Assignment: Discussion- Study Company Selection and Financial Statements

You will be asked to conduct an analysis of a company of your choice. Your chosen company will be referred to as the "study company" in various assignments throughout this course.

To allow for the time necessary to gather information about that company, you are required to select your study company this week and have that company approved by your facilitator. The company should be a retail or manufacturing organization. Do not choose a financial or purely Internet-based company. It must be publicly traded and must have positive earnings in the most recent year.

You will find this information on the company's Web site in the investor relations section. You may use a Web site such as Hoover's (http://www.hoovers.com) to conduct the initial research on the company and its operations. Once your company is approved, you will begin your research and obtain the financial statements of the selected company from its annual report.

Your initial post this week should include:

o The name, location, industry and company web address
o Stock exchange where the company is listed and it's ticker symbol
o The most recent sales numbers
o Number of employees
o Top 3 competitors
o The reason you chose this company.