Although most of the discussions on accounting/financial statement analysis in most text books are based on the U.S or U.K. economies, the principles are quite general and are applicable in our industries or companies. Many national government and companies require financial analyst or certified public accountant to generate financial statements based on the widely accepted accounting rules. These rules are the generally accepted accounting principles developed by the financial accounting standards board. Reporting financial information, both internally to managers and externally to investors, is clearly something that is very important to senior financial executives like SFI students in Accra Business School. Obtain or download six (6) homogenous companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange Website over a five (5) year period.

With your first-hand knowledge in SFI, compute any one (1) of the ratios under: (i) Profitability (ii) Liquidity (iii) Activity/ Working Capital (iv) Capital Structure (v) Tangibility (vi) Company Size Required Create/Prepare a panel data arrangement of the information obtained from the financial statements, including the computed ratios. Estimate and Discuss the: a. Descriptive statistics of the ratios(variables) b. Correlation Coefficient Matrix of the ratios(variables) c. Write a brief report on the stylized facts of the ratios(variables) based on: (i) trends analysis and (ii) the five (companies) d. Write a brief report on an analysis showing the effect of the companies capital structure on profitability. e. Based on your results in question (d) above, explain the coefficient of determination and the joint statistics of the variables. Hint: Do not present the panel data arrangement you have created/prepared.