The goal of the firm is to create value for the firms owners (shareholders), meaning to maximize shareholder wealth by maximizing the price of the existing common stock. Good financial decisions will increase stock price, and poor financial decisions will lead to a decline in stock price.

To make good financial decisions and better manage change in organizations, leaders need to understand core concepts of finance including the big five principles, income statements, balance sheets, and key financial ratios. Having a grasp of these tools can help leaders in many types of organizations to make better decisions and to take a leading role in supporting organizational goals.

In this paper you will apply key finance concepts to a recent news story of your choosing. Start by finding a recent news story fromquality sources(CNBC, theWSJ,Yahoo finance,Regional Business News,Thompson Reuters Westlaw,scholarly articles, your textbook,etc). Your paper needs to be abouta publicly traded companyso that you can readily find their financials onYahoo finance. You will know it is publicly traded (a corporation) if when you put the company name in the search bar inYahoo financeyou can find their ticker symbol (for example NFLX for Netflix).

Include in your paper the following sections:

1. Brief introductionto the paper
2. Brief summary of the articleyou discovered
3. How the article relates toat least one of the big five principles cash flow is what matters, money has time value, risk requires reward, market prices are generally right, and conflicts of interests cause agency problems
4. Review ofkey take-awaysfrom the companys most recent:
   1. Income statement (see the video in the Week 1 tab)
   2. Balance sheet (see the video in the Week 1 tab)
   3. Quarterly report (do a web search to find the most recent quarterly report for a corporation - they will typically have an investor relations or financials page. Youll find a variety of documents such as a letter to shareholders, financial statement, PPT or PDF presentations, earnings release, and more).

Tip:Example relevant details for this part may include whether there has been changes from prior year, how some numbers compare to competitors or industry norms, or any concerns about a key number

1. Calculation of a total ofat least 4 ratios, and at least 2 different ones (current ratio, acid-test ratio, days in receivables, accounts receivable turnover, days in inventory, inventory turnover, operating return on assets, operating profit margin, total asset turnover, debt ratio, or price / earnings ratio). Be sure to cite where you found the numbers for your calculations and the formula you used. Tip:comparing a ratio with a competitor, prior year, or industry norms makes for interesting discussion.
2. Briefconclusion
3. Referencepage