Week 1 _ Dis 1

Marta Briones

Hello Class and Professor,

I have chosen to do Amazon. I retrieved their financial statements from:

https://ir.aboutamazon.com/static-files/ce3b13a9-4bf1-4388-89a0-e4bd4abd07b8

The reason why I chose this company was for a number of reasons. (1) the CEO and Presidents of the company, Jeff Bezos is a Billionaire, which means he has to be doing something right, right? and (2) I am a frequent shopper of the site.

At first glance, I will be honest, I was kind of overwhelmed by all the information. It is very different when we read and study the material (with simple numbers such as $1,200 compared to big numbers in millions) and trying to figure out what all the numbers mean by looking at the companies statements. Amazon's Financial statements are very detailed and have information for three years with (side by side) for easy comparison. I am not sure if this is how every company does it, but Amazon had it this way. I think this made it visually easier to see their gains or losses.

In one of their statements, (Statement of Operations), what I found most interesting was the significant jump in Net Sales from 2016 to 2018. In 2016, Amazon reported Net sales to be at $135 million and in 2018 in increased to $232 million. In Amazons notes they mention that in 2017, they acquired Whole Foods Market and that their net sales have been included in their results. This acquisition pushed Amazons net sales in the right direction.

In their Balance Sheet, Amazon shows a gain in Assets of cash, once it acquired Whole Foods Market. in 2017, they reported $20 million in cash and in 2018 it spiked up to $31 million. Their balance sheet also shows that their assets have increased, but so has their liabilities.

The information found within the Financial Statements would benefit investors in a sense that these reports pretty much determine whether or not they would like to invest in the company. A report like the Retained Earning Statement would be useful to an investor because this reports shows whether or not the company displays a pattern of paying dividends. This may or may not persuade an investor to invest or not; it just depends of what kind of investor he or she is. Do they want a fast return on their investment? Does the company pay dividends or not? All this information is golden for an investor, it all just depends on the interest or the investing "type" the person is.