Deliverables
Company Selection – Week 1
Course Project Horizontal Analysis – Week 2
Course Project Vertical Analysis – Week 3
Course Project Final Ratio Analysis – Week 4
General Expectations for Your Final Course Project Submission – Week 7
Citation Help
|Deliverables | |

Course Project Company Selection
Please post your chosen companies for comparison for my approval in the Week 1 Course Project Dropbox by Sunday, end of Week 1, 11:59 p.m. (MT). I will give you feedback to make sure that you're on the right track for this assignment. (5 points)
Course Project Horizontal Analysis
Please post the horizontal analysis for your Course Project in the Week 2 Course Project Dropbox by Sunday, end of Week 2, 11:59 p.m. (MT). (40 points)
Course Project Vertical Analysis
Please post the vertical Analysis for your Course Project in the Week 3 Course Project Dropbox by Sunday, end of Week 3, 11:59 p.m. (MT). (40 points)
Course Project Final Ratio Analysis
Please post the Ratio Analysis for your Course Project in the Week 4 Course Project Dropbox by Sunday, end of Week 4, 11:59 p.m. (MT). (40 points)
Final Course Project Submission
Please post the Course Project final summary assignment to the Week 7 Course Project Dropbox by Sunday, end of Week 7, 11:59 p.m. (MT). (75 points)
|Category |
|Points |
|% |
|Description |
| |
|Documentation |
|and Formatting |
|10 |
|14% |
|A quality paper includes a title page, proper citations (see the citation help section below for requirements), and a |
|bibliography. |
| |
|Organization |
|and Cohesiveness |
|30 |
|40% |
|A quality paper includes an introduction of the two companies and the industry. The content will be properly subdivided |
|into sections derived from the weekly assignments. Include a labeled section for each weekly Course Project assignment. |
|In a quality paper, the conclusion summarizes the reasoning employed in the analysis and describes any outstanding |
|conclusions reached about the companies analyzed. Clearly mark the concluding paragraph "Concluding Thoughts." |
| |
|Editing |
|5 |
|6% |
|A quality paper is free of any spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. Sentences and paragraphs are clear, |
|concise, and factually correct. |
| |
|Content |
|30 |
|40% |
|A quality paper has significant scope and depth of research to support any statements. Relevant illustration or examples|
|are encouraged. A quality paper employs sound use of reasoning and logic to reinforce conclusions. It also has proper |
|ratio calculations and conclusions on analysis. |
| |
|Total |
|75 |
|100% |
|A quality paper will meet or exceed all of the above requirements. |
| |

|Company Selection – Week 1 | |

Company Selection (5 pts)
Choose your term paper companies and upload them via the Week 1 Dropbox titled "Company Selection." Your choices will be reviewed, and you will receive feedback and/or approval for your choices. Your selections must be publicly traded companies that compete with one another, and I encourage you to select the company you work for, or wish to work for, in order to learn more about the company and the industry. Please ensure to include the ticker symbol with the company name to ensure that is publicly traded on one of the stock exchanges. Ticker symbols can be found on Yahoo! Finance.

|Course Project Horizontal Analysis – Week 2 | |

Your outline should include (but is not limited to) the following.
I. Choice of Companies and an Overview of Their Operations and Industry – briefly outline what the company does and its industry. (5 pts)

II. Discussion of Current Issues Impacting Financial Statements – include any relevant current event information, news that has affected financial statements, or world events that could impact the businesses. Research will have to be done on this. Some good sources of information include the most recent annual reports for each company (these can be found online for all publicly traded companies; utilize the most current year end annual reports available), Yahoo! Finance, the MSN Money website (this will provide current information on your company and some ratio information), and various business magazines. You can find the websites suggested under the Webliography tab in the course. (5 pts)

III. Relevant Ratios and Discussion – list what ratios you think are relevant to your companies and industry. Go to the Excel spreadsheet in Doc Sharing, review the ratios listed under the ratio tab, and pick what you think may be relevant. In one to two paragraphs, briefly discuss ten ratios you think may be important, and include ratios from the different categories. The ratios will be automatically calculated on the spreadsheet (please see section IV regarding this). (10 pts)

IV. Excel Spreadsheet FinSAS.xlsx – Manually input the financial data for your company under the Input tab on the spreadsheet. You should insert numbers highlighted only in blue. These numbers should be found in the company's most recent year end annual reports (utilize the most year end numbers; the spreadsheet has it starting at 2008, but change the year to 2009 and go five years historically from there to 2005), which can be obtained online under your company choice. Complete a separate spreadsheet for each company. Write here that you completed the input for the spreadsheet for both companies and that the spreadsheet works. To check this, once you input the data in the input tab only, check the other tabs (ratio, vertical analysis) to ensure that you see the automated calculations. (20 pts)
VI. Bibliography
Submit your outline in the Week 2 Dropbox titled "Horizontal Analysis."
|Course Project Vertical Analysis – Week 3 | |

Your outline should include (but is not limited to) the following.
I. Identification of Significant Asset Items, Liability Items, and Comments on Revenue and Profitability – List specific issues that you think affect these items. For example, economic factors, new product launches, and recent news developments can affect the items. Information can be obtained from annual report write ups, financial notes, and the Internet. Briefly comment on how they affect financial numbers such as sales, profitability, costs, revenue, and so forth. (10 pts)

II. Relevant Ratios and Discussion of Your Findings of Vertical Analysis – Discuss briefly your vertical analysis findings, which are calculated automatically on the spreadsheet under the vertical analysis tab. Do not input into here. Then, identify any key ratios that you think impact vertical analysis. (10 pts)

III. Excel Spreadsheet FinSAS.xlsx, Calculations of Vertical Ratio Analysis – This is a separate tab under the project spreadsheet and will calculate automatically, based on what you inserted in the input tab during Week 2. Ensure that it has calculated, and provide a brief analysis of your findings. The spreadsheet does not need to be submitted this week; just state that the spreadsheet is calculating correctly for each company. (20 pts)
a. Bibliography
b. Other back material, as needed: detailed tables, extended quotations from which shorter quotes are taken, and so forth.
Submit your outline in the Week 3 Dropbox titled "Vertical Analysis."
|Course Project Final Ratio Analysis – Week 4 | |

Your outline should include (but is not limited to) the following.
I. Explaining Business Objectives and the Effect of the Objectives on the Ratios – Briefly highlight if the ratios meet the criteria of the business objectives. These objectives can be found in the annual reports under CEO comments and business summaries. (10 pts)

II. Identification of the Three Most Important Ratios for Your Companies and Support – Include why you think these ratios are the most important; what do they indicate about the financial health of each company? All ratios should be automatically calculated based on your input sheet from week 2. (10 pts)

III. Computation of Relevant Ratios and Comparison to Industry Data – Verify that all ratios have been automatically calculated on the spreadsheet. On a separate document, list the ratios in comparison to the industry. Industry ratios can be found on various financial websites. The list should be in a table format, showing Company A, Company B and then the industry ratio. (20 pts)
a. Bibliography
b. Other back material, as needed: detailed tables, extended quotations from which shorter quotes are taken, and so forth.
Submit your outline in the Week 4 Dropbox titled "Ratio Analysis."
|General Expectations for your Final Course Project Submission – Week 7 | |

This week, you should integrate the work you did on the group project over the past six weeks to create a Course Project, and submit it to the Dropbox under the Course Project tab by Thursday this week, Week 7. A Word document, as well as the Excel document for each company, must be submitted. Also, submit a spreadsheet for each company completed.
This week, you should also be sure that you answered the following: "Which company has better financial ratios and why? What do the ratios indicate? Compare the financial ratios for the latest year to the industry averages. Is each company above or below the industry averages? Compare for each ratio." All this information should come from your previous weeks' submissions. A suggestion is to include a section in the paper that responds to each of these questions stated. A paper clearly outlined with separate sections generally reads easier.
Course Project Grading – To access a guide to how the project will be graded, please go to Doc Sharing.
|Citation Help | |

Don't forget to cite your sources properly, both parenthetically and in your bibliography or works cited. If you need assistance with proper citation, the following website may be beneficial: http://www.apastyle.org/faqs.html. Be certain to review the APA Style Guidelines tutorial available from THE HUB's Library Port.