Profitability or Liquidity: Influencing the Market Value

Company liquidity management is connected to working capital, which is determined by decisions made at the level of cash, receivables, inventory, and payables. It can be assumed that the greater the liquidity, the higher the net working capital invested in a company; the higher the level of capital, the greater its cost, and thus the lower the ROE and EVA indicators. In such a case, investors monitoring company performance could interpret high liquidity as a negative signal, entailing a fall in the market prices. On the other hand, the greater the liquidity, the higher the flexibility of the company in terms of production and sales, which could provide additional income for the business. Consequently, investors could also interpret high liquidity as a positive sign, with a subsequent rise in the market prices. This paper sets out to examine the relations between the above-mentioned factors to find out how investors interpret corporate liquidity and profitability ratios on the Warsaw Stock Exchange