Question

A company reports accounting data in its financial statements. This data is used for financial analyses that provide insights into a company’s strengths, weaknesses, performance in specific areas, and trends in performance. These analyses are often used to compare a company’s performance to that of its competitors, or to its past or expected future performance. Such insight helps managers and analysts improve their decision making. Most decision makers and analysts use five groups of ratios to examine the different aspects of a company’s performance. Indicate whether each of the following statements regarding financial ratios are true or false?

a. The ratios provide an accurate and thorough representation of the Chinese company’s performance.b. The analysis likely includes incorrect and misleading conclusions.

Answer 1

a. False

b. True

Step-by-step explanation:

Ratio analysis is a very useful method of analyzing a company however it is not necessarily very in-depth. If a company seems to be performing below the industrial average, it would be prudent to check the reasons why the company is doing so.

The advantage of ratio analysis in this instance is that it would help point you in the right direction to know what accounts to analyze more intensely to find out why the Chinese company is not performing up to standard.

Ratio analysis are good but they do not always provide an accurate and thorough representation of a company’s performance therefore relying solely on ratios will lead to an analysis that likely includes incorrect and misleading conclusions.