Many companies now provide a wealth of information about themselves on their websites. But how much of this information is useful for investment purposes? To help you answer this question, imagine that you have $10,000, which you must invest in the common stock of a publicly-held company.
a. Select a company as specified by your instructor and access its online financial reports. Is the information contained in the reports complete? If not, why not? Is the information contained in these reports sufficient for you to decide whether or not to invest in the company? If not, why not?
b. Now select an online brokerage website such as E ∗Trade and look up the information of that same company. Does the information provided by the brokerage firm differ from that of the company itself? If so, how? Again, answer the question: Is the information contained in these reports sufficiently detailed and complete for you to decide whether to invest in it? If not, why not?
c. Access the website of an investment rating service such as Value Line. How does the information on this third site differ from that of the other two? Again, answer the question: ‘‘is the information contained on the site sufficiently detailed and complete for you to decide whether invest in the stock? If not, why not?’’
d. What do these comparisons tell you about the difference between ‘‘data’’ and ‘‘information?’’