Financial statement analysis (FSA) is a general term used to describe the activity of interpreting and using, as opposed to preparing, financial statements, primarily accounting data. It therefore extends from professional financial analysts employed at great expense by financial institutions for their skill at 'reading between the lines' of company balance sheets to employees and potential employees who simply want to know things such as how well the firm is doing and who owns it. The traditional tools of FSA are financial ratios, including profitability, activity, the management of working capital, growth, liquidity, the balance sheet, capital structure and investment data. Traditionally, financial analysts have used historical ratios combined with experience and judgement; recently, the development of powerful statistical techniques and databases has resulted in the application of statistical mechanical methods which can be used to make forecasts and predictions.