Welcome to the final project, everyone. Having done this sort of work in my manufacturing days as a cost accountant and later, as a controller, I wanted to share a couple of thoughts on how to approach this assignment. You have the two company financial statements to work with, and you are to calculate ratios for each. A trend analysis is always in order for each firm. And then that trend analysis can be expanded to compare one company
to the other. In addition, you need to find some industry figures to use as a comparison to these two firms, to see how they compare to the rest of the firms in the industry. You might seek assistance from the Ashford library, where they have access to a wealth of databases that might contain industry figures. Industry figures may also be available from MarketWatch or Bloomberg, among other sources. Sometimes, you can just Google the industry data so try
various approaches. Give some thought to what the ratios are really telling you when you perform your analysis. Things are not always as clear as one might think when analyzing data and trends. Consider the global economy these firms operate in. And what has been happening in various markets these firms compete in. The depth of your analysis hinges on you asking strategic questions and then, digging for the answer.
Assignment Details:
- Must cite and provide reference entries for the required Deere & Company and the Caterpillar Inc. financial documents in addition to the course text.
Links:
Investor Information for Caterpillar: https://investors.caterpillar.com/overview/default.aspx
Investor Information for John Deere: https://investor.deere.com/home/ (I also attached the statements separately)
Text book: Block, S. B., Hirt, G. A., & Danielson, B. R. (2019). Foundations of financial management (17th ed.).
