In: Finance
discuss the advantage as well as limits of ratio analysis for publicly traded corporations
Advantages :
1. It helps in comparing different companies with different size in
the same industry and it is simple to prepare.
2. The ratio helps in identifying profitability, debt repaying
capacity, liquidity of the firm which provides some information
about the company to shareholders, lenders and creditors.
3. Trend and graphs can be easily created through ratio
analysis.
Disadvantages:
1. These are based on historical data and has less relation to what
the companies will perform in future.
2. These ratios can be misleading regarding future of company . Fo
example APPLE P/E ratio was nearly 300 in 2000s. which was above
industry average yet it made millions for its investors, It is aid
to fundamental analysis but cannot be used as a substitute.
3. These are affected by various assumptions like depreciation
policy, inventory policy,etc and can give misleading results.
Please Discuss in case of Doubt
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