Financial Statement Analysis Project
You should select a firm to analyze that you are interested in and will be able to gather ample information. Examples of good firms to analyze include the firm where you currently work or a firm that is publicized in the financial media (Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox Business, etc.). The number one requirement is that the firm is publicly traded on an organized stock exchange (NYSE, NASDAQ, etc.).
Your Firm: The Boeing Company
Your financial statement analysis project should include all five of the elements of financial statement analysis discussed in Chapter 5 of Pratt:
Assessing the business environment.
Reading and studying the financial statements and footnotes.
Assessing earnings quality.
Analyzing the financial statements.
Predicting future earnings and making an investment recommendation. (BUY, HOLD, or SELL)
A large part of analyzing the financial statements involves comparisons across time, within the industry, and within the financial statements. I recommend that you use some sort of spreadsheet software such as EXCEL and analyze at least 5 years of financial data for your selected company. I also recommend that you conduct some analysis of stock price, including a figure of stock price behavior over the past 5 years.
The final product of your financial statement analysis will be a 12-15 page paper summarizing your financial statement analysis and your investment recommendation.