Assignment Paper

Financial information for publicly traded companies is available to the public and can be found on a
domestic company’s 10-K Annual Report on the company’s investor relations page (e.g., Apple Financial
Information) or the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) site under Filings & Forms and on
many other financial sites including Yahoo! Finance.
Mergent Online is a financial industry tool available to SNHU students for free. View this video
demonstration.
To Find a Publicly Traded Company
 Log in to Blackboard, select the Online Student Services tab at the top of the page, and under
Academic Support, select the Shapiro Library link.
 Select the A-Z Database List link, and in the Search for Databases field, enter Mergent Online,
click on GO, and then click on Mergent Online in the results.
 This is the direct link: http://www.mergentonline.com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/basicsearch.php
 Enter a company name in the Company Search – Enter symbol or Company Name field in the
first section (top, left) and wait one moment for a drop-down menu to appear.
 If it is a publicly traded company (meaning its stock trades on an exchange where you can buy
and sell shares), it will appear in the list below and you will see the company stock ticker symbol
and name.
 Click on the company name in the list for details, and confirm that this is the company you
intended to search for by reading the Business Summary.
 Review the information in the blue box at the top of the page and make note of the company’s
assigned Sector and Industry.
To Find Historical Stock Prices
 Click on the Equity Pricing tab.
 The Time Period defaults to 3 years.
 Click on Report above the Controls box.
 Once you see the Historical Pricing, choose Download near the top right of the screen.
 Save the Excel file to your computer.
 Use the Close price to calculate the percent increase or decrease in the stock price over the
seven weekday or three-year period (“rate of return” in rubric).
 For example, Apple’s stock price on 8/19/16 closed at $109.36. Seven weekdays earlier, on
8/11/16, it closed at $107.93. If you had bought 100 shares of Apple stock on 8/11/16 at
$107.93 and sold them on 8/19/16 at $109.36, you would have earned $143 before taxes, which
is a 1.32% rate of return. The calculation is (109.36-107.93)/107.93 x 100 which equals 1.32%.
 Apple’s stock price closed on 8/19/2013 at $72.53. The three-year rate of return is 50.77%.
To Download Financial Statement Data
 Select the Company Financials tab to retrieve financial statement data.
 Balance Sheet data will appear, and it defaults to Annual.
 Five years’ worth of data will appear, and you can change to 3 years by selecting that option to
the right of the Annuals/Balance Sheet above the Balance Sheet data.
 Choose Refresh at the end of the next row.
 Choose Download near the top right of the screen.
 Save the Excel file to your computer.
 Change Balance Sheet to Income Statement and then Cash Flow to get your other financial
statements.
To Find a Competitor
 Click on the Competitors tab.
 Select Public Global to the right of Competitor at the top of the list of companies.
 Click on company name to review the Business Summary to confirm that this is the company
you are interested in.
 Review Sector and Industry listed at the top and determine if you want to use this competitor
for your competitive analysis.
To Find Industry Data
 Click on the Competitors tab.
 Select Public Global to the right of Competitor at the top of the list of companies.
 Choose at least five competitors.
 Click on each company name to review the Business Summary to confirm that this is the
company you are interested in.
 Review Sector and Industry listed at the top and determine if you want to use this competitor
for your industry analysis.
 Determine what financial indicators you would like to compare and collect the needed data
from the company financial statements for your ratio or Free Cash Flow (FCF) calculations.
 Average your calculated results to get an industry average (for example, add the five company
FCF’s together and then divide by five).
Please post any questions to your course’s General Questions discussion topic.