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Topic 7: Understanding Financial Ratio
Today,
we
are going into more technical terms. We need to understand these terms
in order
to have a clear understanding of the company’s health.
There are basically 5 Categories of Financial Ratios that help us look into the company’s financial internals.
These are financial ratios that show the percentage of a company’s capital structure that is made up on debt or liabilities owed to external parties. Using these ratios, we are able to tell the company’s ability to repay its debt, which in turn tells of a company’s level of risk.
A debt ratio of greater than 1 indicates that a company has more debt than assets, meanwhile, a debt ratio of less than 1 indicates that a company has more assets than debt.
Sometimes only interest-bearing, long-term debt is used instead of total liabilities in the calculation.
A high debt/equity ratio generally means that a company has been aggressive in financing its growth with debt. This can result in volatile earnings as a result of the additional interest expense.
If a lot of debt is used to finance increased operations (high debt to equity), the company could potentially generate more earnings than it would have without this outside financing. If this were to increase earnings by a greater amount than the debt cost (interest), then the shareholders benefit as more earnings are being spread among the same amount of shareholders. However, the cost of this debt financing may outweigh the return that the company generates on the debt through investment and business activities and become too much for the company to handle. This can lead to bankruptcy, which would leave shareholders with nothing.
The debt/equity ratio also depends on the industry in which the company operates. For example, capital-intensive industries such as auto manufacturing tend to have a debt/equity ratio above 2, while personal computer companies have a debt/equity of under 0.5.
Companies with ratios of less than 1 cannot pay their current liabilities and should be looked at with extreme caution. Furthermore, if the acid-test ratio is much lower than the working capital ratio, it means current assets are highly dependent on inventory. Retail stores are examples of this type of business.
The term comes from the way gold miners would test whether their findings were real gold nuggets. Unlike other metals, gold does not corrode in acid; if the nugget didn't dissolve when submerged in acid, it was said to have passed the acid test. If a company's financial statements pass the figurative acid test, this indicates its financial integrity.
2. Liquidity Financial Ratios
Those financial ratios that show the solvency of a company based on its assets versus its liabilities. In other words, it lets you know the resources available for a firm to use in order to pay its bills, keep the lights on, and pay the staff.
The concept behind this ratio is to ascertain whether a company's short-term assets (cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities, receivables and inventory) are readily available to pay off its short-term liabilities (notes payable, current portion of term debt, payables, accrued expenses and taxes). In theory, the higher the current ratio, the better.
3. Operating Financial Ratios
These financial ratios show the efficiency of management and a company’s operations in utilizing its capital.
Asset turnover measures a firm's efficiency at using its assets in generating sales or revenue - the higher the number the better. It also indicates pricing strategy: companies with low profit margins tend to have high asset turnover, while those with high profit margins have low asset turnover.
The days in the period can then be divided by the inventory turnover formula to calculate the days it takes to sell the inventory on hand or "inventory turnover days".
Although the first calculation is more frequently used, COGS (cost of goods sold) may be substituted because sales are recorded at market value, while inventories are usually recorded at cost. Also, average inventory may be used instead of the ending inventory level to minimize seasonal factors.
This ratio should be compared against industry averages. A low turnover implies poor sales and, therefore, excess inventory. A high ratio implies either strong sales or ineffective buying.
High inventory levels are unhealthy because they represent an investment with a rate of return of zero. It also opens the company up to trouble should prices begin to fall.
Some companies' reports will only show sales - this can affect the ratio depending on the size of cash sales.
By maintaining accounts receivable, firms are indirectly extending interest-free loans to their clients. A high ratio implies either that a company operates on a cash basis or that its extension of credit and collection of accounts receivable is efficient.
A low ratio implies the company should re-assess its credit policies in order to ensure the timely collection of imparted credit that is not earning interest for the firm.
4. Profitability Financial Ratios
These financial ratios measure the return earned on a company’s capital and the financial cushion relative to each dollar of sales. A firm that has high gross profit margins, for instance, is going to be much harder to put out of business when the economy turns down than one that has razor-thin margins. Likewise, a company with high returns on capital, even with smaller margins, is going to have a better chance of survival because it is so much more profitable relative to the shareholders’ contributed investment.
Net income is for the full fiscal year (before dividends paid to common stock holders but after dividends to preferred stock.) Shareholder's equity does not include preferred shares.
The ROE is useful for comparing the profitability of a company to that of other firms in the same industry.
There are several variations on the formula that investors may use:
i. Investors wishing to see the return on common equity may modify the formula above by subtracting preferred dividends from net income and subtracting preferred equity from shareholders' equity, giving the following: return on common equity (ROCE) = net income - preferred dividends / common equity.
ii. Return on equity may also be calculated by dividing net income by average shareholders' equity. Average shareholders' equity is calculated by adding the shareholders' equity at the beginning of a period to the shareholders' equity at period's end and dividing the result by two.
iii. Investors may also calculate the change in ROE for a period by first using the shareholders' equity figure from the beginning of a period as a denominator to determine the beginning ROE. Then, the end-of-period shareholders' equity can be used as the denominator to determine the ending ROE. Calculating both beginning and ending ROEs allows an investor to determine the change in profitability over the period.
ROA tells you what earnings were generated from invested capital (assets). ROA for public companies can vary substantially and will be highly dependent on the industry. This is why when using ROA as a comparative measure, it is best to compare it against a company's previous ROA numbers or the ROA of a similar company.
The assets of the company are comprised of both debt and equity. Both of these types of financing are used to fund the operations of the company. The ROA figure gives investors an idea of how effectively the company is converting the money it has to invest into net income. The higher the ROA number, the better, because the company is earning more money on less investment. For example, if one company has a net income of $1 million and total assets of $5 million, its ROA is 20%; however, if another company earns the same amount but has total assets of $10 million, it has an ROA of 10%. Based on this example, the first company is better at converting its investment into profit. When you really think about it, management's most important job is to make wise choices in allocating its resources. Anybody can make a profit by throwing a ton of money at a problem, but very few managers excel at making large profits with little investment.
When calculating, it is more accurate to use a weighted average number of shares outstanding over the reporting term, because the number of shares outstanding can change over time. However, data sources sometimes simplify the calculation by using the number of shares outstanding at the end of the period.
Diluted EPS expands on basic EPS by including the shares of convertibles or warrants outstanding in the outstanding shares number.
5. Solvency Financial Ratios
These financial ratios tell you the chances of a company going bankrupt. There’s really no elegant way to say that. The whole point of calculating them is to make sure that a company isn’t in danger of going under anytime soon.
Solvency Ratio is used to measure a company's ability to meet long-term obligations. The solvency ratio measures the size of a company's after-tax income; excluding non-cash depreciation expenses, as compared to the firm's total debt obligations. It provides a measurement of how likely a company will be to continue meeting its debt obligations.
Acceptable solvency ratios will vary from industry to industry, but as a general rule of thumb, a solvency ratio of greater than 20% is considered financially healthy. Generally speaking, the lower a company's solvency ratio, the greater the probability that the company will default on its debt obligations.
I do hope these ratios do not scare you away from being an intelligent investors. We do understand the difficulty of many who may not understand these the first time, or need help to understand these better. As such, we have designed a course that is simple and step by step.
Check out the testimonials of our past students here [link]
And do join us for our next preview [Click Here]
There are basically 5 Categories of Financial Ratios that help us look into the company’s financial internals.
- Leverage
Financial Ratio
- Liquidity
Ratio
- Operating
Financial Ratio
- Profitability
Ratio
- Solvency
Ratio
These are financial ratios that show the percentage of a company’s capital structure that is made up on debt or liabilities owed to external parties. Using these ratios, we are able to tell the company’s ability to repay its debt, which in turn tells of a company’s level of risk.
- Debt Ratio =Total Debt
A debt ratio of greater than 1 indicates that a company has more debt than assets, meanwhile, a debt ratio of less than 1 indicates that a company has more assets than debt.
- Debt/ Equity Ratio = Total Liabilities/Shareholders Equity
Sometimes only interest-bearing, long-term debt is used instead of total liabilities in the calculation.
A high debt/equity ratio generally means that a company has been aggressive in financing its growth with debt. This can result in volatile earnings as a result of the additional interest expense.
If a lot of debt is used to finance increased operations (high debt to equity), the company could potentially generate more earnings than it would have without this outside financing. If this were to increase earnings by a greater amount than the debt cost (interest), then the shareholders benefit as more earnings are being spread among the same amount of shareholders. However, the cost of this debt financing may outweigh the return that the company generates on the debt through investment and business activities and become too much for the company to handle. This can lead to bankruptcy, which would leave shareholders with nothing.
The debt/equity ratio also depends on the industry in which the company operates. For example, capital-intensive industries such as auto manufacturing tend to have a debt/equity ratio above 2, while personal computer companies have a debt/equity of under 0.5.
- Acid Test Ratio
= Cash + A/C
Receivable
+ Short Term Investment/Current
Liabilities
Companies with ratios of less than 1 cannot pay their current liabilities and should be looked at with extreme caution. Furthermore, if the acid-test ratio is much lower than the working capital ratio, it means current assets are highly dependent on inventory. Retail stores are examples of this type of business.
The term comes from the way gold miners would test whether their findings were real gold nuggets. Unlike other metals, gold does not corrode in acid; if the nugget didn't dissolve when submerged in acid, it was said to have passed the acid test. If a company's financial statements pass the figurative acid test, this indicates its financial integrity.
2. Liquidity Financial Ratios
Those financial ratios that show the solvency of a company based on its assets versus its liabilities. In other words, it lets you know the resources available for a firm to use in order to pay its bills, keep the lights on, and pay the staff.
- Quick
Ratio =Current
Assets – Inventories/Current
Liabilities
- Current Ratio =
Current Assets/Current Liabilities
The concept behind this ratio is to ascertain whether a company's short-term assets (cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities, receivables and inventory) are readily available to pay off its short-term liabilities (notes payable, current portion of term debt, payables, accrued expenses and taxes). In theory, the higher the current ratio, the better.
- Cash
Ratio = Cash
+ Cash Equivalents + Invested Funds/Current
Liabilities
3. Operating Financial Ratios
These financial ratios show the efficiency of management and a company’s operations in utilizing its capital.
- Asset Turnover Ratio = Revenue/Assets
Asset turnover measures a firm's efficiency at using its assets in generating sales or revenue - the higher the number the better. It also indicates pricing strategy: companies with low profit margins tend to have high asset turnover, while those with high profit margins have low asset turnover.
- Inventory
Turnover = Sales/Inventory
The days in the period can then be divided by the inventory turnover formula to calculate the days it takes to sell the inventory on hand or "inventory turnover days".
Although the first calculation is more frequently used, COGS (cost of goods sold) may be substituted because sales are recorded at market value, while inventories are usually recorded at cost. Also, average inventory may be used instead of the ending inventory level to minimize seasonal factors.
This ratio should be compared against industry averages. A low turnover implies poor sales and, therefore, excess inventory. A high ratio implies either strong sales or ineffective buying.
High inventory levels are unhealthy because they represent an investment with a rate of return of zero. It also opens the company up to trouble should prices begin to fall.
- Receivables
Turnover Ratio = Net Credit
Sales/Average Accounts Receivable
Some companies' reports will only show sales - this can affect the ratio depending on the size of cash sales.
By maintaining accounts receivable, firms are indirectly extending interest-free loans to their clients. A high ratio implies either that a company operates on a cash basis or that its extension of credit and collection of accounts receivable is efficient.
A low ratio implies the company should re-assess its credit policies in order to ensure the timely collection of imparted credit that is not earning interest for the firm.
4. Profitability Financial Ratios
These financial ratios measure the return earned on a company’s capital and the financial cushion relative to each dollar of sales. A firm that has high gross profit margins, for instance, is going to be much harder to put out of business when the economy turns down than one that has razor-thin margins. Likewise, a company with high returns on capital, even with smaller margins, is going to have a better chance of survival because it is so much more profitable relative to the shareholders’ contributed investment.
- Return on Equity
(ROE) = Net Income/Shareholder's Equity
Net income is for the full fiscal year (before dividends paid to common stock holders but after dividends to preferred stock.) Shareholder's equity does not include preferred shares.
The ROE is useful for comparing the profitability of a company to that of other firms in the same industry.
There are several variations on the formula that investors may use:
i. Investors wishing to see the return on common equity may modify the formula above by subtracting preferred dividends from net income and subtracting preferred equity from shareholders' equity, giving the following: return on common equity (ROCE) = net income - preferred dividends / common equity.
ii. Return on equity may also be calculated by dividing net income by average shareholders' equity. Average shareholders' equity is calculated by adding the shareholders' equity at the beginning of a period to the shareholders' equity at period's end and dividing the result by two.
iii. Investors may also calculate the change in ROE for a period by first using the shareholders' equity figure from the beginning of a period as a denominator to determine the beginning ROE. Then, the end-of-period shareholders' equity can be used as the denominator to determine the ending ROE. Calculating both beginning and ending ROEs allows an investor to determine the change in profitability over the period.
- Return On Asset =
Net Income/Total Asset
ROA tells you what earnings were generated from invested capital (assets). ROA for public companies can vary substantially and will be highly dependent on the industry. This is why when using ROA as a comparative measure, it is best to compare it against a company's previous ROA numbers or the ROA of a similar company.
The assets of the company are comprised of both debt and equity. Both of these types of financing are used to fund the operations of the company. The ROA figure gives investors an idea of how effectively the company is converting the money it has to invest into net income. The higher the ROA number, the better, because the company is earning more money on less investment. For example, if one company has a net income of $1 million and total assets of $5 million, its ROA is 20%; however, if another company earns the same amount but has total assets of $10 million, it has an ROA of 10%. Based on this example, the first company is better at converting its investment into profit. When you really think about it, management's most important job is to make wise choices in allocating its resources. Anybody can make a profit by throwing a ton of money at a problem, but very few managers excel at making large profits with little investment.
- Earnings Per
Share = Net
Income – Dividend on Preferred Stock/Average Outstanding Stock
When calculating, it is more accurate to use a weighted average number of shares outstanding over the reporting term, because the number of shares outstanding can change over time. However, data sources sometimes simplify the calculation by using the number of shares outstanding at the end of the period.
Diluted EPS expands on basic EPS by including the shares of convertibles or warrants outstanding in the outstanding shares number.
5. Solvency Financial Ratios
These financial ratios tell you the chances of a company going bankrupt. There’s really no elegant way to say that. The whole point of calculating them is to make sure that a company isn’t in danger of going under anytime soon.
a.
Solvency
Ratio = After
Tax Net Profit + Depreciation
Solvency Ratio is used to measure a company's ability to meet long-term obligations. The solvency ratio measures the size of a company's after-tax income; excluding non-cash depreciation expenses, as compared to the firm's total debt obligations. It provides a measurement of how likely a company will be to continue meeting its debt obligations.
Acceptable solvency ratios will vary from industry to industry, but as a general rule of thumb, a solvency ratio of greater than 20% is considered financially healthy. Generally speaking, the lower a company's solvency ratio, the greater the probability that the company will default on its debt obligations.
|
Summary
of Ratios
|
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I do hope these ratios do not scare you away from being an intelligent investors. We do understand the difficulty of many who may not understand these the first time, or need help to understand these better. As such, we have designed a course that is simple and step by step.
Check out the testimonials of our past students here [link]
And do join us for our next preview [Click Here]
Topic 1: Welcome to the World of Investing
Topic 2: The Destructive Power of Compounding
Topic 3: Investing is RISKY?
Topic 4: Basic Lesson of Value Investing
Topic 5: 3 Steps to Identify A Winning Business
Topic 6: Getting Competitive Advantage
Topic 7: Understanding Financial Ratio
Topic 8: Pushing your Education further