The five ratio groups
Eighteen ratios in five groups, each computed from the filing and shown against its prior period.
What it measures
Profitability asks whether the business makes money: gross, operating and net margin, return on assets and return on equity.
Liquidity asks whether it can pay what is due soon: current ratio, quick ratio, and the cash position against short-term obligations.
Leverage asks who has a claim on it: debt to equity, debt to assets, and interest coverage.
Efficiency asks how hard the assets work: asset turnover, inventory turnover, and receivables days.
Growth asks what direction it is moving: revenue, earnings and asset growth against the prior comparable period.
How to read it
None of these has a universal good value. A current ratio below 1.0 is alarming for a manufacturer and ordinary for a company that collects cash before it pays suppliers — Apple runs below 1.0 and has for years.
| Range | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| Against its own prior period | The comparison the product always shows |
| Against sector norms | Necessary context; margins differ enormously by industry |
| Against an absolute rule of thumb | The least reliable reading, and the most common mistake |
What it does not tell you
The part most tools leave out. A score you over-trust is worse than no score.
- Ratios are only as good as the tagging beneath them. Companies tag their XBRL differently, and some do not tag a line at all — Meta does not report a gross profit line, so it has to be derived.
- Banks, insurers and REITs report on structures these ratios were not designed for. A debt-to-equity reading on a bank is close to meaningless without a banking-specific frame.
- A single period can be distorted by a one-off: an acquisition, a disposal, a tax settlement or a write-down.
- Green always means better here, which for leverage means the number went down. Direction belongs to the metric, not to the sign.