Discussion Questions:
1. Discuss the importance of quality in a firm's financial statements and how you would go about evaluating the quality of a firm's financial statement. What do you consider to be the four main pro forma financial statements to financial forecasting, and why?
2. The management of current assets and current liabilities in the short run can lead to several challenges for the financial manager. What are some of the more common challenges or problems encountered by the firm in this regard, and what are the possible solutions? Explain your answers.
3. Financial mangers make decisions today that will affect the firm in the future. The dollars used for investment expenditures made today are different from the cash flows to be realized in the future. What are these differences? What are some of the techniques that can be used to adjust for these differences?
4. Valuation of a firm's financial assets is said to be based on what is expected in the future, in terms of the future performance of the firm, the industry, and the economy. What types of value would you consider when assigning "value" to a firm's stock or bond? What is the significance of each of the different types of value in the valuation process? Use examples to support your response.
5. The finance department of a large corporation has evaluated a possible capital project using the NPV method, the Payback Method, and the IRR method. The analysts are puzzled, since the NPV indicated rejection, but the IRR and Payback methods both indicated acceptance. Explain why this conflicting situation might occur and what conclusions the analyst should accept, indicating the shortcomings and the advantages of each method. Assuming the data is correct, which method will most likely provide the most accurate decisions and why?