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nother way of avoiding the problems involved in comparing companies of different sizes is to calculate and compare financial ratios. Such ratios are ways of comparing and investigating the relationships between different pieces of financial information. Using ratios eliminates the size problem because the size effectively divides out. We’re then left with percentages, multiples, or time periods.
There is a problem in discussing financial ratios. Because a ratio is simply one number divided by another, and because there are so many accounting numbers out there, we could examine a huge number of possible ratios. Everybody has a favorite. We will restrict ourselves to a representative sampling.
In this section, we only want to introduce you to some commonly used financial ratios. These are not necessarily the ones we think are the best. In fact, some of them may strike you as illogical or not as useful as some alternatives. If they do, don’t be concerned. As a financial analyst, you can always decide how to compute your own ratios.
One of the best known and most widely used ratios is the current ratio. As you might guess, the current ratio is defined as follows:
Current assets divided by current liabilities.
Inventory is often the least liquid current asset. It’s also the one for which the book values are least reliable as measures of market value because the quality of the inventory isn’t considered. Some of the inventory may later turn out to be damaged, obsolete, or lost.
More to the point, relatively large inventories are often a sign of short-term trouble. The firm may have overestimated sales and overbought or overproduced as a result. In this case, the firm may have a substantial portion of its liquidity tied up in slow-moving inventory.
To further evaluate liquidity, the quick, or acid-test, ratio is computed just like the current ratio, except inventory is omitted.
LONG-TERM SOLVENCY MEASURES
Long-term solvency ratios are intended to address the firm’s long-term ability to meet its obligations, or, more generally, its financial leverage. These are sometimes called financial leverage ratios or just leverage ratios.
The total debt ratio takes into account all debts of all maturities to all creditors.