Reading the Fundamentals tab

What you see

A snapshot of the company's current ratios, grouped into:

• Valuation — PE, PB, EV/EBITDA, dividend yield
• Profitability — ROE, ROCE
• Leverage — debt/equity, current ratio
• 52-week stats — high, low, average

For the full income statement and balance sheet, switch to the Financials tab instead.

The order to read them in

1. ROCE first

Return on capital employed. The single most useful number on the page for assessing business quality. Above 15% consistently signals a business with durable advantage. Below 10% signals either commodity dynamics or capital intensity that erodes returns.

Compare against the Peers tab — if this stock's ROCE leads its industry, you're looking at the dominant player.

2. Debt/Equity second

Quality businesses fund themselves with retained earnings, not debt. D/E below 0.5 is conservative; above 2 is aggressive. Some sectors (infrastructure, power, real estate) carry structural debt; banks have entirely different ratios (don't use D/E for them).

3. PE last

Valuation depends on what you've already learned about quality. A PE of 35 on a 25% ROCE business growing 20% might be fair. A PE of 15 on a 8% ROCE business growing 4% might be expensive despite the lower number.

Always frame PE as "is this multiple justified by what the business actually does?" rather than "is the number low or high?".

What the other ratios add

• ROE — return on equity. Tracks closely with ROCE for unleveraged businesses; diverges when debt is significant. ROE > 15% is the equivalent quality bar.
• PB — price to book. Most useful for banks and capital-heavy businesses; less useful for asset-light tech/services where book value understates the franchise. PB < 1 means the market values the company below its accounting net worth.
• EV/EBITDA — enterprise value to EBITDA. Capital-structure-neutral. Useful when comparing businesses with different debt levels. <10 is generally cheap.
• Current ratio — current assets / current liabilities. >1.5 is healthy. <1 indicates short-term liquidity stress.
• Dividend yield — only relevant for income-oriented investors. >3% is notable in the Indian context.

What's not on this tab

• Trend over time — Fundamentals shows current values only. For history, go to Financials.
• Peer comparison — go to the Peers tab.
• Sector context — most ratios are sector-relative. Compare a bank to other banks, not to TCS.