1. Obtain the most recent annual report for two companies in the same industry.  Here is a link to the SEC website which you can use to search for recent Financial statements and/or 10k filings.    https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

(The companies I chose are Macy’s & JC Penny)

The reports should contain at least three years of income statement data and two years of balance sheet data.

2. Analyze at least 3 (three) items on the income statement for your base company that would be important to an investor, and discuss whether your company’s performance related to these items appeared to be improving, deteriorating, or remaining stable. Justify your answer.

3. Analyze at least 3 (three) items on the balance sheet for your base company that would be important to an investor, and discuss whether your company’s performance related to these items appeared to be improving, deteriorating, or remaining stable. Justify your answer.

4. Analyze your base company’s investing and financing activities for the most recent year as identified in the statement of cash flows, specifically identifying the two largest investing activities and the two largest financing activities. Discuss whether you agree or disagree with the investing and financing strategies that your company appears to be employing.

5. Compare your base company’s financial statements with those of the second company in the same industry. If you were making a decision to invest in one of the two companies, which company would you choose? Why? (Note: your answer in this section must include some financial issues, but you can also include non-financial factors)

Note: 1. You must submit the URLs for the 10K or Financial Statements that you used to research this paper. 2. Your analysis must include page references to relevant portions of the annual reports and/or references to the Financial Statement or Notes to the Financial Statements.   Your report must also contain appropriate quotation marks for quoted material and appropriate citations for material taken from sources outside the financial statements. 3. Your analysis is limited to 3 (three) pages, and must be typed, double-spaced and can included any amount of supporting schedules, graphs or other visual aides that you would like to include.