Its ratio of assets (loans and investments) to loss-absorbing equity capital is a fraction over 20 times, down from 50 times in the autumn of 2008, when it was rescued from the brink by taxpayers.

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Another contributing factor to this crunch is the ratio of seed stage funding and Series A investments.

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Sharpe, a professor emeritus at Stanford, invented the Sharpe Ratio for measuring the risk-adjusted performance of investments.

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