PR429: Business and Economic Foundations for Communicators Follow a Company: Report 1
Assignment Description
Students will answer the following questions as it relates to the company they follow. The notes and citation page does not count towards page count. Use Yahoo Finance or Google Finance to answer these questions. If you need additional information, use the company’s annual report from the company’s Investor Relations website.
Questions:
- Find your company’s most recent income statement. How much revenue did the company report? What about its net income? Did the company report more or less money than you expected? Explain.
- Look at the annual financial results your company reported in the prior year. According to the company’s income statement, did its revenue and net income increase or decline, or essentially stay the same from the prior year? Would you be happy with this performance if you were a financial stakeholder in the firm?
- Find your company’s reported annual earnings per share (EPS) on its income statement. Next, look up the firm’s stock price as close to the date of the income statement (the end of the fiscal year). Use this stock price and the EPS figure to calculate the P/E ratio. The long/term P/E ratio of the stock market is 16. Would you invest in your company’s stock? Why or why not?
- Look on the company’s investor relation’s website and objectively read through the news release provided by your company about its recent annual earnings report. What did the quote from the CEO say about the company’s performance?
Questions
- Investors,
- Employees and
- Consumers – Did you find the information provided by your company consider each of these stakeholders? Which group could they of done a better job of addressing.
- Visit Yahoo or Google Finance and search for news stories about your company’s most recent annual earnings report. What information did business journalists highlight in their stories about the company? How is this information similar or different from the information in the company’s news release?