ACCT 6300: Group Project
Group Project
Your group will lead a strategy session assessing the financial condition and outlook of a real U.S. publicly traded company. You'll present key financial indicators, interpret their implications, and offer a reasonable recommendation based on your findings.
This project emphasizes the kind of thinking and communication expected from professionals in accounting - explaining the story behind the numbers and responding to questions from reasonably informed users.
Industry norms and financial ratios
SimFin has detailed, exportable financial reports for select publicly-traded companies. You can compare any company with its peers and download the data into Excel. Search for a company by its ticker symbol and then select the Analysis tab.
Company ratios are also available on the NASDAQ site. Click on Market Activity, Stocks and then search by ticker symbol. Once you find your company select financials on the left column and then financial ratios. An additional source for company ratios is Morningstar. Enter a company name or stock ticker symbol and then select key ratios that appears next to the stock quote.
Some industry ratios are available on MSN Money. Enter a stock quote to search on and then click Analysis and scroll down to Financial Health.
sample SWOT analysis
Part of your project requires a SWOT analysis. See sample SWOT analyses to get ideas for what type of content to include.
SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is an organized list of a company’s greatest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You can see an example of a SWOT analysis in the Business Source Complete database. Step by step instructions for pulling a SWOT analysis report are available here. Note that not all companies have a SWOT analysis available.
Find the SIC / NAICS codes
Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes were developed to help the Census Bureau and other statistical agencies gather data on industries. You may need this code to find lists of companies in an industry or look up statistical and financial data for an industry.
The North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) was created to replace SIC codes because so many new industries had emerged there were not enough four digit SIC codes to classify these new industries. NAICS codes are 6 digits. SIC codes are 4 digits. Since older data is still classified under the SIC codes you may need both codes for your research.
(Hint: Try 445110 for grocery stores)
You can also find relevant NAICS and SIC codes for a company's industry by searching Business Source Complete under Company Information (in the blue bar at top of screen). Search for the company and then click the + sign next to Industry near the bottom of the page.