You are a new financial analyst for the brokerage firm of excel investments inc. a client has expressed an interest in the following companies

Ford motor company (f)

Starbucks (Sbux) · Microsoft (Msft)

Southwest airlines (Luv) you have been asked to provide him with a brief overview of each firm. The letters in parenthesis are symbols used to represent company names when security prices are quoted in financial markets. Use either the names or symbols to get to the overview page of each company using Yahoo! finance. Once there, do the following exercise for each firm:

1. Briefly summarize the nature of each firm’s business. This can be found by clicking on “profile” under the company tab on the left hand side menu bar.

2. Financial highlights can be found by to going to “key statistics” under the company tab:

a. profit margin

b. operating margin

c. revenue per share

d. total cash

e. total debt

f. book value per share

g. return on assets

h. return on equity

3. Go to the “interactive” section under charts. Here you will see a graph with several options to view performance over a range of different time periods. Set the chart to 5 years (5y). Now add the market, better known as the s&p500 by clicking on the “+comparison” button right above the chart. Add s&500 and you will be able to compare the performance of your stock to the market. Write a paragraph discussing the stock’s performance – does the price of the stock increase along with market, or go against it? Why do you think that happens?

4. What are professional analysts saying about this stock? is there a consensus on whether on should buy, sell or hold on to this stock? This can be found under the analyst coverage section.