balance sheet

Like consumers, companies can take on too much debt. The debt-to-equity ratio offers one way to tell whether a leveraged business is taking on too much. Here's how you can do the simple math before you invest.

The Fed's decision to allow big banks to pay sharply higher dividends makes no sense, and not just because the results of the so-called "stress tests" are secret. Based on facts that are public knowledge, the banks are actually insolvent, and in danger of sinking much further.

Companies with lots of cash are in the best position to buy market share, make acquisitions and pay dividends. Hilary Kramer says cash is a key metric investors should be watching, and in this video she discusses why cash-rich companies Cisco, Gilead and Teradyne are all good stocks to own.

The 500 largest non-financial companies in the U.S. hold $994 billion in cash and short-term investments, up about 8 percent from last year, according to an exclusive study conducted by The Wall Street Journal. Some of the largest tech companies like Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) have tens of...

Jonathan Weil at Bloomberg has quite a contention: on a mark-to-market basis, a number of banks -- such as Regions Financial (RF), SunTrust Banks (STI), and KeyCorp (KEY) -- would have negative regulatory equity. Meanwhile, others -- including giants like Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC)...