 Welcome to Unit 10 of Sailor.org's Introduction to Financial Accounting. You've made it. We're almost done. This is the final unit of the course and is divided into four units, taking about three hours to complete in total. In this unit, you will learn how to analyze financial statements and the financial ratios you calculated last unit. As an analyst, you must be able to draw concrete conclusions from financial ratios. We're going to learn how investors draw conclusions from these ratios, and we'll also talk about the factors that influence a company's financial ratios. Oftentimes, analysts make industry comparisons, comparing the financial ratios of one company to the financial ratios of other companies in the same industry to draw conclusions about the company's profitability, liquidity, and solvency. For example, if an analyst is examining the financial information of a computer game company, he or she might look at a few other computer gaming companies to get a sense for how others compare. Shifting gears a little bit, let's talk about publicly traded companies. You've probably heard that term and you may not quite know what it means. Basically, when you are able to purchase stock in a company and in turn own a part of that company, that company is referred to as a publicly traded company. As regulated by law, publicly traded companies have to release quarterly financial results and an annual report that discusses the past year. Analysts use these financial statements to calculate financial ratios and decide if a company is valuable and valuable enough to invest in. You haven't technically finished the course yet since you're just starting this final unit, but I want to be the first to congratulate you on completing this course. You've conquered the financial accounting equation, assets, balance sheets, depreciation, and much more. I hope you've enjoyed this course and that you'll consider taking the next course in this series.