Apple Inc.'s consolidated financial statements appear in Appendix A and online in the filings section of www.sec.gov.
Requirements
1. Refer to Apple's Consolidated Balance Sheets and Note 7 (Shareholders' Equity). Describe the class of stock that Apple Inc. has authorized. How many shares of that stock have been issued as of September 27, 2014? How many are outstanding as of September 27, 2014?
2. Refer to the Consolidated Balance Sheets and the Consolidated Statements of Stockholders' Equity. How many shares of treasury stock did the company purchase during the year ended September 27, 2014? What was the cost of the treasury stock? How much per share?
3. Examine Apple Inc.'s Consolidated Statement of Stockholders' Equity. Analyze the change that occurred in the company's Retained Earnings account during the year ended September 27, 2014. Can you trace the change to any of its other financial statements? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
4. Use DuPont Analysis to compute Apple Inc.'s return on equity and return on assets for 2014. Pick a company that is a competitor of Apple Inc. and compute these ratios for the competitor. Which ratios are similar? Which are different? Which company do you think is more profitable? Explain.