Stata: Scale x variable by lagged y variable - stata

Question

I'm trying to scale one variable by another lagged variable.
(IB) scaled by the lagged total assets(AT) = ROA
I've tried this two methods below from here.
xtset companyid fyear, year
gen at1 = l.at
gen roa=ib/at1
and
xtset gvkey year
gen roa=(ib)/(at[_n-1])
The first one came back with all zeros for 1.ta
The second one seems to generate values on the previous entry, even if it's a different company. I think this is true because only the first row has a missing value. I would assume there should be a missing value for the first year of each company.
Additionally I've tried this code below but it said invalid syntax.
xtset gvkey year
foreach gvkey {
gen roa = (ib)/(at[_n-1]) }
I'm using compustat so it's similar to below:
gvkey|Year |Ticker | at | ib |
-------|-----|--------|------|------|
001111| 2006| abc |1000 |50 |
001111| 2007| abc |1100 |60 |
001111| 2008| abc |1200 |70 |
001111| 2009| abc |1300 |80 |
001112| 2008| www |28777 |1300 |
001112| 2009| www |26123 |870 |
001113| 2009| ttt |550 |-1000 |
001114| 2010| vvv |551 |-990 |

Answer 1

This is hard to follow. 1.ta may, or may not, be a typo for L.at.
Is gvkey string? At the Stata tag, there is really detailed advice about how to give Stata data examples, which you are not following.
In principle, your first approach is correct, so it is hard to know what went wrong, except that
The second one seems to generate values on the previous entry, even if
it's a different company.
That's exactly correct. The previous observation is the previous observation, and nothing in that command refers or alludes to the panel structure or xtset or tsset information.
Your foreach statement is just wild guessing and nothing to do with any form supported by foreach. foreach isn't needed here at all: the lag operator implies working within panels automatically.
I did this, which may help.
clear
input str6 gvkey Year str3 Ticker at ib
001111 2006 abc 1000 50
001111 2007 abc 1100 60
001111 2008 abc 1200 70
001111 2009 abc 1300 80
001112 2008 www 28777 1300
001112 2009 www 26123 870
001113 2009 ttt 550 -1000
001114 2010 vvv 551 -990
end
egen id = group(gvkey), label
xtset id Year
gen wanted = at/L.ib
list, sepby(gvkey)
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| gvkey Year Ticker at ib id wanted |
|------------------------------------------------------------|
1. | 001111 2006 abc 1000 50 001111 . |
2. | 001111 2007 abc 1100 60 001111 22 |
3. | 001111 2008 abc 1200 70 001111 20 |
4. | 001111 2009 abc 1300 80 001111 18.57143 |
|------------------------------------------------------------|
5. | 001112 2008 www 28777 1300 001112 . |
6. | 001112 2009 www 26123 870 001112 20.09462 |
|------------------------------------------------------------|
7. | 001113 2009 ttt 550 -1000 001113 . |
|------------------------------------------------------------|
8. | 001114 2010 vvv 551 -990 001114 . |
+------------------------------------------------------------+