Group Course Project: A Financial Statement Analysis – A Comparative Analysis of Apple, Inc. and Alphabet, Inc.

Description

This course  contains a Course Project, where you will be required to submit one  draft of the project at the end of Week 6, and the final completed  project at the end of Week 8. Using the financial statements for Apple  Inc. and Alphabet Inc., respectively, you will calculate and compare the  financial ratios listed further down this document and prepare your  comments about the two companies’ performances based on your ratio  calculations. The entire project will be graded by the instructor at the  end of the final submission in Week 8, and one grade will be assigned  for the entire project.

Groups

The students will be assigned to work in teams of at least two no  later than Week 3. The teams will be required to collaborate at least  three weeks on the project using a collaboration tool, such as Big Blue  Button, or similar technology, and provide evidence of use of the tool.  It is recommended that the students begin their project no later than  week 6, when the draft is due, and continue through the end of week 8,  when the final project is to be delivered.

Note: You will collaborate as teams for the course  project throughout the course. Each team member will be required to  submit their individual project deliverables.

Financial Statements

Below is the link for the financial statements for Apple Inc. for the fiscal year ending 2017.

https://investor.apple.com/investor-relations/default.aspx (Links to an external site.)

When you arrive at this website, please do the following.

First, select SEC Filings, next select Annual Filings using the  drop-down arrow labeled All Filings and then select 2017, using the  drop-down arrow labeled Year,

You should select the 10-K dated 11/03/2017 and choose to download in  PDF, HTML, or Excel format. The PDF format is the best format for  searching.

Below is the link for the financial statements for Alphabet, Inc. for the fiscal year ending 2017.

https://abc.xyz/investor/previous/#numbersLink (Links to an external site.)

First, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on SEC filings  and additional information. Next, click on Alphabet SEC filings. Type  10-K in as the Filing Type and click Search. Click on Documents for the  10-K dated 2018-02-06. Finally, click on the link next to the Form 10-K.  This will open the 10-K in HTML format which is searchable.

A Sample Project Template (Links to an external site.)  is available for download. The sample project compares the ratio  performance of Nike and Under Armour using the 2014 financial statements  of Nike and Under Armour provided at their websites.

Overall Requirements

For the Final Submission:

For the Final Submission:

Your final Excel workbook submission should contain the following.  You cannot use any other software but Excel to complete this project.

1. A Completed Worksheet Title Page tab, which is really a cover sheet  with the names of each team member, the course, the date, your  instructor’s name, and the title for the project.
2. A Completed Worksheet Profiles tab which contains a one-paragraph  description regarding each company with information about their history,  what products they sell, where they are located, and so forth.
3. All 16 ratios for each company with the supporting calculations and  commentary on your Worksheet Ratio tab. Supporting calculations must be  shown either as a formula or as text typed into a different cell. The  ratios are listed further down this document. Your comments for each  ratio should include more than just a definition of the ratio. You  should focus on interpreting each ratio number for each company and  support your comments with the numbers found in the ratios. You need to  specifically state which company performed better for each ratio.
4. The Summary and Conclusions Worksheet tab is an overall comparison  of how each company compares in terms of the major category of ratios  described in Chapter 13 of your textbook. A nice way to conclude is to  state which company you think is the better investment and why.
5. The Bibliography Worksheet tab must contain at least your textbook  as a reference. Any other information that you use to profile the  companies should also be cited as a reference as well as the links to  the financial statements.

Required Ratios for Final Project Submission

1. Earnings per Share of Common Stock
2. Current Ratio
3. Gross Profit Rate
4. Profit Margin
5. Inventory Turnover
6. Days in Inventory
7. Accounts Receivable Turnover
8. Average Collection Period
9. Asset Turnover
10. Return on Assets (ROA)
11. Debt to assets Ratio
12. Times Interest Earned Ratio
13. Dividend Yield [For the purposes of this ratio, use Yahoo  Finance to look up current dividend per share and stock price; just note  the date that you looked up this information.] 
14. Return on Common Stockholders’ Equity (ROE)
15. Free cash flow
16. Price-Earnings Ratio [For the purpose of this ratio, look up  the market price per share as of September 28, 2017 for Apple Inc. and  for Alphabet, Inc. use December 29, 2017]

Note: The Excel files uploaded as the assignment submission  should not include any unnecessary numbers or information (such as  previous years’ ratios, ratios that were not specifically asked for in  the project, etc.).

Please upload your final submission to the Week 8 Assignments page by the Saturday ending Week 8.

For the Draft:

Create an Excel spreadsheet or use the project template to show your  computations for the first 10 ratios listed above. The more you can  complete regarding the other requirements, the closer you will be to  completion when Week 8 arrives. Supporting calculations must be shown  either as a formula or as text typed into a different cell. If you plan  on creating your own spreadsheet, please follow the format provided in  the Nike and Under Armour template file.

Please upload your draft submission to the Week 6 Assignments page by the Sunday at the end of Week 6.

Other Helpful Information:

If you feel uncomfortable with Excel, you can find many helpful tutorials on Excel by performing a Google search.

Chapter 13 contains ratio calculations and comparison comments for  two fictitious companies Chicago Cereal and Giant Mills so you will  likely find this information helpful.

1. BigCharts.com (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) provides historical stock quotes.

APA style must be used to complete the references on your Bibliography tab. The Library contains information on APA formatting.