If a company does carry debt, it's long term debt that is most damaging since this form of debt will remain with the company for an extended period of time. As the name implies, this ratio equals the amount of long term debt divided by the total value of the company. A good rule of thumb is to invest only in companies with debt to equity ratios of less than 1. The next thing to check is a company's profit margin. Although there are technical differences in the meaning of each type of profit margin, they all essentially measure the degree of profitability of a company.
Profit margins appear as percentages.
It also offers insight into the quality of a company's management since a well managed company will tend to demonstrate an ability to avoid commoditization of its products. This offers a glimpse of a company's operating efficiency. The best case is a company in which earnings grow at a faster rate than revenues. This would suggest that company XYZ is becoming more efficient at selling its products, or in other words, the cost of generating each dollar of revenues is decreasing. This, like profit margin, is an indication of a well run company.