DocumentationRatios – end.Ratios

Instructions

Choice of Companies and an Overview of Their Operations and Industry – briefly outline what the company does and its industry. (5 pts)

II. Discussion of Current Issues Impacting Financial Statements – include any relevant current event information, news that has affected financial statements, or world events that could impact the businesses. Research will have to be done on this. Some good sources of information include the most recent annual reports for each company (these can be found online for all publicly traded companies; utilize the most current year end annual reports available), Yahoo! Finance, the MSN Money website (this will provide current information on your company and some ratio information), and various business magazines. You can find the websites suggested under the Webliography tab in the course. A minimum of one business article needs to be utilized that is under one year written. You must cite the source of the article. This should only be one paragraph for your company, not the competitor. (5 pts)

III. Relevant Ratios and Discussion – list what ratios you think are relevant to your companies and industry. Go to the Excel spreadsheet in Doc Sharing, review the ratios listed under the ratio tab, and pick what you think may be relevant. In two paragraphs (no more), briefly discuss sixratios you think may be important, and at least one ratio must be included from each ratio category. The ratios will be automatically calculated on the spreadsheet (please see section IV regarding this). DO NOT manually calculate these ratios..they will be done on the ss (10 pts)

IV. Excel Spreadsheet FinSAS.xlsx – Manually input the financial data for your company under the Inputtab on the spreadsheet. The ss can be found in doc sharing. Download it and save it to your computer and back it up. You should insert numbers highlighted only in blue. These numbers should be found in the company’s most recent year end annual reports (utilize the most year end numbers; the spreadsheet has it starting at 2008, but change the year to 2011 and go five years historically from there to 2007), which can be obtained online under your company choice. Complete a separate spreadsheet for eachcompany. Write here that you completed the input for the spreadsheet for both companies and that the spreadsheet works. To check this, once you input the data in the input tab only, check the other tabs (ratio, vertical analysis) to ensure that you see the automated calculations. ONLY INPUT INTO THE INPUT TABS..the spreadsheet will then calculate everything else. Download and save the document on your computer and back it up. (20 pts)

VI. Bibliography – you should start this and have a few sources at this point including the article and annual report you are utilizing.

I. Identification of Significant Asset Items, Liability Items, and Comments on Revenue and Profitability – List specific issues that you think affect these items. For example, economic factors, new product launches, and recent news developments can affect the items. Information can be obtained from annual report write ups, financial notes in the annual reports, and the Internet. Briefly comment on how they affect financial numbers such as sales, profitability, costs, revenue, and so forth. Cite all sources utilized. This analysis must be done. (10 pts)

II. Relevant Ratios and Discussion of Your Findings of Vertical Analysis – Discuss briefly your vertical analysis findings, which are calculated automatically on the spreadsheet under the vertical analysis tab. Do not input into here. Then, identify any key ratios that you think impact vertical analysis. You must identify a minimum of two ratios that would impact the vertical analysis. Discuss why you picked these ratios for your company and how these compared to your competitor here. DO not just the definition of the ratio discuss what it means in relation to your company and competitor. (10 pts)

III. Excel Spreadsheet FinSAS.xlsx, Calculations of Vertical Ratio Analysis – This is a separate tab under the project spreadsheet and will calculate automatically, based on what you inserted in the input tab during Week 2. Ensure that it has calculated, and provide a brief analysis of your findings. The spreadsheet does not need to be submitted this week; just state that the spreadsheet is calculating correctly for each company. (20 pts)

a. Bibliography
b. Other back material, as needed: detailed tables, extended quotations from which shorter quotes are taken, and so forth.

I. Explaining Business Objectives and the Effect of the Objectives on the Ratios – Briefly highlight if the ratios meet the criteria of the business objectives. These objectives can be found in the year end annual reports under CEO comments and business summaries. Discuss a minimum of2 ratios that relate to these business objectives. Discuss the business objectives – two paragraphs here. (10 pts)

II. Identification of the Three Most Important Ratios for Your Companies and Support – Include why you think these ratios are the most important; what do they indicate about the financial health of each company? All ratios should be automatically calculated based on your input sheet from week 2. Provide the definition of the ratio and your justification why it is important for your company.Take one from each category and compare to the competitor. Suggestion, put the ratios in and easy table format and then discuss in paragraph format. (10 pts)

III. Computation of Relevant Ratios and Comparison to Industry Data – Verify that all ratios have been automatically calculated on the spreadsheet. On a separate document, list the ratios in comparison to the industry. Industry ratios can be found on various financial websites. The list should be in a table format, showing Company A, Company B and then the industry ratio. (20 pts)

a. Bibliography
b. Other back material, as needed: detailed tables, extended quotations from which shorter quotes are taken, and so forth.