Use Tableau to calculate each company’s annual percentage of noncurrent assets invested in equity securities from 2018 to 2021. Based upon what you find, answer the following questions:

1. What is the percentage of noncurrent assets invested in equity securities for (a) Big Store and for (b) Discount Goods in 2021?
2. Comparing the percentage of noncurrent assets invested in equity securities ratios over the four-year period, is Discount Good’s equity investment (a) generally increasing, (b) roughly the same, or (c) generally decreasing from year to year?
3. In general, which company invests the higher amount in equity securities as a percentage of its noncurrent asset during the most recent four-year period?

Resources:

You have available to you an extensive data set that includes detailed financial data for 2012-2021 for both Discount Goods and Big Store. The data set is in the form of an Excel file available to download from Connect, under Student Resources within the Library tab, or provided to you by your instructor. The file for use in this chapter is named "Discount_Goods_Big_Store_Financials.xlsx." Download this file and save it to the computer on which you will be using Tableau. 

For this case, you will create some calculations to produce a bar chart of the percentage of noncurrent assets invested in equity securities ratio allowing you to compare and contrast the two companies’ investments.    

After you view the training videos, follow these steps to create the charts you'll use for this case:

• Open Tableau and connect to the Excel spreadsheet you downloaded. 
• Click on the “Sheet 1” tab at the bottom of the canvas, to the right of the Data Source at the bottom of the screen.
• Drag “Company” and “Year” under Dimensions to the Columns shelf. Change “Year” to discrete by right-clicking and selecting “discrete.”
• Drag “Investments in equity securities” and “Total noncurrent assets” under Measures to the Rows shelf. Change each to discrete. Right click on each of the accounts and uncheck “Show Header” so they are not visible in the field.
• Under the Analysis tab, select Create Calculated Field. Create a measure named “Investments in Equity to Assets.” In the calculation window, drag “Investments in equity securities” from the Rows shelf to the Calculation Editor window, type a division sign, and then drag “Total noncurrent assets” from the Rows shelf beside it. Make sure the window says that the calculation is valid and click OK.
• Drag the newly created “Investments in Equity to Assets” to the Rows shelf.
• Click on the “Show Me” and select “side-by-side bars.” Add labels to the bars by clicking on "Label" under the "Marks” card and clicking the box "Show mark labels." Format the labels to Times New Roman, bold, black and 9-point font.
• Change the title of the sheet to be “Fixed Asset Turnover Ratio Bar Chart” by right-clicking and selecting "Edit title." Format the title to Times New Roman, bold, black and 15-point font. Change the title of “Sheet 1” to match the sheet title by right-clicking, selecting “Rename” and typing in the new title.
• Format the labels on the left of the sheet (“Fixed Asset Turnover”) to Times New Roman, 9-point font, bold, and black.
• Format all other labels to be Times New Roman, bold, black and 10-point font.
• Once complete, save the file as “DA12_Your initials.twbx.”