Objective: The purpose of this assignment is to make sure everyone is acquainted with financial statements and well versed in Excel formula and graphing tools.

Exercise: Build an Excel workbook, capture and review the financial statements for Oracle Corporation from its most recent Annual Report on Form 10K or EDGAR, and run the relevant financial ratios for the last three fiscal years. Do the same for Oracle’s competitors Microsoft and SAP on the same worksheets in your workbook. Compare and contrast their respective financial ratios (pick four metrics most relevant and used by financial analysts), and build tables and graphs in the Excel to show the comparisons, trends, etc. for these companies. Add a separate worksheet to your workbook and explain the strengths and weaknesses of the data you found and the ratios and trends you calculated. Appropriately name each worksheet tab.

The following table lists some of the more relevant and widely used ratios (metrics) by financial analysts. Pick from this list the four you feel best represent the comparisons of the three firms; but be sure to explain as part of your assignment why you believe these four metrics you pick are the strongest and best to use for the comparisons.