Financial Statement Analysis - Industry Analysis - Question 2b

Financial Statement Analysis

Spring 2012

Class hours: 5:00-7:50M (class 001, HH2104); 5:00-7:50W (class 002, HH2104)

Office hours: 10:00 ~ 11:00MW, mostly available Tuesdays, or by appointment

Course webpage: LEARN

COURSE OBJECTIVES, PREREQUISITES, AND COURSE FORMAT

The primary objective of this course is to help you develop the analytical skills with

which to evaluate a company’s financial performance. The valuation framework,

information quality issues, and several application-related topics will be thoroughly

analyzed. We will emphasize the role of financial statement data in valuation, using

advanced problems and cases developed from and around actual financial statements. The

material is designed for students who have little or no background in security analysis.

Students should have a good understanding of financial accounting and are interested in

learning how to apply accounting information in firm valuation and business-decision

making. An interest in finance will be helpful.

You are expected to work with Excel spreadsheets and to collect data from various

databases (available on-line or via the library source). The topics covered are intended to

complement related courses in accounting and, to some extent, in finance. The course is

beneficial for students planning careers in accounting or finance related fields. It is also

designed to be valuable to a broader set of students who wish to understand, to

distinguish among, and to appropriately implement valuation techniques and to

understand how and under what circumstances, accounting may impact the capital

markets.

Overall, the goal of this course is to help you:

1) become comfortable with using information from real financial statements,

2) develop experience in using accounting data to evaluate a firm’s current

performance and to forecast future performance,

3) master the skills to value a firm using accounting information along with other

information,

4) gain knowledge of...