Hi Everyone,

Here's a fun activity. Let's see who can come the closest to
predicting what Microsoft will announce as Earnings Per Share when it
reports on Thursday. I will offer as a prize to the club who comes
closest, $20 in bivio bucks toward their next subscription renewal.

I've attached a spreadsheet you can use to make your calculations.
You will enter 3 judgments, Sales growth percentage, Net Profit
Margin percentage and number of diluted shares outstanding.

The second sheet of the worksheet shows Microsoft information for the
last 5 quarters that you can refer to as you make your decisions.
I'll also be making daily postings here for the next three days where
I will talk in a little more depth about how you might make these
judgments.

You should enter your results prior to 2PM EDT on Thursday October 28
at this link:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEtYZU54RHN4RDhKa3BxWjF1LVJDemc6MA


The three judgments are things you should be thinking about for any
company you invest in. First is sales growth, what is going to drive
it? Second is Net Margin, what kinds of expenses is the company
going to have to run it's business? Will they be going up, down or
staying pretty consistent? Finally, thinking about the number of
shares outstanding is important because you don't want a company
manipulating it's Earnings Per Share by temporarily repurchasing
shares. You want it to increase it's earnings per share by Growing
it's revenue and keeping it's expenses in line.

Hope you'll all give this a try. Feel free to forward it on to your
other club members so they can participate also. It shouldn't take
you too long. Don't sweat whether you get the answer "right" or not.
Just enjoy taking a stab at making the judgments. The more you
practice thinking like analysts, the better investing decisions
you'll make.

--
Laurie Frederiksen
Invest with your friends!
www.bivio.com

Become our Facebook friend!  www.facebook.com/bivio
Follow us on twitter!  www.twitter.com/bivio

Hi Laurie,

I can't get the spreadsheet to calculate. Any ideas?

Andy


Laurie Frederiksen wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Here's a fun activity. Let's see who can come the closest to
> predicting what Microsoft will announce as Earnings Per Share when it
> reports on Thursday. I will offer as a prize to the club who comes
> closest, $20 in bivio bucks toward their next subscription renewal.
>
> I've attached a spreadsheet you can use to make your calculations.
> You will enter 3 judgments, Sales growth percentage, Net Profit
> Margin percentage and number of diluted shares outstanding.
>
> The second sheet of the worksheet shows Microsoft information for the
> last 5 quarters that you can refer to as you make your decisions.
> I'll also be making daily postings here for the next three days where
> I will talk in a little more depth about how you might make these
> judgments.
>
> You should enter your results prior to 2PM EDT on Thursday October 28
> at this link:
>
> https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEtYZU54RHN4RDhKa3BxWjF1LVJDemc6MA
>
>
> The three judgments are things you should be thinking about for any
> company you invest in. First is sales growth, what is going to drive
> it? Second is Net Margin, what kinds of expenses is the company
> going to have to run it's business? Will they be going up, down or
> staying pretty consistent? Finally, thinking about the number of
> shares outstanding is important because you don't want a company
> manipulating it's Earnings Per Share by temporarily repurchasing
> shares. You want it to increase it's earnings per share by Growing
> it's revenue and keeping it's expenses in line.
>
> Hope you'll all give this a try. Feel free to forward it on to your
> other club members so they can participate also. It shouldn't take
> you too long. Don't sweat whether you get the answer "right" or not.
> Just enjoy taking a stab at making the judgments. The more you
> practice thinking like analysts, the better investing decisions
> you'll make.
>
> --
> Laurie Frederiksen
> Invest with your friends!
> www.bivio.com
>
> Become our Facebook friend!  www.facebook.com/bivio
> Follow us on twitter!  www.twitter.com/bivio

Hi Andy,

Yup. Sorry about that. When I cleared out my sample data I cleared
out the formulas for the calculations by mistake. I've attached the
corrected spreadsheet. Just enter your judgments in the yellow cells
and press F9 to calculate the values in the Blue cells.

Have fun!

--
Laurie Frederiksen
Invest with your friends!
www.bivio.com

Become our Facebook friend!  www.facebook.com/bivio
Follow us on twitter!  www.twitter.com/bivio