1. Go to Market Insight at www.mhhe.com/edumarketinsight. Wal-Mart Stores and Sears Roebuck & Co. are two retailers at opposite ends of the performance scale. Calculate the net working capital and the cash conversion cycle, discussed in Section 19.2, for each firm. By how much would the investment in working capital fall if each firm could reduce its cash con- version cycle by 1 day? Compare and contrast the level and trend of the "per-employee" ratios for each company. (See the third page of the Profitability Report.) Which company has higher employee efficiency? Use the most recent year-end Balance Sheet Report, Income Statement Report, Annual Ratio Report, and Profitability Report from Market Insight. Based on the Profitability Report, how has the market reacted to the performance differences between the companies?