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The first course project is intended to allow you to get a ‘big picture’ assessment of a publicly traded company. The requirements of the assignment are as follows:

1. Select a large publicly traded company (such as Microsoft, Google, IBM, Disney, etc.). Your company should have been public for at least 5 years. Prepare a paper which discusses the below items.
   1. Company Overview: State what company you have chosen and provide a brief overview of the company, explaining what industry and lines of business it is in and other noteworthy information. If available, present a numerical breakdown of the major lines of business. (Good sources: Yahoo! Finance company “Profile” page and the company’s Annual Report.)
   2. Competitive Overview: Identify the company’s primary competitors. You can find this information in Yahoo! Finance under, “Competitors.” Provide a comparison of several relevant factors, such as the market cap, number of employees, annual revenue, net income and other relevant metrics. Present the data in a table and briefly discuss.
   3. Financial Overview: This analysis digs more deeply into the company’s financial performance and compares it to its competitors.
      • For your selected company indicate in a table the following financial information for each of the most recent three years indicated in Yahoo! Finance. Please present these details in the form of a very brief income statement and balance sheet:
        1. Income Statement:
           1. Revenues
           2. Gross Profit
           3. Operating Income
           4. Net Income
        2. Balance Sheet:
           1. Total Current Assets
           2. Total Assets
           3. Total Liabilities
           4. Total Stockholder Equity
           5. A summation of Total Liabilities and Total Stockholder Equity
        3. Results: Interpret the results of the above analysis. How is your company doing over this three year period?
2. Select two of the competitors you previously identified. For your company and for these two competitors research the following from the “Key Statistics” page in Yahoo! Finance and indicate their values (present the data in a table):
   • Profit Margin
   • Operating Margin
   • Return on Assets
   • Return on Equity
   Define each of the above terms and explain what they mean and measure. Is your company performing as well compared to the competitors? Interpret and explain your findings.
3. Paper Mechanics should be as follows:
   1. The paper should include at least 2 sources, such as the annual report, Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance, the company’s web site, etc.
   2. The paper should be divided into the sections indicated above (label each section clearly).

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