Week 4 Assignment 1: Appraise the Value of Debt and Equity Securities
Instructions
This week, you learned that the goal of financial management is to maximize shareholder wealth. Write a short paper discussing the relationship between this goal and the goal of maximizing the firm’s profits and how the use of financial markets helps firms to build value within an organization. Your paper should critically assess the value of debt, the time value of money, and how debt can be leveraged to help organizations grow. You are expected to find at least one additional scholarly article where the author discusses the use of stock or equity securities to help a company grow.
If you choose, you may select a company you research and use it as a specific example in your paper. You should expect to cover the type of debt the company incurred, the purpose of the debt, or how they issued or did a buyback of stock or securities to control debt and cash value in the company. Your presentation should include citations from at least five sources with at least one of your sources being added to this week’s reading or video sources. You may find annual reports for publicly-traded companies posted at AnnualReports.com (2018).
Length: Your PowerPoint presentation should be 8 slides long, not including a title slide and reference slide. Include 100 words for each slide in the notes section.
References: Please include five resources with your submission. While you may use four of the resources provided, you are expected to provide one additional resource you research on your own.
AnnualReports. (2018) 65,762 annual reports from 5,445 companies worldwide help you make the right investment decision. http://www.annualreports.com/
Your presentation should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Be sure to adhere to Northcentral University’s Academic Integrity Policy.
Week 4 – Assignment 2: Conduct a Company and Stock Analysis to Assess Market Value and Trends for IBM, Inc.
Instructions
An annual report is a comprehensive statement describing a company’s activities throughout the preceding year. Annual reports are intended to provide shareholders and other interested stakeholders informed about the company’s activities and financial performance. All public corporations must provide shareholders with a financial report every year so that shareholders understand and are able to assess overall performance.
The first part of the report often contains an impressive combination of graphics, photos, and an accompanying narrative, all of which chronicle the company’s activities over the past year. The back part of the report contains detailed financial and operational information.
In this assignment, you will read and assess the financial performance of IBM, Inc. over the past couple of years. Begin by downloading the latest IBM annual report from AnnualReports.com. Once you have accessed the website, search for IBM, and then download the most recent annual report in a PDF format. Read pages 1–28, and then find the financial data (i.e., income statements, balance sheets and statements of cash flows) on pages 78-81.
Using the IBM income statement data on page 78 in the annual report, create a common size income statement by using the Common Income Statement Template located under Week 4’s Resources.
Using the consolidated income statement data and the balance sheet data on page 80 in the IBM annual report, create a table of ratios. To create the required common size income statements for IBM, using the information and model found in the article by Laux (2010)
For this assignment, you will create a four-part analysis of IBM. In Section 1 of your paper, summarize what you learned or found particularly interesting about IBM in your reading of the first 28 pages of the annual report. In Section 2, insert the tables you created (either cut and paste from Excel or create tables in Word). In Section 3, evaluate IBM by discussing the numbers in your common size income statement and balance sheet ratios. Look for trends that identify areas of strength, stability, or possible concern. Finally, in Section 4, find two additional scholarly reports that discuss IBM’s financial performance during this period and discuss how those professional reports correlate with what you found in your analysis.
Length: 4-5 pages, not including title page and references
References: Please include three sources with your submission. While you may use two of the resources provided; you are expected to provide one additional source you research on your own.
Laux, J. (2010). Topics in finance part I-introduction and stockholder wealth maximization. American Journal of Business Education, 3(2), 15-21. To view Topics in finance, go to Course Resources module in Table of Contents and click on Supplemental Resources.
Your paper should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Be sure to adhere to Northcentral University’s Academic Integrity Policy.
