Students should understand how to use the financial information and tools learned in the class on a public company, obtain public company SEC reports, and use that data to calculate a company's financial ratios and their comparison to industry or competitor standards.

Assignment Steps

Select one of the publicly traded corporations listed below and obtain the most current SEC Form 10-K (annual financial report) from the company's web site (Do not use the Annual Report that is sent to shareholders):

Lowes Corporation

Calculate and analyze the following ratios for your selected company for the last two years from the SEC Form 10-K:

Return on Equity (Use three ratio DuPont method)

Compare and contrast your company's ratios to industry and competitor standard ratios obtained from Yahoo Finance, Morningstar, MotleyFool, Macroaxis or other Internet sources, and provide a detailed answer and analysis as to why your company's ratios are different than the industry/competitor standard.

Prepare your analysis in a minimum of 175 words in Microsoft® Word. The use of Microsoft®Word tables is encouraged.

Cite the source of the industry/competitor ratio information.

Format your assignment consistent with APA guidelines