Option #1:Economic Analysis of a Domestic Firm

Select aFortune 500 company(Links to an external site.)

. Look up the company's annual report (Wikipedia(Links to an external site.)

conveniently provides links to the annual reports for these companies). In the "reports" column, find the most recent Annual Report, sometimes called a Form 10-K or just "10-K"). In a paper (you might findthis article about how to read an annual report(Links to an external site.)

helpful for reading an annual report):

• Identify background information on the company, including the company name, ticker (stock) symbol, GICS Sector, and GICS Sub Industry.
• Summarize the products the company produces and sells, and who their target customers are.
• Describe factors that could shift the demand curve for the company's product(s) (see the risk factors discussed in the K-10).
• Describe factors that could shift the supply curve for the company's product(s) (see the risk factors discussed in the K-10).
• Describe whether the company's product(s) would be expected to have an elastic demand or inelastic demand.
• Discuss the firm's profitability with an explanation of the difference between accounting profit and economic profit.
• Examine the costs the company incurs and discuss whether the majority of costs are fixed or variable in nature.
• Describe the market structure that best describes the market the firm is in (see Modules 5 and 6).
• Analyze how the market structure affects the profitability and pricing power of the firm.