DEBT/EQUITY RATIO

A measure of a company's financial leverage calculated by dividing its total liabilities by stockholders' equity. It indicates what proportion of equity and debt the company is using to finance its assets. A high debt/equity ratio generally means that a company has been aggressive in financing its growth with debt. This can result in volatile earnings as a result of the additional interest expense. If a lot of debt is used to finance increased operations, the company could potentially generate more earnings than it would have without this outside financing. If this were to increase earnings by a greater amount than the debt cost, then the shareholders benefit as more earnings are being spread among the same amount of shareholders.