Cash ratio
The share of near-term obligations the company could settle today, out of cash and short-term investments.
Formula
\frac{\text{Cash} + \text{Short-term investments}}{\text{Current liabilities}}Only what is already money, or turns into money within days — no inventory and no receivables.
How to read the number
The strictest of the three liquidity measures. It answers not «will the company cope over a year» but «what will it pay with tomorrow».
When the metric lies
A high value is not automatically good: idle cash earns nothing, and for a company sitting on a large balance the question shifts from solvency to why it is not investing.
Where it is used
The metric is calculated across every security in the catalogue and appears on the instrument card, in the multiples table and in the screener.
Also known as: cash ratio