I have been working on a Finance research paper for a while now. It is about analysis of Amazon and eBay and comparison to the industry average. I sent it to my professor but he said i didn't include enough analysis and it is not APA format. Attached, im including the requirement and my paper. Can you please help me make it better. I can include my own conclusions but when it cam to trend analysis, talking about internet boom and net neutrality, i couldnt find anything. PS it has to have citation. So far i have some resources for what i wrote.

Pouria Zolfaghari FIN 250 Research Paper- Amazon For the purpose of this research paper, I take on a role of an investment analyst. My firm which is consist of individual investors and mutual fund assigned me to investigate and analyze Amazon to see if purchasing Amazon's stocks is the best option meaning that it bares minimum risk and has high rate of return. Furthermore, the company wants to keep its options open in investing in the catalog and mail order industry and asked me to perform trend analysis on Amazon's biggest competitor eBay in order to keep its investing options open. My duties include deep trend analysis, stock price history analysis. These include analyzing Amazon and eBay's financial ratios, stock price analysis and financial statement analysis in order for me to make a final decision on which company in the industry is the best option for investment. When it comes to Amazon and eBay, we are talking about a new industry in which was developed by the boom caused by internet and the fact that online shopping is the new norm and these firms will hold 65%-89% of the market share because consumers rather shop online than actually go to a store since it is more convenient, subject to more promotion and discount and the price is usually lower than products in stock. Furthermore, it is not a totally new industry and it has established itself among consumers in the matter of security and reliability even though we have witnessed several security breaches when it came to online retailers and the problem of leaving an online trace when using credit card has always been an issue regarding online shopping. But pros outweigh the cons in this matter and based on professional assessment, it is a great idea in order to invest in online retail market. And when it comes to online retail, Amazon steals the first place by simply being an actual online retailer. eBay is more of a marketplace than a retailer which we will discuss throughout this investigation. As we know, both companies are public and initiated a public offering. Therefore, their financial statements and stock price and its history are public information and could be accessed by public. Both companies are performing in the same industry and as the online shopping became the industry trend and more consumers tend to purchase their goods online, my investment company has shown interest in Amazon. Amazon holds 23% for online retail shares and is dominating the industry, while eBay holds 19% of global commerce. This will make it difficult to decide which company to invest on and my firm assigned me to perform thorough trend and industry analysis and give my professional conclusion based on my analysis and evidence provided. First of all, I need to analyze the stock price for both companies and see which have the highest price and which one's price has been having an upward trend and been stable since its IPO. As we observe in the graph below, we can see that Amazon's stock price has been doubled. That could indicate that Amazon has been doing extremely well and sales have been increasing exponentially. Meaning that in March 2015 when the company was fully established and well-known, the price of stock opening was 131.82$. But a quick look at March 12, 2015 we can see that the price is now 366.37$. It means that Amazon's stock skyrocketed and its trend is way above industry and NAZDAQ average. A quick look at Amazon's stock history will give us perspective on how its stock almost doubled. Avg Vol Adj Close* Mar 12, 2010 134.20 Date Open 138.19 127.20 High Low 135.77 6,570,400 Close 135.77 Mar 1, 2011 173.53 181.57 160.59 180.13 5,382,800 180.13 Mar 1, 2012 179.89 209.85 176.58 202.51 5,336,900 202.51 Mar 3, 2014 358.74 383.11 330.88 336.37 3,788,100 336.37 Mar 2, 2015 380.85 388.42 366.26 366.37 2,746,000 366.37 Even without looking at Amazon's financial statements and ratios I asses Amazon is a good candidate based on its extraordinary and above industry average stock performance. This could give us a hint on what to expect when we analyze Amazon's financial statements. However, we need to consider all of our options. Therefore, eBay as a pioneer in internet shopping and bid- based purchases has an advantage. It allows sellers and buyers to join in a virtual marketplace in order to sell or buy. Unlike Amazon, which is the seller and only allows buyers to purchase goods, eBay allows both parties to gather and make a deal. This means that eBay can also make money on commission based; it reduces the operating costs significantly since eBay does not provide the product nor market for buyer. eBay just provides a virtual marketplace which cut costs such as inventory management, storing and shipping. Now let's see if these comparative advantages benefits eBay when it comes to stock market. One thing to consider is that eBay is relatively young compared to Amazon. They started in September, 1995 and their private entity soon became public. eBay's IPO was performed in September 1998 which when eBay was only 3 years old. Considering this fact, Amazon went public in May, 1997 which is a year sooner than eBay which is an opportunity meaning that Amazon had one extra year to establish itself in stock market and went pass the fluctuation period which was extremely important for Amazon. Below chart shows that Ebay had daily growth but if we look at it generally, it wasn't as nearly as successful as Amazon and compare to industry specially with the rise of Alibaba, eBay was overshadowed but there are many reasons that caused eBay not to be successful as Amazon. It could be that eBay lacks trust and many incidents caused this company not to have the net income nor assets that Amazon has in order to see an exponential rise in their stock price. Date Open High Low Close Avg Vol Adj Close* Sep 24, 2010 24.50 Sep 1, 2011 30.77 25.16 24.22 24.40 14,718,200 24.40 33.90 28.28 29.49 16,105,500 29.49 Sep 4, 2012 47.47 50.65 46.36 48.37 10,821,500 48.37 Sep 3, 2013 50.58 56.90 50.08 55.80 9,072,700 55.80 Sep 2, 2014 55.48 57.30 50.04 56.63 21,190,100 56.63 Information above shows Amazon's superiority over eBay that involves numerous reasons. First of all, eBay is not a virtual store, it is a marketplace that involves both parties selling and buying products. This opens eBay to many risks including the possibility of unlawful activities such as scam or selling/buying illegal goods. In eBay's website it discourages such activities and disclaimed:\" For a safer buying and selling experience on eBay, we don't allow selling or linking to items that encourage, promote, facilitate, or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We also don't allow buyers to ask sellers to break any laws. For example, buyers can't ask sellers to falsify customs declarations or have an item marked as "gift" in order to avoid customs fees. If you're a seller, make sure your listing follows these guidelines. If it doesn't, it may be removed, and you may be subject to a range of other actions, including limits of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account.\" But this still doesn't make eBay immune from such activities and that causes this company to be always in the verge of losing money whether through lawsuits or damage control. Amazon as an online retailer, is trusted and subject to SEC and IRS reviews and as an incorporated retailer, it is not as exposed to risks that eBay is and innovation causes Amazon to have a better stock performance. And that caused Amazon's price of stock raise exponentially and eBay stay constant. Stock performance not only doesn't indicate which company is worth investing in, but it is affected by many factors other than company's performance. Factors could range from company's quarterly performance, cash flow, discontinue and continue operation to factors like industry shifts, advancement of technology, and change of shift of market and even president's word or weather. Therefore, we are going to dig deeper and fully analyze both companies' financial statements through trend analysis including ratio analysis and events that effected the industry and these companies. But as we are aware, evaluating a company's stock price is not only by observing the price, but is to be achieved by close look at a firm's financial statement and trend analysis. Therefore, we are looking to compare these two firm' financial statement and their important ratios including current and acid test ratio in order to see if the company goes bankrupt, do we have a chance on getting a portion of our investment back or it would be fully subjected to paying for debts. The main purpose of this trend analysis is to dig deeper into each company's financials and see if we can get stronger reasoning in order to advise our clients to invest in one of each company. With some digging into Amazon's and eBay's financial statements, we can see the information below which is consist of trend analysis and capital information: Amazon (Left) eBay( Right) Revenue Net Income Market Cap Enterprise Value Net Profit Margin % 88.9 B -241 M 179.09 B 167.16 B -0.27 Price/earnings growth ratio 1.44 Beta Forward Price/Earning Price/sales Price/book value 1.00 90.91 1.92 16.03 Price/ ash flow 25.25 EBITDA Return on capital % 4.84 B -0.51 Return on Equity % -2.35 Return on Assets % -0.51 Book Value/ Share 23.13 Shares Outstanding 464.38 M Last Split Factor (Date) 2:1 (9/2/1999) Revenue Net Income Market Cap Enterprise Value Net Profit Margin % 17.9 B 46 M 71.48 B 69.01 B 0.26 Price/earnings growth ratio Beta Forward Price/Earning Price/sales Price/book value 0.30 0.91 17.36 4.16 3.59 Price/c ash flow 12.05 EBITDA Return on capital % 5.14 B 0.11 Return on Equity % 0.21 Return on Assets % 0.11 Book Value/ Share 16.45 Shares Outstanding 1.21 B Last Split Factor (Date) 2:1 (2/17/2005) This table shows us a lot about each company's financial status. Data is by end of firm's fiscal year in 2013. If we look at their income statement, eBay had a better run than Amazon by topping the sale by 46 Million while Amazon surprisingly faced a net loss of 241 Million. Furthermore, looking at net profit margin, Amazon's -0.27% is disappointing compared to eBay's 0.26%. Which shows that Amazon's 74 Billion dollars in sales couldn't cover its cost which is around 73 Billion. Taxes played a role into Amazon's net loss. But when looking at eBay's 10 K we find out that eBay's 17 Billion in revenue is subjected to less cost than Amazon. Now we could see that Amazon has trouble managing its cost and it could hurt them in the future. But when it comes to comparing numbers when looking at revenue and market cap, we could definitely see Amazon as a more established company than eBay as you see their revenue is 88 Billion compare to a 17.9 Billion Amazon. It means that opportunities in eBay to grow exists but Amazon has already grew to a substantial size which allows and welcomes large investors to purchase stock. However, eBay has the potential to grow based on its net income which could be a good sign in order to chip in for stock options and wait for the value to raise in order for our clients to earn capital gain. By looking deeper into these statistics we could see that Amazon as an online retailer is involved in a big industry and as the reform in internet shopping, is involved in a much bigger industry which is big enough to allow MNCs to emerge like Alibaba and benefit from cheap goods in wholesale and create problems for Amazon. Amazon's sudden drop in the market share was caused by new competitors creeping up on Amazon and use Amazon's strategic planning tools against it. Although eBay's business model wasn't as popular and was called \"questionable\FINC450 Research Requirement Prof Chas A. Borrelli Below is what you were given on blackboard as your research instructions: Since this is your contract for the term I will work with this but please see my comments/addenda etc in blue: Your term paper will have the following outline The elements that must be included are: Industry introduction Industry analysis -Should do a trend analysis here (perhaps the last 5 years) Company research PowerPoint presentation individually prepared one the selected company within the industry. (IF THE CLASS IS NOT DISTANCE LEARN) You can still present in PowerPoint as it is a skill you should have developed but a concise write-up must accompany it. Using voiceovers is an excellent technique. Data sources used Your premise or objective in the analysis-In other words what perspective are you taking? Are you an investment analyst, a banker, a CFO etc. You develop the scenario and perform the analysis in response. Conclusions based on the data, including recommendations re: the above perspective I will show you how to find this information by using the www.nasdaq.com site. I will show you how to access the information on the 10Q or 10K using this site and I will explain how to get the needed into In addition you can go to your company's website or search www.economist.com www.bloomberg.com finance.yahoo.com or another site you choose the paper is not graded by pages, it is graded on how well you answer the above however this is a capstone course so I am expecting good data analysis, a strong write-up both for the industry trend analysis and the firm along with supporting charts, graphs and other documentation. This is not your run of the mill term paper. Depending upon your premise a certain amount of ratio trend analysis must also be performed as well as the integration of economics, statistics, etc. where warranted. all papers have the same format first (the opening paragraph) tell me what your paper is about and what you are trying to prove or say ( see my perspective comment above This is where you lay out the scenario that you are choosing for analysis. second (the middle paragraphs) give me the proof, back up what you are trying to say This is the meat of the research. Supporting documentation is key in proving your theory or premise. third (the final paragraph) give me your conclusions or summarize what you have done This is your recommendation based on the scenario you have developed ( i.e the firm is a strong buy sell or hold; the firm's request for a credit line increase is approved, etc.) I DO NOT COUNT PAGES, 20 PAGES OF GARBAGE WILL GET YOU A POOR GRADE. QUALITY NOT QUANTITY COUNTS. 3, 4, 5 PAGES OF QUALITY WILL GET YOU AN A Needless to say 3, 4 or 5 pages will not even handle the introduction of your scenario. Remember this is a capstone course. This is the culminating course in your education in Finance. if you have questions ask, if you needed help ask If anyone has any questions please ask immediately I still do not have everyone's choice of firm so it is imperative that you send them in to me for approval NOW. This project cannot be left until the last minute so the sooner you get an approval the sooner you can start the research. Remember ask for help immediately upon the need arising. **********I NEED YOUR COMPANY"'S BY FEBRUARY 1. I MUST APPROVE OF YOUR CHOICE. IF YOU DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR COMPANY NAME BY YOUR TERM PAPERS, IF I HAVE NOT RECEIVED YOUR COMPANY I NEED IT Your term paper is due May 7, This still stands The rest of this is helpful but not nearly enough for your full research . Additional sources are as follows: http://www.businessfinancemag.com/ http://web.utk.edu/~jwachowi/part4.html ( Working capital management) http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-finance-topics NOW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page http://www.seekful.com/indx.cfm?q=Topics http://www.cfo.com/ http://www.ipl.org/IPL/Finding?Key=finance&collection=gen http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/ http://www.netmba.com/site/terms/ http://web.utk.edu/~jwachowi/part8.html#MA late papers will not receive full value. please go to WELCOME START HERE for the rules and outline for your paper. if you have questions, please email me This example is good as an example, i will show you how to research a company, we will look at APPLE the trading symbol is AAPL first lets go to www.nasdaq.com securities dealers stock trading site this is the site for the nasdaq or national association of you will see a big blank box please type in AAPL and click on REAL TIME QUOTES. you are now on the page that will give you extensive information on APPLE please look at the banner on the left of the page. ALL OF THOSE TOPICS CAN HELP YOU GET INFO ON YOUR COMPANY. for example click on INCOME STATEMENT this will give you the last four years of apple's income statements, cash flows, balance sheet and ratios. Please click on these sites and explore you will be able to find information on their competiors and industry, historical stock price chars, company news, what analysts think of the company, etc. now lets go to www.economist.com articles on apple in the search box, put in APPLE and search, look at all of the now go to www.finance.yahoo.com info available to you in the big empty box put in AAPL and search start working on your paper, if you need assistance, please email me In a month or so, I will ask you for an update look at all of the MILESTONE DATES FOR YOUR RESEARCH: March 7 premise. You should be able to tell me your scenario perspective and send me your March 21 Submit a draft of your industry trend analysis with APA source bibliography April 10 Draft of firm analysis to include a list of sources and attachment of printouts of source information and raw data you have used. April 24 scenario Final industry trend analysis and commentary as applicable to your May 2 Final review submission of complete research project May 7 Finished product is due At each milestone I will review and send back comments/suggestions for improvement etc. so it is imperative that these milestones be met. FOR NOW I MUST HAVE YOUR TOPIC YOU CAN'T PASS THIS COURSE WITHOUT AN APPROVED BY ME COMPANY TOPIC Pouria Zolfaghari FIN 250 Research Paper- Amazon For the purpose of this research paper, I take on a role of an investment analyst. My firm which is consist of individual investors and mutual fund assigned me to investigate and analyze Amazon to see if purchasing Amazon's stocks is the best option meaning that it bares minimum risk and has high rate of return. Furthermore, the company wants to keep its options open in investing in the catalog and mail order industry and asked me to perform trend analysis on Amazon's biggest competitor eBay in order to keep its investing options open. My duties include deep trend analysis, stock price history analysis. These include analyzing Amazon and eBay's financial ratios, stock price analysis and financial statement analysis in order for me to make a final decision on which company in the industry is the best option for investment. About Amazon Inc. Amazon.com, Inc. is an American electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore but soon diversified, selling DVDs, blue CDs, video downloads/streaming, MP3 downloads/streaming, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toy and jewelry. The company also produces consumer electronics-notably, Amazon Kindle e-book readers, TV, Phone - and is a major provider of cloud computing services. Amazon also sells certain low end products like USB cables under its in-house brand Amazon basic. Amazon has separate retail websites for United States, United Kingdom & Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Japan, China, India and Mexico. Amazon also offers international shipping to certain other countries for some of its products. In 2011, it had professed an intention to launch its websites in Poland and Sweden. Industry Analysis Amazon is a competitor within various industries such as music, video, book, and entertainment retail; business services; advertising and marketing; commercial printing; copy centers and online printing services; retail and most specifically online retailing. Within the highly competitive retailing industry, Amazon's top competitors include EBay, Barnes & Noble, and Wal-Mart. Each of these competitors competes with Amazon in a particular way. For instance, Wal-Mart is known as a "one-stop shop" as is Amazon.com. Both companies aim at offering their customers' the lowest prices available. Wal-Mart also features a website containing a widespread selection of products beyond what is offered in stores. Nevertheless, Amazon.com attracts twice as many visitors to its U.S. website annually; approximately 65 million customers per month. Another competitor, EBay, is similar to Amazon in that consumers can go to the site to find anything they have ever wanted and have it shipped right to their front door. The difference is, with Amazon third-party sellers do not have to maintain separate payment accounts; that is all payments are handled by Amazon. This is more convenient for customers not having to go through the seller for returns or money back. Barnes and Noble is the number one bookseller in the U.S. operating about 1,355 bookstores in all 50 states. They also have an e-bookstore, barnesandnoble.com, which features more than 1 million titles but only accounts for 10% of their overall revenue. However, Barnes and Noble do not offer the widespread selection of products that Amazon does. They compete with Amazon in a number of industries including music, video, book and entertainment retail; media; publishing; and internet retail. Retailing industry will see a major boost in sales going forward. Consumers are feeling more confident in their spending patterns but are still in the market for the lowest prices. Amazon provides customers the assurance that they are getting the best deal in the convenience of their own home. They work hard to maintain a complete customer satisfaction which results in return visitors. Following table shows the performance of Amazon against its competitors and Industry during past one years. As we can see that the market cap of Amazon is much higher than the Industry average. The net income is negative against the industry average of $1,235 m. P/S ratio and P/B ratio are 2.1 and 18.1 against Industry P/S and P/B ratio of 1.8 and 7.2 respectively. The 5 year growth rate in Amazon is 29.4% against the industry growth rate of 11.7%. Further if we look at the financial leverage, the Amazon has Debt-Equity ratio of 0.8 against the industry's average of 0.6. Overall Amazon has a strong position against the competitors and in the Industry. The growth rate of Amazon is also highest among all the competitors that shows its financial stability and long term growth prospects. Amazon and Ebay When it comes to Amazon and eBay, we are talking about a new industry in which was developed by the boom caused by internet and the fact that online shopping is the new norm and these firms will hold 65%-89% of the market share because consumers rather shop online than actually go to a store since it is more convenient, subject to more promotion and discount and the price is usually lower than products in stock. Furthermore, it is not a totally new industry and it has established itself among consumers in the matter of security and reliability even though we have witnessed several security breaches when it came to online retailers and the problem of leaving an online trace when using credit card has always been an issue regarding online shopping. But pros outweigh the cons in this matter and based on professional assessment, it is a great idea in order to invest in online retail market. And when it comes to online retail, Amazon steals the first place by simply being an actual online retailer. eBay is more of a marketplace than a retailer which we will discuss throughout this investigation. As we know, both companies are public and initiated a public offering. Therefore, their financial statements and stock price and its history are public information and could be accessed by public. Both companies are performing in the same industry and as the online shopping became the industry trend and more consumers tend to purchase their goods online, my investment company has shown interest in Amazon. Amazon holds 23% for online retail shares and is dominating the industry, while eBay holds 19% of global commerce. This will make it difficult to decide which company to invest on and my firm assigned me to perform thorough trend and industry analysis and give my professional conclusion based on my analysis and evidence provided. First of all, I need to analyze the stock price for both companies and see which have the highest price and which one's price has been having an upward trend and been stable since its IPO. As we observe in the graph below, we can see that Amazon's stock price has been doubled. That could indicate that Amazon has been doing extremely well and sales have been increasing exponentially. Meaning that in March 2015 when the company was fully established and wellknown, the price of stock opening was 131.82$. But a quick look at March 12, 2015 we can see that the price is now 366.37$. It means that Amazon's stock skyrocketed and its trend is way above industry and NAZDAQ average. A quick look at Amazon's stock history will give us perspective on how its stock almost doubled. Date Mar 12, 2010 Mar 1, 2011 Mar 1, 2012 Mar 3, 2014 Mar 2, 2015 Open 134.20 173.53 179.89 358.74 380.85 High 138.19 181.57 209.85 383.11 388.42 Low 127.20 160.59 176.58 330.88 366.26 Close 135.77 180.13 202.51 336.37 366.37 Avg Vol 6,570,400 5,382,800 5,336,900 3,788,100 2,746,000 Adj Close* 135.77 180.13 202.51 336.37 366.37 Even without looking at Amazon's financial statements and ratios I asses Amazon is a good candidate based on its extraordinary and above industry average stock performance. This could give us a hint on what to expect when we analyze Amazon's financial statements. However, we need to consider all of our options. Therefore, eBay as a pioneer in internet shopping and bidbased purchases has an advantage. It allows sellers and buyers to join in a virtual marketplace in order to sell or buy. Unlike Amazon, which is the seller and only allows buyers to purchase goods, eBay allows both parties to gather and make a deal. This means that eBay can also make money on commission based; it reduces the operating costs significantly since eBay does not provide the product nor market for buyer. eBay just provides a virtual marketplace which cut costs such as inventory management, storing and shipping. Now let's see if these comparative advantages benefits eBay when it comes to stock market. One thing to consider is that eBay is relatively young compared to Amazon. They started in September, 1995 and their private entity soon became public. eBay's IPO was performed in September 1998 which when eBay was only 3 years old. Considering this fact, Amazon went public in May, 1997 which is a year sooner than eBay which is an opportunity meaning that Amazon had one extra year to establish itself in stock market and went pass the fluctuation period which was extremely important for Amazon. Below chart shows that Ebay had daily growth but if we look at it generally, it wasn't as nearly as successful as Amazon and compare to industry specially with the rise of Alibaba, eBay was overshadowed but there are many reasons that caused eBay not to be successful as Amazon. It could be that eBay lacks trust and many incidents caused this company not to have the net income nor assets that Amazon has in order to see an exponential rise in their stock price. Date Sep 24, 2010 Sep 1, 2011 Sep 4, 2012 Sep 3, 2013 Sep 2, 2014 Open 24.50 30.77 47.47 50.58 55.48 High 25.16 33.90 50.65 56.90 57.30 Low 24.22 28.28 46.36 50.08 50.04 Close 24.40 29.49 48.37 55.80 56.63 Avg Vol 14,718,200 16,105,500 10,821,500 9,072,700 21,190,100 Adj Close* 24.40 29.49 48.37 55.80 56.63 Information above shows Amazon's superiority over eBay that involves numerous reasons. First of all, eBay is not a virtual store, it is a marketplace that involves both parties selling and buying products. This opens eBay to many risks including the possibility of unlawful activities such as scam or selling/buying illegal goods. In eBay's website it discourages such activities and disclaimed:\"For a safer buying and selling experience on eBay, we don't allow selling or linking to items that encourage, promote, facilitate, or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We also don't allow buyers to ask sellers to break any laws. For example, buyers can't ask sellers to falsify customs declarations or have an item marked as "gift" in order to avoid customs fees. If you're a seller, make sure your listing follows these guidelines. If it doesn't, it may be removed, and you may be subject to a range of other actions, including limits of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account.\" But this still doesn't make eBay immune from such activities and that causes this company to be always in the verge of losing money whether through lawsuits or damage control. Amazon as an online retailer, is trusted and subject to SEC and IRS reviews and as an incorporated retailer, it is not as exposed to risks that eBay is and innovation causes Amazon to have a better stock performance. And that caused Amazon's price of stock raise exponentially and eBay stay constant. Stock performance not only doesn't indicate which company is worth investing in, but it is affected by many factors other than company's performance. Factors could range from company's quarterly performance, cash flow, discontinue and continue operation to factors like industry shifts, advancement of technology, and change of shift of market and even president's word or weather. Therefore, we are going to dig deeper and fully analyze both companies' financial statements through trend analysis including ratio analysis and events that effected the industry and these companies. But as we are aware, evaluating a company's stock price is not only by observing the price, but is to be achieved by close look at a firm's financial statement and trend analysis. Therefore, we are looking to compare these two firm' financial statement and their important ratios including current and acid test ratio in order to see if the company goes bankrupt, do we have a chance on getting a portion of our investment back or it would be fully subjected to paying for debts. The main purpose of this trend analysis is to dig deeper into each company's financials and see if we can get stronger reasoning in order to advise our clients to invest in one of each company. With some digging into Amazon's and eBay's financial statements, we can see the information below which is consist of trend analysis and capital information: Amazon (Left) eBay( Right) Revenue Net Income Market Cap Enterprise Value Net Profit Margin % 88.9 B -241 M 179.09 B 167.16 B -0.27 Price/earnings growth ratio Beta Forward Price/Earning Price/sales Price/book value 1.44 1.00 90.91 1.92 16.03 Price/ ash flow 25.25 EBITDA Return on capital % Return on Equity % 4.84 B -0.51 -2.35 Return on Assets % -0.51 Book Value/ Share 23.13 Shares Outstanding 464.38 M Last Split Factor (Date) Revenue 2:1 (9/2/1999) 17.9 B Net Income Market Cap Enterprise Value Net Profit Margin % 46 M 71.48 B 69.01 B 0.26 Price/earnings growth ratio Beta Forward Price/Earning Price/sales Price/book value 0.30 0.91 17.36 4.16 3.59 Price/c ash flow 12.05 EBITDA Return on capital % Return on Equity % 5.14 B 0.11 0.21 Return on Assets % 0.11 Book Value/ Share 16.45 Shares Outstanding 1.21 B Last Split Factor (Date) 2:1 (2/17/2005) This table shows us a lot about each company's financial status. Data is by end of firm's fiscal year in 2013. If we look at their income statement, eBay had a better run than Amazon by topping the sale by 46 Million while Amazon surprisingly faced a net loss of 241 Million. Furthermore, looking at net profit margin, Amazon's -0.27% is disappointing compared to eBay's 0.26%. Which shows that Amazon's 74 Billion dollars in sales couldn't cover its cost which is around 73 Billion. Taxes played a role into Amazon's net loss. But when looking at eBay's 10 K we find out that eBay's 17 Billion in revenue is subjected to less cost than Amazon. Now we could see that Amazon has trouble managing its cost and it could hurt them in the future. But when it comes to comparing numbers when looking at revenue and market cap, we could definitely see Amazon as a more established company than eBay as you see their revenue is 88 Billion compare to a 17.9 Billion Amazon. It means that opportunities in eBay to grow exists but Amazon has already grew to a substantial size which allows and welcomes large investors to purchase stock. However, eBay has the potential to grow based on its net income which could be a good sign in order to chip in for stock options and wait for the value to raise in order for our clients to earn capital gain. By looking deeper into these statistics we could see that Amazon as an online retailer is involved in a big industry and as the reform in internet shopping, is involved in a much bigger industry which is big enough to allow MNCs to emerge like Alibaba and benefit from cheap goods in wholesale and create problems for Amazon. Amazon's sudden drop in the market share was caused by new competitors creeping up on Amazon and use Amazon's strategic planning tools against it. Although eBay's business model wasn't as popular and was called \"questionable\