Article: You can find the information you'll need to make this calculation on the company's balance sheet. You will have to make some decisions about which of the balance sheet accounts to include in your calculation of debt. Equity refers to the funds contributed by the stockholders, plus the company's earnings. The balance sheet should include a figure labeled as total equity. When determining debt, include interest-bearing, long term debt such as notes payable and bonds. Be sure to include the current amount of long-term debt. You'll find this in the current liabilities section of the balance sheet. Analysts often leave out current liabilities, such as accounts payable and accrued liabilities. These items provide little information about how a company is leveraged. This is because they do not reflect long-term commitments, but only the day-to-day operations of the business. Companies will sometimes keep certain expenditures off their balance sheets. This is to make their debt equity ratios look better. You should include certain off-balance sheet liabilities when calculating debt. Operating leases and unfunded pensions are two common off-balance sheet liabilities. These expenditures are often large enough to include in the debt to equity ratio. Other debt to look out for may come from joint ventures or research and development partnerships. Scan through the notes to the financial statements and look for off-balance sheet liabilities. Include those greater than 10% of the total of interest bearing debt. Find this ratio by dividing total debt by total equity. Start with the parts that you identified in Step 1 and plug them into this formula: Debt to Equity Ratio = Total Debt Total Equity. The result is the debt-to-equity ratio. For example, suppose a company has $300,000 of long-term interest bearing debt. The company also has $1,000,000 of total equity. This company would have a debt to equity ratio of 0.3 (300,000 / 1,000,000), meaning that total debt is 30% of total equity. Once you have calculated a company's debt to equity ratio, you can begin to develop an idea of its capital structure. Here are some things to keep in mind: A ratio of 0.3 or lower is considered healthy by many analysts. In recent years though, others have concluded that too little leverage is just as bad as too much leverage. Too little leverage can suggest a conservative management unwilling to take risk. A ratio of 1.0 means that the company funds its projects with an even mix of debt and equity. A ratio greater than 2.0 means that the company borrows a lot to finance operations. It means that creditors have twice as much money in the company as equity holders. Lower ratios mean that the company has less debt, and this reduces risk. A company with less debt will also have less exposure to interest rate increases and changes in credit conditions. Some companies will choose debt financing despite the increased risk. Debt financing allows a company to gain access to capital without diluting ownership. It may sometimes also result in higher earnings. If a company with lots of debt becomes profitable, a small number of owners may make a lot of money.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Determine the company's debt and equity. Watch out for expenditures that aren't listed on the balance sheet. Calculate the debt-to-equity ratio. Do a basic assessment of the firm's capital structure.
Article: When you listen to music, you have probably noticed that it's not all at the same volume, all the time. Some parts get really loud, and some parts get really soft. These variations are known as "dynamics." If the rhythm and meter are the heart of the music, and notes and keys are the brains, then dynamics are surely the voice of the music. Consider the first version above. On your table, tap out: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8, etc. (the and is how musicians "say" eighth notes). Make sure every beat is tapped at the same loudness, so that it sounds a bit like a helicopter. Now take a look at the second version. Notice the accent mark (>) above every F note. Tap that out, only this time, accent every beat that you see the accent mark. Now, instead of a helicopter, it should sound more like a train. With just a subtle shift in accent, we completely change the character of the music! Just like you don't always talk at the same levelyou modulate your voice louder or softer, depending on the situationmusic modulates in level too. The way the composer tells the musician what is intended is by using dynamic markings. There are dozens of dynamic markings you may see on a piece of music, but some of the most common ones you'll find will be the letters f, m, and p. p means "piano," or "softly." f means "forte," or "loud." m means "mezzo," or "medium." This modifies the dynamic after it, as in mf which means "medium loud", or mp, which means "medium soft." The more ps or fs you have, the softer or louder the music is to be played. Try singing the example above (using solfegethe first note in this example is the tonic, or "do"), and use the dynamic markings to notice the difference. Another very common dynamic notation is the crescendo, and it's corollary, the decrescendo or "diminuendo". They are a visual representations of a gradual change in volume which look like stretched-out "<" and ">" symbols. A crescendo gradually gets louder, and a decrescendo gradually decreases the volume. You'll notice that, with these two symbols, the "open" end of the symbol represents the louder dynamic and the closed end represents the quieter dynamic. For example, if the music directs you to gradually go from forte to piano, you'll see an f', then a stretched out ">", then a 'p'. Sometimes a crescendo or diminuendo will be represented as the shortened words cresc." (crescendo) or dim. (diminuendo).
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Get loudor get soft! Play it piano, or fortissimo, or somewhere in between. Get louder and louder and louder, or quieter and quieter and quieter.