1. What roles do GAAP, the FASB, and the PCAOB play in the financial reporting activities of public companies?

2. Describe the purpose of each of the four major financial statements.

3. Why are the notes to the financial statements important to professional securities analysts?

4. How is the current rate (translation) method used to consolidate a firm's foreign and domestic financial statements?

5. With regard to financial ratio analysis, how do the viewpoints held by the firm's present and prospective shareholders, creditors, and management differ?

6. What is the difference between cross-sectional and time-series ratio analysis?

7. What is benchmarking?

8. When performing cross-sectional ratio analysis, the analyst should pay primary attention to what types of deviations from the norm? Why?

9. Why is it preferable to compare ratios calculated using financial statements that are dated at the same point in time during the year?

10. How do financial cash flow and the accounting statement of cash flows differ? Which is more useful for analyzing a company?