The Finance Professor: Getting Started With Financial Statements

Expansion and growth are factors that investors will pay for. Reading the business overview will give you an idea of the company's current products, competitive position and future plans.

As you can see, there are some important things that you should do before you analyze a single number.

This week's homework: What is your single biggest stock holding? Obtain an annual report and 10-K for that company, read the information within these documents (as I've outlined in this lesson), and formulate your initial take on the company's performance and its financial condition.

As always, you can email me your homework and thoughts on the subjects covered in this or previous articles. I will compile the best ideas in a future module of TheStreet.com University.

Next lesson: The P&L (or income statement).