"Analysis of Financial Statements."

Discussion Activity: Read questions carefully as this discussion activity looks further at financial statements to analyze and compare the financial positions of firms competing in the same industry. Then,Create a financialstatement in Excel or MS Word which ever is best, providing information on all questions below.

1. Choose two firms that compete within the same industry (e.g., J.C. Penney and Sears, Johnson & Johnson and Merck, Ford and GM).

2. Go to each firm's website, and then access and download their annual reports (financial statements).

3. Using the accounting data from the firms' financial statements, calculateallratios for each firm (liquidity ratios, activity ratios, profitability ratios, leverage ratios, and coverage ratio)

4. Analyze and compare your calculations for the two firms.

Be sure to include the web addresses (URLs) of the firms whose websites you visited.