It is easier to use the balance sheet to find weaknesses in a company's financial situation than strengths. The analyst must find evidence of the company's cash sufficiency on the balance sheet, whether the company has enough assets to cover its liabilities, or whether the company is in a situation where its debts are maturing. The balance sheet must provide evidence that the company has sufficient debt service capacity.
The assets found on the balance sheet has to be twice the amount of liabilities according to Graham. This value is not absolute. The company must be examined as a whole. Do not reject an investment based on this ratio alone, but also look at the result, for example. Sometimes the ratio should be at least three. Graham also measured the strength of the company's financial situation with the Quick ratio, which he called the acid test. In it, the company's current balance sheet value, excluding assets, should be at least equal to the amount of liabilities. If both tests are not passed, Graham said that the company's finances were not in sufficient condition. The tests also apply to the purchase of the company's bonds and preferred shares.
Financial difficulties in companies usually come from the maturing of bank loans or other short-term loans. These are not always signs of a company's poor financial situation. A reasonable amount of debt can act as leverage in increasing returns. In this situation, the analyst needs to investigate the situation further. The situation is rarely critical when the company is making a profit. The borrower also matters. The debt of a subsidiary or the short-term loan it provides to the company is not as critical to the financial situation as external financing. The greatest threats are large bonds that are maturing in the near future. Large debts that mature in the medium term can also become problems if the company's results are poor, so the investor must also assess their solvency.
Changes in balance sheet values must also be studied in the long term. There are three aspects to the study.
Check whether the reported results are correct
Determine what effects losses or profits have had on the financial situation
Investigate the connections between the ability to make a profit and the resources found on the balance sheet in the long term
The reported results are not always correct. In Graham's examples, distortion was made, for example, by taking assets from previously made surpluses into the balance sheet and not reporting these changes in the income statement. I do not know the laws well enough to say whether this is still possible. There are certainly other ways. Not all profits and losses are of the same value. For example, losses in inventory values do not automatically weaken the balance sheet. Therefore, the reasons for companies' results should always be sought in the balance sheet.
It is worth examining the connection between the ability to make a profit and the resources found on the balance sheet over a longer period of time, but even then one should not go to extremes. The optimal period of examination is the length of an entire cycle. Sometimes it is difficult to know where a company is in the cycle, so the analyst may have to study the entire previous cycle and the current cycle up to the present day. In this case, the review period can be 5-15 years. The normal cycle is five to ten years. In the worst case, exceptional events, such as a major war, increase the review period. In this case, the changes in the balance sheet and profit-making ability from the previous cycle may be exceptional. In this case, the length of the review period may increase. Most often, the analysis has been completed long before this operation, so there is no need to be intimidated by the amount of work.
