Activity Guidelines and Rubric

Overview: For this task, you will analyze the financial health of two competitors in the same industry based on their ratios, using the provided Excel spreadsheet template. Then, you will complete your analysis by writing a short synopsis of your findings in the space below the analysis.

Prompt: Follow the steps below to analyze the financial health of two competitors.

Select two companies operating in the same industry (for example, Spring and T-Mobile). The companies have to be in the same business for the ratios to be valuable to your analysis. Then, complete the template, providing the following:

• Ratio Research: Use the template to analyze the selected ratios (profitability, financial strength, valuation, management effectiveness, dividends, and efficiency) for both of the competitors. To complete this part, you can reference the Morningstar website in the resources to obtain the ratios. You can also use the SEC EDGAR Company Filings resource to obtain the ratio from annual reports. Please note: The ratios have to be from the same time period (the same year for both competitors).

• Industry Ratios: To analyze ratios for the companies, you also need to obtain the ratios for the industry that the competitors operate in. Industry values for the ratios can be found in the index column. If no index value is available, put the five-year averages for both companies in the industry column and use these figures for the industry comparison of your ratio analysis.

• Ratio Analysis: Compare the two companies based on their ratios. Use the last column in the template to write in detail how each company is doing based on the ratios. Compare the company ratios to the industry and each other.

• Summary: This short write-up should be done directly in your Excel spreadsheet.

• What is a ratio analysis? Briefly explain in about one paragraph. Please quote your resource.

• Referring to the ratio analysis, in which company would you be willing to invest and why?

Note: This is a theoretical exercise. You should not be investing according to this analysis.