This is the first part of a two part assignment. The first step is to choose a US publicly trade company. The rest of the instructions are as follows:

Assignment 3

Activity Instruction

For this assignment, you will complete the Financial Overview component of your course project. To complete this assignment, use the Financial Analysis Toolkit Excel file, provided in the Resources, to complete a financial analysis of your chosen company over the last two most recent years available in annual reports. Replace the numbers provided in the Excel file with the appropriate numbers for your firm. Then, write a 2–3 page financial analysis of your company, addressing the following elements:

• Identify your company, its industry, and analyze the important segments (percentage of sales or subsidiaries) of your company compared to its industry and its overall business.
• Perform a complete financial analysis of your chosen company’s financial statements—horizontal, vertical (Percentage of Sales and Common-Size), and changes in ratios—for the last two years.
• Compare all ratios to industry averages. Evaluate the company’s ratios against the industry averages.
• Explain the significance of the company’s ratios when compared to industry averages.
• Analyze the company’s cash flows.
• Assess the overall financial health of your company based on this financial analysis.

A great way to integrate your completed calculations from your Excel sheet into your written analysis is to paste pieces of the worksheet directly into your Word document. You are also encouraged to create graphs or charts from the data that may illustrate your analyses as well.