First Steps: - Select a Fortune 500 Company to analyze in this paper. It must be a public company that is traded on one of the major stock exchanges and it needs to be a firm that presents their financials in United States dollars, The assignment is simplified if you decide to use a manufacturing firm as opposed to a service company or financial institution. - Identify which industry this company operates within. Be as specific as possible. For instance, the retail industry is extremely large. Walmart would be included in this industry but would more specifically be part of the hypermarket, supercenter, or superstore category. - Identify a primary competitor of this company. For example, Walmart and Target are competitors. - Provide this information to me through email by February 17th at 11:00 PM (CST). A portion of your final grade on the ratio paper will include points for this submission. Key Sections of the Paper: - Overview of the Industry: An analysis of the industry is usually needed to help the reader understand the position of the company within it. A summary of the important facts could be listed as bullet points or could be presented in a summary table; however, just using bullet points is not acceptable. A written summary is expected. Consider providing a definition of the industry, pieces of key financial information (historical sales and net income trends), and the opportunities and challenges facing it. Remember that this is for the industry not your specific company. - Overview of the Company: This is your opportunity to discuss your specific company. Consider providing key historical information and milestones that have helped form the company. Possibly include a chart of some of the key financial information for the past several years (sales or revenues, cost of goods sold, before tax net income, and after-tax net income for the past three years both in dollars and percentage changes). The company's web site may be an excellent source of information for this part of the paper. - Discussion of the Financial Ratios for your Company: Here you can demonstrate all of the ratio skills you learned about in Chapter 14. Only use the ratios from Exhibit 13 on page 688 of the textbook. The requirements of the paper are that you need to include two liquidity ratios (do not use the calculation for working capital as a ratio), two solvency ratios, and two profitability ratios. You will need to provide the ratios for at least three years so you can compare them against each other. Discuss the impact of the ratios and how the numbers could be interpreted. Your own opinions as well as experts' opinions in the field should be provided. I have read the chapter so please do not just give me the information that would have been discussed there. This part of the assignment will require you to attach as an appendix to the paper a PDF copy of the financial statements you used for the calculations and a separate attachment that includes the calculations (it is your choice on the format you present the calculations in but my suggestion would be to use Excel). - Comparison of your Company's Ratios to your Competitor's Ratios: Now it is time to do the same ratio calculations for your competitor. Again, only use the ratios presented in Exhibit 13 from Chapter 14 (see page 688) of the textbook. You should not just have the ratio calculations but will also need to include comments on how they differ from your company. Again, include the financial statements in PDF form and a listing of the calculations in a separate attachment that includes the calculations (it is your choice on the format you present the calculations in but my suggestion would be to use Excel). - Recommendation: Assume that you are going to invest in the stocks or bonds of either company. Which one would you choose and, most importantly, why? First Steps: - Select a Fortune 500 Company to analyze in this paper. It must be a public company that is traded on one of the major stock exchanges and it needs to be a firm that presents their financials in United States dollars, The assignment is simplified if you decide to use a manufacturing firm as opposed to a service company or financial institution. - Identify which industry this company operates within. Be as specific as possible. For instance, the retail industry is extremely large. Walmart would be included in this industry but would more specifically be part of the hypermarket, supercenter, or superstore category. - Identify a primary competitor of this company. For example, Walmart and Target are competitors. - Provide this information to me through email by February 17th at 11:00 PM (CST). A portion of your final grade on the ratio paper will include points for this submission. Key Sections of the Paper: - Overview of the Industry: An analysis of the industry is usually needed to help the reader understand the position of the company within it. A summary of the important facts could be listed as bullet points or could be presented in a summary table; however, just using bullet points is not acceptable. A written summary is expected. Consider providing a definition of the industry, pieces of key financial information (historical sales and net income trends), and the opportunities and challenges facing it. Remember that this is for the industry not your specific company. - Overview of the Company: This is your opportunity to discuss your specific company. Consider providing key historical information and milestones that have helped form the company. Possibly include a chart of some of the key financial information for the past several years (sales or revenues, cost of goods sold, before tax net income, and after-tax net income for the past three years both in dollars and percentage changes). The company's web site may be an excellent source of information for this part of the paper. - Discussion of the Financial Ratios for your Company: Here you can demonstrate all of the ratio skills you learned about in Chapter 14. Only use the ratios from Exhibit 13 on page 688 of the textbook. The requirements of the paper are that you need to include two liquidity ratios (do not use the calculation for working capital as a ratio), two solvency ratios, and two profitability ratios. You will need to provide the ratios for at least three years so you can compare them against each other. Discuss the impact of the ratios and how the numbers could be interpreted. Your own opinions as well as experts' opinions in the field should be provided. I have read the chapter so please do not just give me the information that would have been discussed there. This part of the assignment will require you to attach as an appendix to the paper a PDF copy of the financial statements you used for the calculations and a separate attachment that includes the calculations (it is your choice on the format you present the calculations in but my suggestion would be to use Excel). - Comparison of your Company's Ratios to your Competitor's Ratios: Now it is time to do the same ratio calculations for your competitor. Again, only use the ratios presented in Exhibit 13 from Chapter 14 (see page 688) of the textbook. You should not just have the ratio calculations but will also need to include comments on how they differ from your company. Again, include the financial statements in PDF form and a listing of the calculations in a separate attachment that includes the calculations (it is your choice on the format you present the calculations in but my suggestion would be to use Excel). - Recommendation: Assume that you are going to invest in the stocks or bonds of either company. Which one would you choose and, most importantly, why