — we do not yet hold its history, so we show no trend chart.

Why it sits there: who is doing the shorting, and why, does not travel with the number — the level is shown without inventing its story.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

Elme Communities: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one. It is a distance-to-distress estimate from the balance sheet, not a forecast of failure. The debt, cash-flow and return sections above carry the balance-sheet evidence this page does hold, and each of them states its own reporting date.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is not available for this stock, so we say so rather than invent one.

Frequently asked questions