Financial Statement Analysis

Objective: To analyze the financial statements of a publicly traded company

Obtain an annual report from a publicly traded corporation that is interesting to you. Be sure the company's financial statements include deferred taxes, postretirement benefits, dilutive securities, and share-based compensation.

Using techniques you have learned in the previous weeks, respond to the following questions.

1. What amount of deferred tax assets or deferred tax liabilities are on the two most recent years on the balance sheet? What gives rise to these deferred taxes? What information is disclosed in the footnotes related to deferred taxes? Please define a deferred tax asset and deferred tax liability.

2. What temporary and permanent differences does the company disclose in their footnotes? What are some other examples of temporary and permanent differences?

3. What is the amount of income tax provision in the two most recent years on the income statement? What information is disclosed in the footnotes relating to income tax expense? Does the company have a net operating loss carry-forward or carry-back? What are the guidelines for carry-forwards and carry-backs?

4. Does the company have a defined benefit or defined contribution plan? What are the key elements of the plan discussed in the footnotes? What amounts on the balance sheet relate to this plan? What are the differences between defined benefit and defined contribution plans?

5. What are the earnings per share amounts disclosed on the income statement for the most recent year? What dilutive securities are discussed in the footnotes? Please identify and describe other examples of dilutive securities. How do these impact earnings per share?

6. What kind of share-based compensation does the company have? What was compensation expense for the two most recent years? What are the key elements of this plan discussed in the footnotes? Please identify and describe other types of share-based compensation.

7. Does the company use the direct or indirect cash flow presentation method? What is the difference between these two methods? How does the cash flow statement agree to the other financial statements?

8. What investing and financing activities does the company have? What are some other examples of investing and financing activities?

9. What noncash transactions does the company have on its cash flow statement? What are some other examples of noncash transactions?

Guidelines

• Papers must be at least 1,800 words, 7-10 pages in length, double-spaced, in a 12-point font. Include a cover page, table of contents, introduction, report body, summary or conclusion, and works cited.
• Even though this is not a scientific-type writing assignment, references are still very important. At least three authoritative, outside references are required (anonymous authors or web pages are not acceptable). These should be listed on the last page titled works cited.
• APA citations are required.
• All DeVry University policies are in effect, including the plagiarism policy.
• The paper is due during Week 6 of this course.
• Any questions about this paper may be discussed in the weekly Q & A Forum.
• The paper is worth 125 total points and will be graded on quality of research topic, quality of paper information, use of citations, grammar, and sentence structure.