Shadowing Practice: Financial ratio analysis - Learn English Speaking with Video
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How does financial ratio analysis work?
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Let's discuss 10 of the most popular financial ratios that can help you find the story behind the numbers.
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What do you need to get started on a financial ratio analysis?
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You need an income statement, the overview of how much profit a company made during a year.
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You also need a balance sheet, an overview of what a company owns and what a company owes at a specific point in time.
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We will start off with financial ratios that only focus on the income statement, then look at financial ratios that only focus on the balance sheet,
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and end with powerful financial ratios that combine information from the income statement and the balance sheet.
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Performing a financial ratio analysis has a scientific element to it finding data and putting it into formulas,
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as well as an artistic element assigning meaning to the outcome of the calculations, and seeing the big picture.
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Part 1 Financial ratios that only focus on the income statement or profit and loss statement .
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Let's compare the income statements of two fictitious companies, which unlike real life companies have nice round numbers in their financial statements.
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The first step in financial ratio analysis of the income statement is to make everything relative.
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Relative to sales, that is.
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Each of the cost line items and profit subtotals is expressed as a percentage of revenue.
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Let's see what the financial ratios tell us.
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Company A has a gross profit margin of 50%,
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company B of 30%, so the gross profit margin is 20 percentage points higher for company A.
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Company A makes far more margin than Company B on the products or services it sells.
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Company A has an operating margin of 21%, while Company B has an operating margin of 14%.
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So the 20 percentage points difference on the gross profit level has shrunk to 7 percentage points on the operating margin level.
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Net income as a percentage of sales, often called return on sales, is 16 % for company A and 8 % for company B.
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What do we zoom in on for further analysis?
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Let's investigate the difference between gross profit and operating margin.
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This is mainly driven by selling general and administrative expenses.
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20 % of revenue in company A, 10 % of revenue in company B.
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The non -manufacturing costs for functional departments like sales,
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marketing, finance, HR, sourcing, legal and IT are far higher for company A than for company B.
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This could be related to the industry each company is in, the company's strategy, or the level of efficiency that it has achieved.
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Could company A be overspending in SG &A, or is company B underspending?
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Hard to say just from these numbers, but worth investigating.
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On the research and development line, company A is spending more than company B.
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This is usually seen as a good thing,
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as today's research and development expenses hopefully lead to high -margin innovative products and services to sell in the future.
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Part 2.
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Financial ratios that only focus on the balance sheet.
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The first question that I always ask myself is, how is the company doing on liquidity?
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Is it likely to be able to pay its bills in the short term?
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Let's look at the current assets, cash plus items that are likely to convert to cash within a year,
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versus the current liabilities items that need to be paid with cash within a year.
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A useful financial ratio in this area is the current ratio.
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Simply divide the current assets by the current liabilities.
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For company A, 400 divided by 200 is 2.
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For every dollar of current liabilities, there are 2 dollars of current assets, a safe position, from the perspective of business continuity.
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For company B, 200 divided by 400 is 0 .5.
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For every dollar of current liabilities, there is only 50 cents of current assets, a more risky position .
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While on the topic of current assets and current liabilities, let's calculate the amount of working capital utilized by the companies.
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Accounts receivable plus inventories minus accounts payable.
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For company A, this is 150 plus 200 minus 200, in total 150.
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For company B, this is 50 plus 100 minus 300, in total negative 150.
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Company B seems to be getting paid by customers before they have to pay suppliers, and holds a low level of stock.
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The next financial ratio is all about the company's financing strategy.
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Does it primarily borrow money to finance operations, or rely on capital provided by the shareholders?
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The debt -to -equity ratio can help you put that in perspective.
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For company A, 100 in borrowings, 700 in equity, so a debt to equity ratio of 1 to 7.
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You could call this a conservative and robust way of financing,
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with a big buffer of equity that helps defend the business continuity of the company in case of future losses.
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For company B, 400 in borrowings, 100 in equity, so a debt to equity ratio of 4 to 1.
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For every dollar of shareholder capital , there are $4 borrowed, which is possibly more fragile.
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A related financial ratio is equity as percentage of the balance sheet total.
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70 % for company A, 12 .5 % for company B.
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Based on the debt to equity ratio, and equity as percentage of total, you could say that company A has low leverage,
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while company B has a high leverage.
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Part 3, financial ratios that combine information from the income statement and the balance sheet.
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This is where you might see new storylines and connections, on top of what you discovered in analyzing the income statement individually,
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and the balance sheet individually.
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Let's start with a big picture financial ratio called return on equity, which is net income divided by equity.
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For company A, 160 divided by 700, which is 22 .9%.
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For company B, 80 divided by 100, which is 80%.
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On the return on equity metric, company B far outperforms company A.
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What is driving that?
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While company A has higher profit margins, as we saw in the income statement analysis, analysis, Company B has a much higher financial leverage,
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as we saw in the balance sheet analysis.
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There is a third component to the return on equity calculation, the financial ratio called asset turnover.
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Asset turnover looks at how much revenue is generated by the company with the assets it has.
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For Company A, asset turnover is 1.
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1 .000 in assets on the balance sheet generates 1 .000 in revenue in the income statement.
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For company B, asset turnover is 1 .25.
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Let's dig a little deeper into two key subsets of this asset turnover ratio.
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The first one is receivables turnover, the number of times per year that the business collects its average accounts receivable,
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the ratio between revenue in the income statement and accounts receivable on the balance sheet.
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6 .67 for company A, 20 for company B.
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Receivables turnover might be a bit abstract for a lot of people, so let's turn it into a more tangible related metric called days sales outstanding.
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How many days does a company need to wait before a customer pays?
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55 days for company A, and just 18 days for company B.
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The second subset of the asset turnover ratio is inventory turnover, the number of times per year that the business turns it inventory,
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the ratio between revenue in the income statement and inventory on the balance sheet.
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Five inventory turns for company A, ten inventory turns for company B.
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So what do financial ratios tell us?
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Can we say, based on calculating these financial ratios, that company A is in better financial shape, or company B is in better financial shape?
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Not necessarily.
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Financial ratios do provide us with clear information about the financial footprint of a company,
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and deepen your understanding of the strategic and operational story behind the financial numbers.
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In this video on financial ratio analysis, we covered 10 financial ratios.
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On the income statement, gross profit percentage, operating margin percentage, return on sales percentage.
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On the balance sheet, current ratio, debt to equity, equity as percentage of total.
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When linking the P &L and the balance sheet, return on equity, asset turnover, receivables turnover, inventory turnover.
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Financial ratio analysis is as much an art as it is a science.
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Want to learn more about business, finance and accounting? then subscribe to the Finance Storyteller YouTube channel.
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Thank you!
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Financial ratio analysis”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: ratio, financial, equity, statement, income. This video has 71 sentences and 1355 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:08. The speaker talks at a steady 134 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ratio noun | /ˈɹeɪ.ʃoʊ/ | A number representing a comparison between two named things. |
| equity noun | /ˈɛk.wɪ.ti/ | Fairness, impartiality, or justice as determined in light of "natural law" or "natural right". |
| asset noun | /ˈæsɛt/ | A thing or quality that has value, especially one that generates cash flows. |
| sheet noun | /ʃit/ | A thin bed cloth used as a covering for a mattress or as a layer over the sleeper. |
| turnover noun | /ˈtɝnoʊvɚ/ | The amount of money taken as sales transacted in a given period. |
| margin noun | /ˈmɑɹ.d͡ʒɪn/ | The edge of the paper, typically left blank when printing but sometimes used for annotations etc. |
| inventory noun | /ˈɪn.vən.tɹi/ | The stock of an item on hand at a particular location or business. |
| divide verb | /dɪˈvaɪd/ | To split or separate (something) into two or more parts. |
| gross adjective | /ɡɹoʊs/ | remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive. |
| liability noun | /laɪəˈbɪlɪti/ | An obligation, debt or responsibility owed to someone. |
| percentage noun | /pə(ɹ)ˈsɛntɪd͡ʒ/ | The amount, number or rate of something, regarded as part of a total of 100; a part of a whole. |
| versus | /ˈvɝsəs/ | Against; in opposition to. |
| minus | /ˈmaɪ.nəs/ | Made less or reduced by (followed by an expression of number or quantity). |
| leverage noun | /ˈlɛv.(ə.)ɹɪd͡ʒ/ | A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot. |
| relative noun | /ˈɹɛl.ə.tɪv/ | Someone connected by blood, marriage, or adoption; someone in the same family. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| zoom in on verb | To quickly focus on a particular subject or object. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What do you need to get started on a financial ratio analysis?
- Let’s see what the financial ratios tell us.
- What do we zoom in on for further analysis?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is expressed · is mainly driven · is usually seen |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has shrunk · has achieved |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | borrowed, which is · equity, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: ratio /ˈɹeɪ.ʃoʊ/, sheet /ʃit/, calculation /ˌkælkjuˈleɪʃn̩/, shareholder /ˈʃɛəˌhəʊl.də(ɹ)/, efficiency /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/
- Long words — get the stress right: liability /laɪəˈbɪlɪti/, investigate /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/, individually /ˌɪndɪˈvɪd͡ʒ(u)əli/, continuity /ˌkɑn.tɪˈn(j)u.ə.ti/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like ratio, equity, asset.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.