Stock metrics that should be improving year over year

This is number one. Revenue should be increasing year over year even during tough times.

If you want your stock price to dramatically increase you need to see profits going up each year. If the net income gap is getting larger each year then the stock may still be a winner someday, but unlikely any time soon.

This is about your ownership. You own shares in this business. You want those shares to become more valuable over time.

The number of shares outstanding should not be growing too much, but the profits of the business should definitely be growing. The higher the better.

How profitable is the business?

This is difference between how much it costs to make a product versus how much the business can sell it for on the open market.

Apple can build an iPhone for less than $100 and sell it for $1,200+.

A business should be improving its profit margin year over year. It should be selling more products and become more efficient creating those products.

The ability of a business to pay its debts.

You want to have a lot of cash on hand to pay current liabilities. The closer the number is to 1 the closer it is to not being able to pay off debts.

The money that people owe the business. These assets can also be used by the business to get a loan.

We want more customers owing the business money.

The money that the business owes creditors.

We do not want to owe people money.

This could mean more restaurants. More software features. More TV shows.

More products should translate into more business profits.

You want to see cash increasing, a business should not be burning through all their cash on the books.

It would be nice to see shares stay the same or decrease.

If the business is issuing a lot of new shares then your ownership as a shareholder is being diluted. Watch out.