Teacher’s Guide
Introduction:
A company’s financial statement is kind of like its report card: it can tell you how a company has done in
the past, but not necessarily how it will do in the future. Nevertheless, every investor should understand
the basic facts and figures of a financial statement and be able to use them when making investment
decisions. In this lesson, you will learn how to use We Seed’s financials to do some simple analysis of
company performance.
Overview:
This lesson introduces students to the financial statement at a very elementary level by looking mainly at
revenue. If you want to take a deeper look, you may want to integrate an existing lecture on financial
statements into the first part of class. Students will select a company and explore basic elements of its
financial statement to assess performance.
Learning Objectives:
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Gain a basic understanding of financial statements and associated terms
Understand how different companies earn different levels of revenue
Understand how analyzing company performance should play a role in investment decisions
Learning Environment:
The exercise should be conducted in a computer lab or as a homework assignment.
Time requirement:
45 – 60 minutes
Prerequisites:
Students should have satisfactorily completed lesson 1.
Student Worksheet
Challenge 1: Company Basics
Now that you’ve explored We Seed’s mini-markets, through the Shop for Companies page, choose a
company that you’re interested in. Pull up the company page (by clicking on the company’s stock symbol
or company name) on WeSeed.com and use it to answer the following questions.
Questions:
1. What company did you look at? What is its symbol? What is the current market price of a share?
2. Take a look at the company description. What’s one thing you found interesting
about the company?
3. Click Friendly Financials under the Company Info in the center of the page. What do you think the
number for total revenue represents?
Student Worksheet
4. What about gross profit?
5. If you were making a choice to invest in this company or not, which of the Friendly Financial
numbers would matter the most to you — and why?
6. Click on the Show Chart link to the right of the company name and description. On the axis
Stock Price
below, draw the basic shape of the stock price over the past year.
Time
Student Worksheet
Challenge 2: Comparing Companies
Now that you’ve analyzed a company based on its financial statement, let’s compare two companies.
Choose two related companies to answer the questions below
(for example: Toyota & Honda, Apple & Microsoft).
Questions:
1. What two companies did you choose? How are they related?
2. Which of your companies do you think has higher total revenue? Why?
3. Take a look at the Friendly Financials section on each company page. Note each company’s total
revenue below. Were you correct in Question 2?
4. How might comparing financial statements and company performance help you to make
investment decisions? Which of your companies would you invest in? Why?