Financial Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting: Financial Intelligence Collection (7 Books)

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Profitability Ratios

The Higher the Better (Mostly)

Profitability ratios help you evaluate a company’s ability to generate profits. There are dozens of them, a fact that helps keep the financial folks busy. But here we are going to focus on just five. These are really the only ones most managers need to understand and use. Profitability ratios are the most common of ratios. If you get these, you’ll be off to a good start in financial statement analysis.

Before we plunge in, however, do remember the artful aspects of what we’re looking at. Profitability is a measure of a company’s ability to generate sales and to control its expenses. None ...