Project Outline

Select a publicly traded company (NYSE, AMX, or OTC) which interests you. If you don't know how to select a company, think of IBM, DELL computer, Nike, Apple computer, GM, Ford, Nokia, Home Depot, and on and on. Think of the companies which make things you use every day. select one from them.

Part A.

Go to COMPUSTAT Research Insights, Reuter’s, Thomson Financial Service, or Bloomberg Financial (E-Trade Financial Learning Center has them all) or any other financial database like Yahoo Finance to download the historical closing prices (five years) of your company on the monthly basis (twelve data points a year). Use Microsoft Excel or any other program to chart the historical prices based on the monthly data. (Getting to know these financial databases is one of the objectives of this project)

Part B.

Based on the financial statements of the latest available annual report, compute the following financial ratios using only one year data. If the ratios are not available, please describe why. Such as Citibank doesn’t have inventory because it’s a financial company.

(Please use spreadsheet software (MS Excel) for this part and show the calculation)

Current ratio
Quick ratio
Inventory Turnover
Fixed assets turnover
Total assets turnover
Total debt to total assets
Profit margin on sales
Return on total assets
Return on common equity
Price/earnings ratio
Market/book ratio

The final report must include a chart of monthly stock price movements described in part A and the financial ratios in part B above.

Based on the materials provided in the annual report and business news from The Wall Street Journal, as well as the financial information from any other sources, like Datastream, Reuters, and Bloomberg Financial, describe as much as you can the movement of your stock during the last twelve months. Your report must start with a description of the business and the status of financial condition such as Line of business, Competitive positions, and Profitability History (going back five years). Do not turn in a careless, rapidly completed report. All papers must have a title page, a table of contents, a statement of purpose, footnotes or endnotes, or a bibliography or reference.