ACC202 Week 2 Discussion 2 Operating Leverage

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, please read the Investing Newsletter of Forbes Operating Leverage (Links to an external site.). The Finnish company Rovio Entertainment Corporation (Links to an external site.) that produces and sells the game Angry Birds, following years of falling earnings, job cuts and divestments announced that its revenue increased 34% in 2016 to 190 million euros ($201 million dollars). According to Rosendahl, the operating result improved to a profit of 17.5 million euros from a loss of 21 million in 2015, increasing earnings by 83% (Rosendahl, 2017). In 2015, Rovio Entertainment Corporation announced that its revenues for 2014 decreased nine percent compared to those of 2013; even worse, its earnings had decreased by 73% (Read the article, Investors Take Flight After Angry Birds Maker Warns on Profit (Links to an external site.)).

After reading Forbes' Investing Newsletter, in an initial post of at least 200 words, explain why relatively small changes in companies' revenues can result in relatively large changes in their earnings or losses. In other words, if a company's sales increase 12%, why do its earnings not also increase 12%?

 

 

Ashford BUS308 Week 1 Assignment Exercise 03.31 (Measures of Variability)

According to the Consumer Expenditure Survey, Americans spend an average of on cellular phone service annually (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website). Suppose that we wish to determine if there are differences in cellular phone expenditures by age group. Therefore, samples of consumers were selected for three age groups ( , , and older). The annual expenditure for each person in the sample is provided in the table below.

Click on the datafile logo to reference the data.
a. Compute the mean, variance, and standard deviation for each of these three samples. Round your answers to one decimal place.
 b. What observations can be made based on these data?

The age group that spends the least amount on cellular phone service is
and the age group that spends the biggest amount on cellular phone service is

 

Ashford ACC202 Week 5 Discussion 2 Capital Budgeting Decisions

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, please read the article Capital Investment Appraisal Techniques: A Survey of Current Usage (Links to an external site.) by Sangster (1993).

After setting the company's goals, managers evaluate capital investment projects and decide which should be funded. Suppose a company has four different capital budgeting projects from which to choose but has constrained funds and cannot implement all of the projects.

The following table contains information about four projects in which X Corporation has the opportunity to invest. This information is based on estimates that different managers have prepared about the company's potential project.

Project	Investment Required	Net Present Value	Life of Project	Internal Rate of Return	Profitability Index	Payback Period in Years	Accounting Rate of Return
A	$ 226,000	$ 36,908	5	21%	1.17	2.97	20%
B	$ 406,000	$ 50,740	6	24%	1.13	3.13	15%
C	$1,040,000	$152,325	3	19%	1.16	2.18	14%
D	$1,630,000	$ 19,870	4	14%	1.02	3.00	23%

 

Part 1: Rank the four projects in order of preference by using the following table:

	(a) Net Present Value	(b) Profitability Index	(c) Internal Rate of Return	(d) Payback Period	(e) Average Rate of Return
1st preferred	Project A, B, C, or D?
2nd preferred
3rd preferred
4th preferred

 

Part 2: Write a response in an initial post of at least 200 words discussing the usefulness of capital investment techniques (net present value, profitability index, internal rate of return, payback period, and average rate of return) in selecting the four alternative investment opportunities in part 1.

 

Ashford ACC202 Week 5 Discussion 1 Capital Expenditures at General Dollar

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, please read the article by Hayley Peterson, 15 Companies That Are Defying the Retail Meltdown by Opening Hundreds of New Stores (Links to an external site.).

While many retailers are closing stores, some are rapidly building new locations, with at least one—Dollar General (NYSE: DG)—adding as many as 900 stores this year (Peterson, 2018).

Obtain Dollar General's Form 10-K for the fiscal year ending on December 31, 2017. Form 10-K can be obtained either from the SEC (Links to an external site.)'s EDGAR Filing system or the "Investor Relations" link on the company's website at www.dollargeneral.com (Links to an external site.). Read the "Growth Strategies" and the "Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows" sections of Dollar General's 10-K Form to answer the following questions in an initial post of at least 200 words:

• How many stores is Dollar General planning to open during its 2018 and 2019 fiscal years? By what percentage would these new stores increase the size of the company?
• How much cash did General Dollar spend on investing activities during its 2016, 2017, and 2018 fiscal years? Do you think the amount spent on investing activities represents the full costs that General Dollar incurred to open new stores? Explain you answer.
• Where did General Dollar get the cash used to make these investments?

 

Ashford ACC202 Week 4 Discussion 2 Budget of the U.S. Government

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, please read the Budget of the United States Government (Links to an external site.).

Congress is responsible for creating the federal government's annual budget. For agencies and their programs to be funded, Congressional authorization committees must pass, and the President must sign, all 12 authorization bills by September 30—the last day of the current fiscal year—so the country can have a new budget in time for the start of the next fiscal year (USA.gov, n.d.).

Access the Government Publishing Office (Links to an external site.) to obtain Historical Budgetary Tables following the steps below:

• Click on the link to access the Budget of the United States Government (Links to an external site.)
• Click on the "Fiscal Year 2018" link
• Scroll down and select "Historical Tables"
• Obtain the .xls (Excel) file format of Table 1.1 and Table 1.2 to complete the two requirements below:
• Table 1.2 shows the budget of Surpluses or Deficits (–) as Percentages of gross domestic product (GDP). Determine how many times since 1950 the budget has shown a surplus and how many times it has shown a deficit using the data in the Total column, "Surplus or Deficit." Also, identify the 3 years with the highest deficits, and the year with the highest surplus as a as a percentage of GDP. What were the surplus and deficit percentages for these years?
• Table 1.1 shows the budget Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (–) from 1789–2022. Identify whether the highest deficits incurred in the identified years from Table 1.2 were paid with tax revenues (receipts) or borrowed funds (outlays). Discuss how the government gets money and where the government spends money on.
• Click on the "Fiscal Year 2018" link, scroll down and obtain the PDF file for "Major Savings and Reforms" to complete the last requirement. The Major Savings and Reforms volume describes major savings and reform proposals included in the 2018 President's Budget.
• Discuss major discretionary budget eliminations. Why is it important that government budgets accurately estimate future revenues during economic downturns?

Your initial post must be a minimum of 200 words

 

Ashford ACC202 Week 4 Discussion 1 Beyond Budgetin

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, please read the articles Who Needs Budgets?, Traditional Budgeting vs. Beyond Budgeting (Links to an external site.) in the Financial Planning page of the CFO Edge website, and Traditional Budgeting Versus Beyond Budgeting: A Literature Review (Links to an external site.).

In the words of GE's legendary ex-CEO Jack Welch, Jack Welch, "The budgeting process at most companies has to be the most ineffective practice in management. It sucks the energy, time, fun, and big dreams out of an organization (…) [and] brings out the most unproductive behaviors (…)" (Welch & Welch, 2005, p. 189).

Some argue that the purposes of budgeting can be achieved without the conventional budgeting process. These companies espouse an idea called beyond budgeting that proposes to replace annual budgets with rolling forecasts of key performance indicators (Hope & Fraser, 2003). Others disagree, pointing out that the work of continuous planning is costlier than budgeting and that doing something continuously tends to make the process superficial.

So, the jury is still out. But so far, GE still prepares budgets! Discuss in an initial post of 200 words whether the controversial concept of beyond budgeting is a better approach for financial planning and analysis (FP&A) than traditional budgeting.

Ashford ACC202 Week 3 Discussion 2 Balanced Scorecard and Economic Value Added (EVA)

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, please read about the Economic Value Added® (EVA®) and the Balanced Scorecard management systems on the websites of the Corporate Finance Institute (Links to an external site.) (CFI) and the Balanced Scorecard Institute (Links to an external site.) (BSI) respectively. 

The consulting firm Stern Value Management designed the EVA® and the Palladium Group designed the Balanced Scorecard as breakthrough performance measures to rank ordering processes for investments and help clients create value.

Prepare in an initial post of at least 200 words a report describing the Balanced Scorecard and the Economic Value Added and their claimed advantages. Then compare these two systems to corporate and divisional performance measurement.