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Financial Analysis for a U.S. publicly traded company

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I need help in responding to the questions below as a financial analyst researching the U.S. publicly traded company Priceline, in which to invest and perform a financial analysis.

1. Provide a detailed overview of the U.S. publicly traded company, Priceline. This should be 3 pages.
2. Evaluate the company's vulnerability to current financial threats, such as a recession, higher interest rates, and global competition.
3. Based on the financial trends of the company, predict how these trends will impact financial performance in future periods. Explain your rationale for this prediction.

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Solution Summary

Financial analysis for a United States publicly traded company is examined.

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Introduction: Financial analysis is a process that is used to assess or evaluate the profitability, viability, stability and financial performance of a company in order to determine their stability for investment purposes. It is a useful tool for the investors to determine that the particular company might be a good option for investment or not (Lee, Lee & Lee, 2009). For this assignment, Microsoft Corporation, which is one of the largest U.S. publicly traded companies, is selected to perform a financial analysis. In this assignment, the detailed overview of Microsoft, including description of the company, business operations, markets, locations, and product line will be discussed. Along with this, the company's vulnerability against recession, global competition and higher interest rates will be also evaluated to determine stability.

Company Overview

Microsoft Corporation is the world's leading software provider that develops, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products and services as well as also designs and sells computer hardware products worldwide (Yahoo Finance, 2012). It is a U.S. based company that is headquartered in Washington. It was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop software for personal computers in order to empower people at the workplace, home, business and school. It was listed in the NESDAQ stock market during the year 1986 for public trading (Microsoft, 2012).

In terms of market capitalization, it is the world's second most valuable company after Apple Inc. that is publicly traded in the U.S. Along with this, Microsoft is the number one software producing company in terms of annual sales revenue and net profit. The company employs approximately 90,000 full time people, in which 54,000 are working in the U.S. and 36,000 internationally through its five business segments to provide a range of software and hardware products and services (Annual Report, 2011).

The detailed overview of the corporation in terms of business operations, locations, markets and products are discussed below -

Mission

The main mission of the corporation is to help the people and businesses throughout the world realize their potential by developing technology and transfer effective ways to communicate (Microsoft, 2012).

Operating Segments

Microsoft mainly operates in five business segments that are: Windows & Windows Live Division (Windows Division), Online Services Division (OSD), Microsoft ...

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