1. Familiarize yourself with Apple's recent financial information. You will find this information at Apple's investor relation site.
2. Study the spreadsheet below containing a forecast of Apple's income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024. (The forecast is based onQ4 2023'searnings conference calland10-K 2023. Itdoes not incorporate Q1 2024's results.) Focus on the forecasting assumptions in the "Forecasting Template" sheet for theIncome Statementsection.

The spreadsheet produces forecasted annual EPS of $7.08. Identify one forecasting assumption (which affects forecasted EPS) that could be different and explain the alternative assumption. Provide some reasons to support your argument. Based on the new assumption, what is your annual EPS forecast? On March 3, 2024, the LSEG stock reports plus shows that 40 sell-side analysts' forecasts for Apple's annual EPS forecast in 2024 range between $6.300 to $6.920, with a mean EPS forecast of $6.563. How close is your annual EPS forecast to these forecasts? What do you think are the sources of any major differences?