Fin 382 Final Financial Analysis Project

Project on Well Fargo
and Bank of America

Course Project
Horizontal Analysis –

I. Choice of
Companies and an Overview of Their Operations and Industry – Briefly outline
what each company does and its industry.

II. Discussion of
Current Issues Impacting Financial Statements – Include any relevant current
event information, news that has affected financial statements, or world events
that could impact the businesses. Research will have to be done on this. Some
good sources of information include the most recent annual reports for each
company (these can be found online for all publicly-traded companies; utilize
the most current year-end annual reports available), Yahoo! Finance, the MSN
Money website (this will provide current information on your company and some
ratio information), and various business magazines. You can find the websites
suggested under the Webliography tab in the course.

III. Relevant
Ratios and Discussion – List what ratios you think are relevant to your
companies and industry. Go to the Excel spreadsheet in Doc Sharing, review the
ratios listed under the ratio tab, and pick what you think may be relevant. In
one to two paragraphs, briefly discuss ten ratios you think may be important,
and include ratios from the different categories. The ratios will be
automatically calculated on the spreadsheet (please see section IV regarding
this). (10 points)

IV. Excel
Spreadsheet FinSAS.xls – Manually input the financial data for your company
under the input tab on the spreadsheet. You should insert numbers highlighted
only in blue. These numbers should be found in the company’s most recent
year-end annual reports (utilize the most year-end numbers; the spreadsheet has
it starting at 2008, but change the year to 2012 and go five years historically
from there to 2008), which can be obtained online under your company choice.
Complete a separate spreadsheet for each company. Write that you completed the
input for the spreadsheet for both companies and that the spreadsheet works. To
check this, once you input the data in the input tab only, check the other tabs
(ratio, vertical analysis) to ensure that you see the automated calculations.
(20 points)

V. Bibliography

Written content and explanations can be completed in a
separate (Word) document.

Course Project
Vertical Analysis –

I. Identification
of Significant Asset Items, Liability Items, and Comments on Revenue and
Profitability – List specific issues that you think affect these items. For
example, economic factors, new product launches, and recent news developments
can affect the items. Information can be obtained from annual report write-ups,
financial notes, and the Internet. Briefly comment on how they affect financial
numbers such as sales, profitability, costs, revenue, and so forth.

II. Relevant
Ratios and Discussion of Your Findings of Vertical Analysis – Discuss briefly
your vertical analysis findings, which are calculated automatically on the
spreadsheet under the vertical analysis tab. Then, identify any key ratios that
you think impact vertical analysis.

III. Excel
Spreadsheet FinSAS.xlsx, Calculations of Vertical Ratio Analysis – This is a
separate tab under the project spreadsheet and will calculate automatically,
based on what you inserted in the input tab during Week 2. Ensure that it has
calculated, and provide a brief analysis of your findings. The spreadsheet does
not need to be submitted this week; just state that the spreadsheet is
calculating correctly for each company.

Course Project Final
Ratio Analysis –

I. Explaining
Business Objectives and the Effect of the Objectives on the Ratios – Briefly
highlight if the ratios meet the criteria of the business objectives. These
objectives can be found in the annual reports under CEO comments and business
summaries.

II. Identification
of the Three Most Important Ratios for Your Companies and Support – Include why
you think these ratios are the most important; what do they indicate about the
financial health of each company? All ratios should be automatically calculated
based on your input sheet from Week 2.

III. Computation
of Relevant Ratios and Comparison to Industry Data – Verify that all ratios
have been automatically calculated on the spreadsheet. On a separate document,
list the ratios in comparison to the industry. Industry ratios can be found on
various financial websites. The list should be in a table format, showing
Company A, Company B, and then the industry ratio.

a. Bibliography

 b. Other back
material, as needed: detailed tables, extended quotations from which shorter
quotes are taken, and so forth.

Final Report

Written content and explanations can be completed in a
separate (Word) document.

General Expectations for your Final Course Project
Submission –

 A Word document, as
well as the Excel document for each company, must be submitted. Also, submit a
spreadsheet for each company completed.