research paper about Apollo Group Inc (APOL) needed some finance

Research Insight Instruction

To accompany the FIRE 371 Financial Ratio Analysis Project

Prepared by

Jin Yu, Ph.D.

St. Cloud State University

Updated on 8/8/2012

This document shows you how to retrieve company financial statements from Research Insight.

It appears that each user is required to set up the paths to the data sets when you use computers in CH491

and CH415. Please follow the instructions below before retrieve your data.

1. Start, Programs, Research Insight, Research Insight Database Manager 2. Click the top Properties button to define the Database Areas 3. For the North American section, paste this into the top field (Area 1):

\\stcloudstate\huskynet\RIDataSets\North America

4. Click Price History on the left and paste this into the top field (Area 1) of that page:

\\stcloudstate\huskynet\RIDataSets\Price History

5. Click Okay twice to save settings and then run the Research Insight program. 6. It is normal to get a message saying that 600-700 files are required to be copied. Click Yes and

then Copy Support Files on the bottom of the next screen. A folder called Research Insight

will be created in your X: drive when running this in the labs. This will require 70 MB of space.

Initial quotas for SCSU File Space are 500 MB for students. You can request more space through

a link on http://huskynet.stcloudstate.edu/myHuskyNet/filewebspace.

The computers in other labs on campus may have been pointed to the old paths, so please follow above

steps from 1 to 4 to set up the new paths. Otherwise, you will not be able to download firms’ most recent

financial statements. This could cost you points on the paper.

After the paths to the data sets have been set up, you can follow the instructions below to retrieve and

save the financial statements of your choice for financial ratio analysis purposes.

1. Click on Start, then All programs

2. Click on Research Insight

3. Wait for a few seconds, you will see the following window,

then click on Open Report.

4. You will see the following window:

5. Click on Annual Balance Sheet – 5 years, then Finish tab, the following window will show up.

6. Type in ticker symbol of the company of your choice in the blank box area under Companies.

Let’s use Apple Inc. as an example. Apple’s ticker symbol is AAPL. Type in AAPL, then click

on OK tab.

7. Wait for a few seconds, the following window will appear. It shows the past five-year annual

balance sheet information of Apple.

8. Click on File tab on the upper left-hand side of the previous window, then Save As. You should

be able to save the balance sheets information to your X: drive as a txt file. So far, we get Apple’s

balance sheets information. Next, we will try to get the income statements of Apple Inc. Click

on Open Report ( ) tab at the left hand side of the window in #7, you will see the following

window again.

9. Scroll down the screen, you will see a folder called “Income Statement”.

10. Double click on the “income Statements” folder, you will see the following:

11. Click on “Annual Income Statement – 5 years”, then Finish tab.

12. When you see the following screen, type in the ticker symbol of the company you choose. Again,

take Apple Inc. as an example. Type in “AAPL” in the blank box under Companies, then click

on OK tab.

13. Wait for a few seconds, you will see the following screen:

14. Click on File tab on the upper left-hand side, then Save As. You should be able to save the

income statements to your X: drive as a txt file.

15. Now, you need to covert the text files of your financial statements to Excel files since it’s much

easier to compute financial ratios in an Excel file rather than a text file. Open Excel and click on

the Office Button.

16. Choose Open, and open the balance sheet text file you downloaded and saved. The following

window will show up in Excel.

17. Click on Next tab, you will see the following.

18. Click on Next tab, the following window will show up:

19. Then click on Finish tab. Now, you have converted the text file balance sheet to an Excel file.

Following the same instructions from #15, and convert the text file of your income statement to

an Excel file.