I have two assignments.
Assignment #1: Case Study McDonalds Corporation.doc
YOU MUST USE THIS FORMAT FOR CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENT
Use the Case Study Complete Outline for your report.
Please read below instructions about assignment and use as a reference when completing Case Study assignment:
Project Overview
The company selected for analysis this term is McDonalds Corporation. (NYSE Ticker Symbol MCD). The task is to describe the company’s current financial status.
Your Role
Imagine you work for a firm that is considering buying stock in McDonald’s. Imagine also that your boss, who also happens to be your instructor, has asked you to evaluate the company for possible inclusion in your firm’s portfolio. Specifically, your boss wants you to describe McDonalds’ current financial status. You are to prepare a formal report of your efforts for your boss, and brief him on the results.
Information SourcesUse this web page, the company’s latest annual and quarterly reports, and business publications on the Internet as the basis for your analysis. Good information sources on the Internet include:
- The company’ own website (good for overview information, annual and quarterly reports).
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Search EDGAR for 10K and 10Q reports. See SEC Website Instructions below. - Yahoo Finance
Yahoo Financial Research - Annual Reports
This free service allows users to review an annual report in an easy and convenient manner. Boasting the most complete and up-to-date listings of annual reports on the Internet, AnnualReports.com provides instant access to annual reports in their actual format in one single location. For educated investors, corporate annual reports are the most important research tool available. Annual Reports enable investors to stay up to date on a company’s yearly outlook. - Hoover’s
This site delivers comprehensive insight and analysis about the companies, industries and people that drive the economy, along with the powerful tools to find and connect to the right people to get business done. - Reuters
This site combines industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare, science and media markets, powered by the world’s most trusted news organization. - MSN > Money > Investing
Great resource for stock research. - Many others (Google search for your company’s name, for example)
Important Note: Wikipedia.com is not an acceptable information source for your report. Since anybody can edit its information and the owners of the site do not attempt to verify the accuracy of what is posted, it does not meet minimum academic standards.
Format
Using Information Obtained from the Internet
Most of the words in your report should be your own. You should only quote when what has been stated is so unique that it would lose its impact or value if it were not kept together as a quote (this is rarely the case). You may paraphrase and use quotes for emphasis when you need to, but when you do you must use quotes and identify the source of the information. Remember that you MUST provide a source for anything that is not your original words or thoughts. Failure to do so is a breach of the Webster University honor policy and will negatively impact your grade. Simply stated, it is plagiarism.
- To summarize: When you extract information from sources on the Internet for use in reports, there will be a strong temptation to copy and paste the information into your financial statement analysis. You should not routinely do this.
- Citing sources on a reference page is not enough. Remember that words shown in your paper are presented as if they are your own unless you enclose them in quotes and provide a citation so your readers know where the information came from. The identification of a source must be sufficient to allow the reader to go directly to the source…including the page!
- There are multiple style sheets available to show you how to cite outside work in your document. Remember, the requirement is to enable the reader to go directly to the source to confirm its veracity.
- Be sure to ask your instructor if you have any questions about the report in general or using quoted information in particular.
www.sec.gov. This is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website.
At the website, click on Search for Company Filings (its in the Filings and Forms section). That will take you to the Search the Next-Generation EDGAR System page.At the Search the EDGAR System page, click on Company or fund name, ticker symbol, CIK (Central Index Key), file number, state, country, or SIC (Standard Industrial Classification). This will take you to the Company Search page.At the Company Search page, enter the name of your company in the box. Select Starts with or Contains as needed. Leave the other boxes blank. When you are done, click the Find Companies button at the bottom.A list of companies matching the name you typed in will appear. The list may be short or long, depending on how many companies share the same words in their company names. Scroll down the list and locate the specific company you are interested in (you may have to go through several pages if the list is really long.) When you find your company, click the long red number in the left hand column next to the company name. This will bring up a Search Results page with a list of forms on it. Important Note: if there is only one company matching the name you typed in, the system will take you directly to the forms page. See the next paragraph. On the forms page, scroll down the left hand column until you find an entry marked 10-K. These forms are the company’s annual report. Note: you will normally find more than one 10-K Form listed, because the companies file one for each year. The one you want is the one with the latest date. Check the date of the form in the Filing Date column on the right.Note: you can shorten the forms search process by entering 10-K in the Filing Type: window. Then scroll over to the right and click the Search button. The list of forms at the bottom of the page will then adjust to contain only 10-K forms.When you have located the 10-K form that you want, click the Documents button for that form. This will take you to a Filing Detail page that contains a list of things that are in the 10-K report. You will normally want the first entry, which, in the Document column, will be identified with something like form10k.htm. Click the red entry in the Document column to take you to the form.At this point you can print the entire report (100+ pages!) or you can scroll down through the document to locate the part you are interested in. When you find it, simply highlight it with your mouse, and copy and paste it into a Word document for your review later on. Be careful here! Do not just paste information from the form into your report unless you enclose the text in quotes and insert a footnote saying where you obtained it.
Assignment #2:
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