It measures the immediate growth in new customers and repeat purchasers. For smaller companies, that's an extremely important metric. For larger businesses, pure earnings growth matters much more. But that doesn't mean we should ignore sales growth altogether. Cash-Kings have to pursue new markets and fuel rising consumer demand, too.
Gross margins compare pricing power to the manufacturing cost of doing business.
And the higher the gross margins, the more cashola a business has to research new product lines, to promote its stuff during the Super Bowl, and to eventually pass down through to their shareholders. It just means that more buyers are returning with greater frequency, and that the company is generating more profit per unit sold. But debt financing has its merits. In the long run, long-term debt is a weakness. It's true that debt is more attractive than secondary stock offerings.