For anyone (like me) who may need a little help understanding PTSC or any financial data.

Company Financial Data

Where do you get company financial data?

Public companies that are traded on U.S. stock exchanges are required to report quarterly and annual reports of their financial performance. These reports, filed with the SEC, typically appear as 10-Q (quarterly) and 10-K (annual) filings. However, financial data can also be found in a slew of other types of documents, depending on the type of company and location of its headquarters. We gather financial data as soon as soon as it is made available to us and display it as reported*.

What do each of the financial statement line items mean?

Companies are required to report financial performance according to principles set forth by FASB; however, companies may apply unique interpretation to the definitions of the line items or inject their own line items based on the industry in which they reside.

On Tracked.com we display the following items*:

Income Statement

• "Revenue" is the total income, both cash and non-cash, a business collects for providing goods and/or services before expenses are paid.
• "Gross Profit" is sales minus the cost of goods sold (COGS), which are the costs directly associated with producing the company's product.
• "Operating Income" is gross profit minus operating expenses. Operating expenses are the costs of selling the product, plus the general expenses of running the business.
• "Net Income" is operating income minus taxes and all other deductions, including amortization and depreciation, insurance, etc. If this number is positive it is called the "Net Profit" available to shareholders or owners, whereas if it is negative it is called a "Net Loss." It is also referred to as the "bottom line."

Balance Sheet

• "Cash & Cash Equivalents" are the assets on a company's balance sheet that are cash or are extremely liquid and can be converted to cash immediately.
• "Short Term Investments" are current assets on a company's balance sheet that are investments and will expire within one year. This investment returns more than a savings account, and this figure indicates the company has a strong enough cash position to allow it to invest its excess cash.
• "Accounts Receivable" is a debt owed to the company from the sale of goods or services. It is usually due within 30 to 90 days.
• "Inventory" represents all finished goods not sold, plus all goods at any stage of production and all the raw materials acquired to make the goods a company sells.
• "Total Current Assets" are the assets and resources that are expected to be consumed, sold or renewed by the business within one year of that financial statement. This is the sum of Cash & Cash equivalents, Receivables, inventories and other categories of current assets.
• "Total Assets" are all the assets of a business that have either economic or monetary value. It is the sum of current and non-current (sometimes called "fixed") assets.
• "Short Term Debt" is debt of the company that is payable within one year.
• "Accounts Payable" are recognized debts of a company owed to creditors and/or suppliers for goods and services obtained in the normal course of operations that must be paid within one year and which are most commonly paid within 90 days.
• "Total Current Liabilities" is the total amount of payments due within one year. This includes accounts payable, short term debt and other miscellaneous current liabilities.
• "Long Term Debt" is the sum of all debts that are due to be paid more than one year from the date of the balance sheet. This includes all debts that are not current liabilities.
• "Total Debt" is all of the debt that the company owes.
• "Total Liabilities" is the sum of all liabilities on the balance sheet.
• "Shareholders Equity" is to the original investment in the firm plus any additional investsments. It also includes all retained earnings, minus any treasury stock. Shareholders Equity is also equal to Total Assets minus Total Liabilities.

Cash Flow

• "Cash From Operating Activities" is the cash flow generated from the normal operations of the company. Also called the Operating Cash Flow, it is calculated by adding depreciation to the earnings before interest.
• "Cash From Investing Activities" is cash flow statement and is the aggregate change in cash related to investments and operating subsidiaries, minus amounts spent on capital assets such as plant and equipment.
• "Cash From Financing Activities" is cash flow is a result of cash received by issuing stock and debt, minus cash paid as dividends and cash spent to buy stock back.
• "Change in Cash" indicates the change in cash and cash equivalents for the business cycle summed on the cash flow statement.
• "Capital Expenditures" are funds spent for the acquisition of a long term asset like a building, equipment expected to last more than one year, and land.
• "Sale/Purchase of Stock" represents the company's activities in their own stock in the specified fiscal time period. This number is positive when a company issues more stock, and negative when it buys back shares of its stock.
• "Dividends Paid" is the amount of dividends paid on preferred and common shares by that company.

Key Stats

Operating Efficiency:

• "Asset Turnover" shows the amount of sales dollars generated for every dollar that was invested into that company's assets. This measures how efficiently a company uses its assets to generate sales dollars.
• "Inventory Turnover" shows the dollars it took to produces a company's revenue divided by the dollars it has invested in stocking its inventory. This tells you how many times a year that business sells the inventory of goods it holds to supply those sales.
• "Receivables Turnover" indicates how quickly the company gets paid for the goods or services it sells. The higher this ratio is the better, and it can be compared to either its own historical levels or against other firms in the same or similar line of business.

Dividend:

• "Dividend" sum of all dividend payments by the company for the period.
• "Payout Ratio" is the percentage of a stock's price you will have paid back to you that year. If a stock pays a $1 dividend and it is a $20 stock, the Payout Ratio is 1/20 = 5%. Keep in mind you pay taxes on dividend payouts.

Growth Rates:

• "Earnings per share growth" is the growth (positive) or contraction (negative) of earnings per share of stock in this quarter as compared to the previous quarter.
• "Sales growth" is simply how fast the company is expanding (or contracting) its sales or revenue dollars from period to period.
• "Dividend growth" is the growth (or contraction) rate of the sum of all dividend payments from period to period.

Management Effectiveness:

• "Return on Assets" is a measurement of how efficient a company's assets are at producing profit.
• "Return on Equity" measures the firms ability to generate profit for every dollar of ownership interest (shareholders equity) invested by the common stock owners.
• "Return on Invested Capital" is used to measure the company's value-creating potential. Value is created when this number is above the company's cost of capital. The ROIC is found by dividing after-tax operating earnings by invested capital.

Profitability:

• "Gross Margin" indicates how much money is left over from each dollar of sales after paying for the direct costs to make the goods that are sold. It measures the money to the firm before paying selling, general and administrative expenses; interest; and dividends to shareholders.
• "Operating margin" is operating income, earned from a business's ongoing operations, before subtracting interest payments and income taxes and then divided by Total Revenues. It gives you a sense of how much money a company makes before interest and taxes.
• "EBITDA Margin" measures how much of the business's revenue is used up by its cash operating expenses.
• "Profit Margin" is the percentage of profits the company makes per dollar of revenue.

Financial Strength:

• "Quick Ratio," which is also called the Acid-Test Ratio, measures how well the company can pay its current bills with the very liquid assets it currently has. Inventories are not included as they are less liquid and assumes more sales.
• "Current Ratio" is one of the most common ratios used in analysis. It indicates how many dollars of current assets are available to pay each dollar of current liabilities.
• "Debt/Equity" is a measure of the financial leverage to total capital. This reflects the leverage the firm is using and the level that the company is trading on its equity. More leverage means the stock will tend to rise faster when the company is doing well, but will also drop faster when the company is not.
• "Debt/Assets" measures the risk to the company of not being able to pay their debts, especially in a rising interest rate environment. The higher the ratio the lower the safety margin that company has in case something goes wrong. A ratio above 1 means that the company's assets are completely financed by their debt.

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