Stoxcraft's Risk Score flags three companies at the maximum reading of 10 out of 10 right now: Rackspace Technology (RXT), Eos Energy (EOSE), and Joby Aviation (JOBY). All three sit in the same bucket. Lined up against their actual balance sheets, they tell three different stories, moving from a score that holds up, to one that's been partly overtaken by events, to one that looks like it's measuring the wrong thing.
Rackspace Technology: the score matches the numbers, and there's a second risk factor the balance sheet doesn't capture
Rackspace carries $2.57 billion in principal debt as of mid-2026, spread across term loans and secured notes maturing between February and December 2028, according to its Q2 2026 10-Q filing. Total equity is negative $1.22 billion. Interest coverage sits at -0.49, meaning operating income doesn't cover interest expense.
The company isn't ignoring this. A 2024 private debt exchange cut more than $375 million in net debt and pushed maturities out to 2028. In 2026 it added a $250 million at-the-market equity program and extended a receivables securitization facility to 2029.
Those moves buy time, they don't fix a capital structure with an Altman Z-Score of -0.96, deep in the distress zone. Current ratio is 0.68, below the 1.0 line that signals short-term obligations outrunning short-term assets. This is overleveraged by any conventional read, and the Risk Score of 10 reads as earned, not lagging, on balance sheet grounds alone.
There's also a risk factor here the balance sheet says nothing about. A securities fraud class action was filed against Rackspace in September 2026, alleging the company misled investors about the impact of its AI initiatives on financial performance. The stock had already dropped 33.6%, from $6.58 to $4.37, on July 9, 2026, the day the underlying disclosures came to light.
The case, Morgan-Reed v. Rackspace Technology, Inc., is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The allegations haven't been tested in court, but the litigation itself is a real cost and distraction risk, layered on top of an already leveraged balance sheet.
Eos Energy: distressed metrics, but the story has already moved
Eos looks similarly rough on paper. Total equity is negative $877 million, debt sits at $835 million, and interest coverage is -8.75. The Altman Z-Score of -2.99 is worse than Rackspace's.
If the RXT numbers earned their Risk Score, EOSE's should earn it twice over. Except the balance sheet behind those numbers has been actively rebuilt in the last 18 months. Eos closed $336 million in stock and convertible note offerings in June 2025, used part of it to retire a maturing 2026 convertible note early, and cut the interest rate on its Cerberus term loan from 15% to 7%.
A follow-on raise in late 2025 added a $600 million convertible note at 1.75% alongside a common stock offering, and the company has drawn on a DOE loan guarantee worth up to $305 million for manufacturing buildout. None of this erases the negative equity or the ongoing cash burn. Eos is still spending far more than it earns.
But a Risk Score built on trailing financials will always lag a balance sheet that's being actively restructured in real time, so the number is directionally right while understating how much near-term maturity risk has already been pushed out.
Joby Aviation: the score looks like it's overreacting
Joby is the clearest break from the pattern. Where RXT and EOSE are leverage stories at different stages of repair, Joby barely has a leverage story at all. Its Risk Score of 10 sits next to an Altman Z-Score of 3.77, comfortably in the safe zone.
Joby's Q2 2026 balance sheet shows $2.26 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments against $701.9 million in total debt, most of it a $690 million convertible note issued in February 2026 at a 0.75% coupon. Total equity is $1.77 billion, and current assets outweigh current liabilities by roughly 18 to 1. That's a well-capitalized balance sheet even after taking on new debt, not a distressed one.
The real risk in Joby isn't balance sheet distress, it's binary certification risk. The company is still pre-revenue on its core eVTOL business and dependent on FAA Type Certification timing, with management guiding to $385-415 million in cash use for the second half of 2026 alone.
A Risk Score weighted toward leverage and coverage ratios will read a company with a strong equity cushion as safe on that axis, then get pulled toward 10 by volatility and deeply negative profitability metrics that don't map cleanly onto "will this company run out of cash." For a name with over $2 billion in the bank, that's the score overstating near-term financial risk relative to what the balance sheet actually shows.
What this means for reading the score
Put the three side by side and the pattern is a spectrum, not a coincidence. Rackspace is a leverage story where the score and the balance sheet agree, with a pending securities fraud case adding a risk dimension no balance sheet ratio would show. Eos is a leverage story where the balance sheet has moved faster than a trailing score can track.
Joby is barely a leverage story at all, and the score seems to be picking up risk from somewhere other than the balance sheet. Before treating any high Risk Score as a single signal, check what's actually driving it.
Sometimes the balance sheet confirms the alarm. Sometimes it's been overtaken by a refinancing the score hasn't fully priced in. And sometimes, as with Joby's certification timeline or Rackspace's pending litigation, the real risk sits somewhere the balance sheet was never going to show it.
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