How do you response to the following discussion post from a classmate? Please pr

Question

How do you response to the following discussion post from a classmate? Please provide an answer and reference. Thank you in advance!

What kinds of financial information exist in various places?

The internet is an information highway that is fast and very accessible from most locations in the world. It gives you more informed data and assist us in identifying processes and searching for truth. There are often differences between the internet and actual reporting charts and analysis. I find the internet to be a great starting point but company reports and the stock market and quarterly earnings statements often tell the true story.

What is the difference between information found on the internet and other sources of information?

The best source of obtaining information is direct observation through lessons learned and historical data from past days, months and years if available. It is often believed that having someone from inside the organization through a direct interview process may yield significant information that may not be on the web. It also a great practice to leverage many different websites and interviews to search for commonalities to create a creditability assessment. Websites are usual but vetting websites side by side are also helpful means of data collection. Single source reporting creates a lot of inaccuracies, so multiple source reporting normally brings you to the closest credible analysis.

What source of information that you found in your research do you find most helpful?

It’s thought to be that if you read something on the internet, then it must be right. The truth is that it all depends on the sources and where they get their information from. It’s like the domino effect, in the way that if one source ends up wrong, then other sources end up wrong as well. The best information comes via books, magazines, journals, etc. The web is easy and probably the most favorable option, but it may not always be the best.

How does a website like Yahoo finance help you perform ratio analysis?

The Yahoo Finance website can be a useful tool in that it can also provide you with financial news, data, and commentary including stock quotes, press releases, financial reports and original content for a lot of companies across the globe. Yahoo Finance also offers you some online tools for personal finance management (Hayes, 2017).

Resources:

Hayes, A. (2017, October 10). Ratio Analysis: Finding The Data. Retrieved September 4, 2018, from

http://www.investopedia.com/university/ratio-analysis/finding-data.asp (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Ross, S. A., Westerfield, R. W., & Jordan, B. D. (2013). Fundamentals Of Corporate Finance. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Explanation / Answer

In the discussion, it is stated that internet is a great source to most of the information, however, not the complete information. The interviwee is right in saying this, however, it seems he is not happy that the entire information cannot be collected from internet and that we need to rely on more sources of information. Well, in this context, in my opinion, most of the websites publish the most information available to them without being biased. There may be hidden information, but we need to ask ourselves - do we really need that information. And, if the same information needs to be collected from an internal resource of an organisation, it may prove out to be a compliance issue for the resource. Alternatively, if the resource is allowed to share the information publicly, then that information or data will be shared publicly by that organisation (no doubt on that).

Talking about financial data of a company - like reports and charts, the interviewee mentioned: "There are often differences between the internet and actual reporting charts and analysis. I find the internet to be a great starting point but company reports and the stock market and quarterly earnings statements often tell the true story." In my opinion, the best and trusted websites will always project the right data (else they be barred from their services and there are a lot of regulations which make sure that information published has to be right). They are always audited by independent bodies to verify the geninuity of data. Hence, to the extent reported, the data can be relied upon. If something more is required, we would have to refer to the company's individual website. And, do remember, the data which is published is done only after all the audits and checks are performed - if that is incorrect an audit function should immediately be questioned.

Again, in the lines that followed, the interviewee mentioned: "The best source of obtaining information is direct observation through lessons learned and historical data from past days, months and years if available. It is often believed that having someone from inside the organization through a direct interview process may yield significant information that may not be on the web." To my opinion, it is not always possible to have someone working in the organisation you want information for. However, even if you find someone, he may not reveal something that the internet would not know. Further, even if he reveals, thinking for a second, we may not be able to use that informaiton publicly. Hence, no use of such info, because, as soon as you use this information, people may want reference to something they have never heard of, which may bring you into a fix. But, I agree to the point that multiple sources of info are always better than a single source, in order to verify the info.

Answering to another question, he said: "It’s thought to be that if you read something on the internet, then it must be right. The truth is that it all depends on the sources and where they get their information from. It’s like the domino effect, in the way that if one source ends up wrong, then other sources end up wrong as well. The best information comes via books, magazines, journals, etc. The web is easy and probably the most favorable option, but it may not always be the best." Whereas, it is understood that books and magazines bring you with a lot of knowledge, the web brings you the latest knowledge. Again, all trusted sites bring you the right data, and not just right, they bring you real time data which may be found in books or magazines. That is the benefit of having internet, and the whole digital technology. To all the answers we can refer to google.com, which brings most of the data across any topic, it brings on top the most trusted website for the search and data which can be used in any analysis. The point is the topic of search should be specific enough to bring in the right info.

He is right when he talks about Yahoo Finance. This site gives you the most info required for financial analysis. It gives you a lot of data for ratio analysis, and may also be dependable upon for such data.

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