Business Finance: select and reserve the company you wish to research. With few exceptions, you may choose any publicly traded company: that is headquartered in the U.S. that has been publicly traded for at least five years that is not a bank, financial services company, insurance company, or real estate investment trust (REIT) as the ratios used to evaluate financial institutions are beyond the scope of this course.
Your first task of this week is to select and reserve the company you wish to research. With few exceptions, you may choose any publicly traded company: that is headquartered in the U.S. that has been publicly traded for at least five years that is not a bank, financial services company, insurance company, or real estate investment trust (REIT) as the ratios used to evaluate financial institutions are beyond the scope of this course.
Once you have selected a company, post a new thread in the discussion topic with the name of the company in the subject. Each student is required to choose a different company.
When you have finished reserving your company, find the company’s most recent 10-K report. There are two ways to do this:
Option 1: Go to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website. Use the Filings tab to find the report. If you need assistance, there is a short video about how to use the site.
Option 2: Use the 10-K report posted on the company’s website. From the company’s home page, look for a link for Investors, then select SEC filings, and limit the search of SEC documents to “annual.” Select the most recent 10-K filing. Take care not to select the 10-Q as it is a quarterly report.
Your second task is to prepare a report with the required information provided below. Use the same heading names (in bold) before presenting the information as requested. Take care to write your report in third person (as a reporter) rather than in first person (as a company employee).
Recommended Resources:
10-K Report, Item 1
The Yahoo! Finance website
Report Headings
Name of Company and Ticker Symbol: Company name (ticker symbol)
10-K Report: Paste the direct URL to the company’s most recent 10-K Report
Company Website: Paste the URL to the company’s website
Company Business Model: Review Item 1 of the 10-K report to find the following information:
Short Description of Business: What does the company do? What are its key sources of revenue?
Product Mix: Identify the company’s product mix or key segments. Briefly describe each product line/segment. Include brand names if possible
Stock Price Data: use the Yahoo! Finance website to find the information required.
5-Year Stock Price Graph: Provide a screenshot of the data (Learn how to do this on a MAC or PC)
Although the screen shot tool does not work with the Yahoo interactive graph, the snipping tool does. Please view this video for directions on how to snip the graph so that you can paste it into your post for Discussion 1.
Stock Price Data: Use the interactive chart on the Yahoo! Finance page, and use your cursor to find the highest price point and lowest price point in the last 52 weeks. The date the price was hit will be at the bottom of the graph on the horizontal axis.
Dividend Data: Does the company pay a dividend? How often, and how much have the last few dividend payments been?
Evaluation: Share what you learn from the data and information collected for this discussion. Does the stock price graph provide evidence of management’s ability to maximize shareholder wealth? Does the company pay a dividend, and how does the answer to that impact the larger ‘shareholder wealth maximization’ discussion? What is your impression of the company thus far? Sufficiently examining the data and information collected will likely require at least 250 words.
THE COMPANY THAT I HAVE SELECTED IS TOPPS COMPANY
