Follow your instructor’s guidelines for choosing a company and do the following: 

a. Identify the nature of inventory carried by the company. Does the company report more than one classification of inventory? 

b. Prepare an analysis of the company’s inventory by listing the beginning and ending balances and calculating the net change, in both dollar and percentage terms, for the most recent year. 

c. If the inventory balance in part (b) has changed by more than 10%, suggest an explanation for this change. 

d. Calculate the inventory turnover and the days to sell inventory for each of the last two years, using the ending inventory balance for each instead of the average inventory. Report any difficulties that you had in finding the appropriate numbers to make this calculation. 

e. Calculate the gross margin ratio for the last two years. Has there been any significant change? How is the change in gross margin ratio related to any change in inventory or cost of goods sold? 

f. Calculate a current ratio for each of the last two years. Describe the significance that inventory has for this ratio in each year.