1. If you were an investor thinking of buying either corporate bonds or preferred stock, which would be the three most important ratios of the company that you would study? Why did you choose those?
2. How does The Home Depot's 2012 debt/equity ratio compare to Wal-Mart's 2012 debt/equity ratio?
3. When we do financial statement analysis, why do we need to study ratios? Why can't we just look at dollars of sales, dollars of debt, or dollars of profit?
4. How does Microsoft's 2012 ROE compare to Google's 2012 ROE?