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Liquidity Ratios

Can We Pay Our Bills?

Liquidity ratios tell you about your company’s ability to meet all its financial obligations—not just debt but payroll, payments to vendors, taxes, and so on. These ratios are particularly important to small businesses because small businesses are often in most danger of running out of cash. The ratios are also important whenever a larger company encounters financial trouble. Not to harp on the airlines too much, but again they are a case in point. You can bet that in the years right after 2001, professional investors and bondholders were carefully watching the liquidity ratios of some of the larger airlines.

Again, we’ll limit ourselves to two of the most common ratios.

CURRENT RATIO

The current ratio ...

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