What does vertical analysis assess in financial statements?

Vertical analysis assesses financial statement items as percentages of a whole, making it a valuable tool for understanding the proportional relationship of individual line items within a financial statement. For instance, in an income statement, each item can be expressed as a percentage of total revenue, while in a balance sheet, each item can be shown as a percentage of total assets. This approach helps analysts and stakeholders quickly gauge how each component contributes to the overall financial picture, facilitating better comparisons across different periods or companies, even if those companies differ significantly in size.

The other options include analyzing trends over several years, which would involve horizontal analysis rather than vertical. Debt to equity ratios are a measure of financial leverage, not a direct outcome of vertical analysis. Comparison with competitors typically involves benchmarking ratios or metrics, which again diverges from the core purpose of vertical analysis focused on internal financial statement structure and item relationships.