Thursday, August 16, 2012

Financial Statement Analysis:Ratio Analysis

Financial Statement Analysis:

Learning Objectives:
  1. Prepare and interpret financial statements in comparative and common-size form.
  2. Compute and interpret financial ratios that would be most useful to a common stock holder.
  3. Compute and interpret financial ratios that would be most useful to a short-term creditor
  4. Compute and interpret financial ratios that would be most useful to  long -term creditors.

Definition and Explanation of Financial Statement Analysis:

Financial statement analysis is defined as the process of identifying financial strengths and weaknesses of the firm by properly establishing relationship between the items of the balance sheet and the profit and loss account.
There are various methods or techniques that are used in analyzing financial statements, such as comparative statements, schedule of changes in working capital, common size percentages, funds analysis, trend analysis, and ratios analysis.
Financial statements are prepared to meet external reporting obligations and also for decision making purposes. They play a dominant role in setting the framework of managerial decisions. But the information provided in the financial statements is not an end in itself as no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from these statements alone. However, the information provided in the financial statements is of immense use in making decisions through analysis and interpretation of financial statements.

Tools and Techniques of Financial Statement Analysis:

Following are the most important tools and techniques of financial statement analysis:
  1. Horizontal and Vertical Analysis
  2. Ratios Analysis

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