ACCT 2331 Internet Financial Statement Analysis Ratio Project Why Financial Statement Analysis? Financial statements are the primary information that firms publish abbut themselves, and investors are the primary users of financial statements. Firms seek capital from investors and prepare financial statements to help investors decide whether to invest Investors expect the firm to add value to their investment-to return more than was invested- and read financial statements to evaluate the firm's ability to do so. Financial statements are also used for other purposes. Governments use them in social and economic policy-making. Regulators such as the antitrust authorities, financial market regulators, and bank inspectors use them to control business activity, Employees use them in wage negotiations. Senior managers use them to evaluate subordinates. Courts and the expert witnesses who testify in court, use financial statements to assess damages in litigation. Each type of user needs to understand financial statements. Each needs to know the statements' deficiencies, what they reveal, and what they don't reveal. Financial statement analysis is the method by which users extract information to answer their questions about the firm". Stephen H. Penman This project covers the principles of financial statement analysis. The goal of this assignment is for you to experience finding out relevant accounting and other information about a corporation as if you were an investor. You will find out that it is relatively easy to look up information about any publicly traded company on linc