After graduating from college in May $2018,$ Ryan Crews started his career in finance at W&T Corporation, a small$-$ to medium$-$sized warehouse distributor in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was founded by David Winston and Colin Tabor in $2005,$ after they had worked together in management at Walmart. Although Crews had an offer from Sam$$s Club, he became excited about the opportunity with W&T$.$

For W&T$,2017$ turned out to be a good financial year. But in $2018,$ the company experienced a $5\mathrm{.}3$ percent sales reduction, where sales declined from $$5\mathrm{.}7$ million to $$5\mathrm{.}4$ million. The downturn then led to other financial problems, including a $50$ per$-$ cent reduction in the company$$s stock price. The share price went from $$36$ per share at the end of $2017$ to $$18$ per share at the end of $2018!$

David Winston and Colin Tabor want to understand what may have happened.

Financial information for W&T for both years is shown below, where all the num$-$ bers, except for per$-$share data, are shown in thousands.

Using what you have learned in this chapter and Chapter $3,$ prepare a finan$-$ cial analysis of W&T$,$ comparing the firm$$s financial performance between the two years.

What conclusions can you make from your analysis?

What recommendations would you make to management?