1 An extended period of lost market share in their particular category 2. An extended period of financial losses or a pattern of annual losses 3. Serious mana

1 An extended period of lost market share in their particular category 2. An extended period of financial losses or a pattern of annual losses 3. Serious management problems that raise questions about the business model or long-term strategy of the company Gee, that sounds exactly what happened to the company I used to work for. I'll add a couple more red flags to the 3 mentioned in the article: 4. As an engineer, you get calls from a supplier asking why accounts payable isn't returning their calls. 5. Poor employee benefits as the company can't afford to offer what is typically offered in the job market. Additionally, they constantly tried to raise more capital with stock offerings to cover "general business expenses", and merged with several other companies in similar condition to make a bigger steaming pile of high entropy /low energy content matter to offer the gullible investment community. There are a lot of these companies out there. They should be culled as they are toxic to the economy. The problem is, you have C-level management and investment companies which specialize in dicing and slicing these troubled companies to present to investors, and that prolongs the pain to customers, investors, and employees.