As an analyst reviewing the past three years of common size income statements of a retail business you are valuing, you observe that gross profit as a percentage of sales has been trending downward, indicating you will want to take one of the following possible courses of action prior to forecasting gross profit over the planning period:

	a.	Review the leverage ratio over time
	b.	Compare the firms gross profit margin with other firms in the industry
	c.	Do nothing since its normal for gross profit margins to decline over time
	d.	Throw out the first two years of data based on age and relevancy
	e.	None of the above