Quick ratio
What it measures¶
The quick ratio is the current ratio without inventory: (current assets − inventory) ÷ current liabilities. Current assets are cash and what turns into cash within a year; current liabilities are what must be paid within a year. Inventory — goods in stock — is taken out because it may not find a customer quickly or at its recorded value.
Why it is on the page¶
It is a stricter test of short-term liquidity. A quick ratio well below the current ratio is the signature of a business that carries a lot of stock, which is normal for a manufacturer or a retailer and unusual for a software company.
Thresholds, their source and the population they were fitted on¶
The page draws no zones. A quick ratio of 1.0 is commonly read as "can pay its short-term bills without selling stock", but the line is a textbook convention with no fitted sample, and stock-heavy industries routinely sit below it.
- Fitted on: no population — a descriptive ratio.
- Evidence grade: folklore.
A worked example¶
Celestica, as the Fundamentals page showed it on 9 August 2026 (fiscal year 2025): quick ratio 0.88 against a current ratio of 1.44 — the difference is the inventory of an assembly business.
What “No verdict” means here¶
The row carries no verdict of its own. It reads insufficient data when current assets, inventory or current liabilities is not stored; a company that reports no inventory has a quick ratio equal to its current ratio.
What the verdict is and is not¶
The figure describes the short-term cushion without stock at one year-end. It is not a forecast and not an instruction to trade the shares.