The Securities and Exchange Commission maintains online copies of documents filed by publicly traded companies. This online data source is referred to as EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval). Pick any industry and select five firms from that industiy. For each firm selected, search the EDGAR data base for the firm’s latest 10-K filing. Find the income statement in the 10-K and compute the ratio of product costs to sales and the ratio of period costs to sales. Determine whether the ratios vary substantially across the firms. Compute an average for each of these ratios for the five firms that you have selected. Compare your average ratios to those of students who have selected other in¬ dustries. What causes the ratios to vary across companies and across industries?

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