Current ratio
What it measures¶
The current ratio divides current assets — cash and what turns into cash within a year, such as money customers owe and goods in stock — by current liabilities — what the company must pay within a year. A ratio of 1.5 means the short-term assets are one and a half times the short-term bills.
Why it is on the page¶
It is the oldest test of whether a company can pay its bills of the coming year. It feeds two checks of the condition summary: the Current ratio floor and Liquidity improving.
Thresholds, their source and the population they were fitted on¶
The row's bar has three zones:
| Zone | When | Source |
|---|---|---|
| below 1.0 | short-term assets do not cover short-term bills | the common accounting reading of the ratio |
| 1.0 to 2.0 | they cover them | the same |
| 2.0 and above | Benjamin Graham's stricter line for industrial companies | Graham, The Intelligent Investor, chapter 14 |
- Fitted on: no statistical sample — Graham's rule of thumb from US industrial companies.
- Evidence grade: folklore.
A worked example¶
Celestica, as the Fundamentals page showed it on 9 August 2026 (fiscal year 2025): current ratio 1.44 — in the middle zone. Apple, as the condition summary computed it on 25 October 2026: 0.89, below 1.0.
What “No verdict” means here¶
The row carries no verdict of its own; its area's verdict is in the panel header. It reads insufficient data when the balance sheet does not split current from long-term items.
What the verdict is and is not¶
The figure describes the short-term cushion at one year-end. It does not say how quickly the stock and the money owed by customers will turn into cash. It is not a forecast and not an instruction to trade the shares.