Has anyone done this project?? How should this be submitted in word?? Please I need help!

Company: Walmart

First thing you want to do is to download the companys financial statements from the companys website. (When submitting the final report, you must include these financial statements as a part of the report.) Go to the companys website. If unsure what the link is, go to Yahoo/Finance, enter the companys symbol in Get Quote, then go to companys profile (on the top menu items), and you will find the companys link there. Once logged onto the companys website, look for Investors Relations. In Investors screen, look for Annual Reports or 10K (the equivalent of what the company has to file with the SEC annually). Open the link to the most recent annual report or 10K and look up the table of contents. You should find the page numbers where the financial statements are located.

Once you download the financial statements, you need to calculate 2 years worth of ratios. Every annual report and 10K provides 3 years income statements and cash flow statements and 2 years balance sheet, so we can easily come up with 2 years ratios. Remember that financial analysis is about identifying the trend. We need a minimum of 2 years data to do this. The following ratios (some we have already covered; some we will see in future chapters) should be calculated:

Working capital

Current ratio

Gross profit margin

Net profit margin

Inventory turnover

Days sales in inventory

AR turnover (ch 9)

Days sales in AR (ch 9)

Debt ratio

The formulas to a couple of the ratios require that we use the average. E.g., inventory turnover and AR turnover required that we use average inventory and average AR as the denominator. Since we only get 2 years balance sheet in an annual report, using the average will not allow us to calculate 2 sets of these ratios. To accommodate that, skip the average, and just use that particular years inventory and AR. In other words, for inventory turnover, use the formula of CGS/inventory (that years only); for AR turnover, use the formula of Net Sales/AR (that years only). This way we can calculate these ratios for two years. The final paper should contain 1 page of these ratios for 2 years.

You should do some research on the companys background. A lot of this information can be Googled. Who founded the company, what key developments did the company go through over the years, what are the main products and population segments the company caters to, etc? The final paper should contain 1 or 2 pages of this data.

You should look up 5 articles between now and when you sit down to write the final report, articles related to the company. These should be articles that tell about some of the current developments of the company, e.g., any new product introductions, any new advertising campaign, any new expansion plans, etc. A good place to find these articles is on Yahoo, Finance, enter the symbol of the company in Get Quote, and once the companys information is on the screen, look towards the bottom under Headlines. When analyzing financial data, we are focused on historical data. To draw conclusions based on historical data, we need to temper that with current developments, so as to get a sense of where the company may be headed. In the final report, you should include 1 or 2 pages of summaries of the current developments of the company.

Once all of the above are in place, you can evaluate the ratios. Is the companys liquidity moving in the right direction? Is the companys profit improving? Are the companys inventory and AR managed properly? Is the companys debt level increasing, etc? The final paper should include 1 or 2 pages of your analysis.

Draw an overall conclusion using your analysis of the ratios and the companys current developments. Is the company headed for prosperity? Is it headed for hard times?