Assignment:

Select and a company you wish to research. Your second task is to prepare a report with the information you collect about the company. Research the selected company's business model and focus on the key drivers of sales/revenues and operating income. Examine the company's per share data and its annual growth rate percentages to get a sense of how well management has increased sales and controlled costs. You will also gain insight into the key risks of the company's business model.

GUIDELINES FOR THE ASSIGNMENT

The Discussion assignments in FINC 350 require the student to engage in a financial statement analysis of a real-world publicly traded corporation. The purpose of the Discussions is to enrich the course beyond the text by presenting an opportunity to apply key concepts in financial management to a U.S. corporation. The first four discussion assignments involve collecting and reporting information about the company's operations and operating environment. The final four discussions involve using financial ratio analysis to analyze the company's performance.

The primary resource for all discussion assignments will be the company's most recent 10-K report. Federal securities regulations require public companies to comply with a number of reporting requirements including the submission of annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. 10-K and 10-Q reports are also available on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's website at www.sec.gov.
As a part of Discussion 1, you will select a single company to follow for the duration of the course. Should you wish to change the company you are using for the Discussion assignments, you will need to verify that the replacement company has not already been reserved under the link for Discussion 1. If available, reserve the replacement company under the link for Discussion 1.

Each primary Discussion post should be no more than the equivalent of 2 pages in length, in some cases 1 page will be sufficient. The post should be formatted with headings and should use single spacing below headings and double spacing between headings. Students are encouraged to use a bulleted format. All discussion posts should be written in third person (as a reporter) rather than in first person (as a company employee).

Because the collection and interpretation of financial datais the key learning activity in this course, you may copy and paste information about the company directly from the source, assuming you adhere to the following:

Cite the complete/full URL immediately following the pasted information.