11/13 The Wikinvest Daily Angle

Please add updates@feedmyinbox.com to your address book to make sure you receive these messages in the future. The Wikinvest Daily Angle - Market Insight and Commentary from Wikinvest.com An Introduction to the Balance Sheet: Current Assets November 12, 2009 at 2:01 am Today's Daily Angle comes from Wikinvest Wire member Benjamin Clark of ModernGraham.com. You can read the full article on the Modern Graham Blog. This article is the second week's lesson in the ModernGraham Academy beginner's course, An Introduction the the Balance Sheet. The ModernGraham Academy is a place to learn about the basics of investing, with an emphasis on the ModernGraham approach. What are Current Assets? Current Assets are the assets of a company that can be considered to have short-term liquidity. That is to say, the assets that the company could potentially sell in the very near future and turn into cash. Current assets are very important to consider when evaluating a company. Having a good amount of current assets can help a company handle day to day operations. Here are some of the main types of current assets, and some things to consider about each type. Cash – Cash is the most important and easiest to understand type of current asset. Cash is made up of all funds in the company's bank accounts. Cash is the most liquid asset in the world. A company with a lot of cash has versatility to make large purchases on short notice. As a result, if a company suddenly raises a large amount of cash, intelligent investors will be prepared for the company to make a purchase of some sort. Short-term investments (cash equivalents) – In addition to cash, a company often has short-term investments including small equity positions. Assets fall into this category when they are considered very liquid but take at least a little bit of effort in order to fully translate them into cash. Receivables – Most companies use the accrual-basis for accounting. As a result, income is recorded as a receivable in the period it is received. These receivables are considered a current asset, because it is likely they will be received and turned into cash in the near future. One consideration for this area is the possibility of baddebts and many companies account for this by reducing the receivables figure by a provision for doubtful accounts. Inventory – possibly the most scrutinized of all the current assets, inventory is considered to be current because it is much more liquid than the non-current assets. The problem is that it cannot always be transferred into cash very easily. It is possible that a company would not be able to sell all inventory in a short period of time, or (more likely) would have to sell the inventory at a steep discount to speed the sale, resulting in an actual value lower than what is report on the balance sheet. Prepaid expenses – Similar to receivables, prepaid expenses are not an actual asset but rather an asset based on the accrual method of accounting. However, they are considered to be a current asset for the balance sheet because they could potentially be exchanged for cash in the form of a refund of the good or service that was pre-paid.   This email was sent to gatdemit001@gmail.com.  Create Your Account Don't want to receive this feed any longer? Unsubscribe here.