Accounting and financial statements

¶ … revenue, profit, and loss of key industry players.

A random sampling of key industries shows that not all suffered from the recession and some indeed profited. In 2010, Wal-Mart once again topped the Fortune 500 list, replacing Exxin Mobil out of its original top slot. In comparison, Target, in those same years reached the 30th position on the Fortune 500 list with revenues of $65, 357, whilst Sears Holdings ranked 48 with $44,043. (Fortune 500; Wal-Mart).

Coca-Cola has been declining in profitability in recent years with its stock prices falling last year from 1.5% to $54.50 (Tse, 2010). Ranked in 2009 as 72 on the Fortune 500 list it has dropped in 2010 to 70 (Fortune 500; Coca-Cola).

Hewlett-Packard has been under new leadership with its new CEO Leo Apotehker being determined to leverage HP to new heights. His mission is to dominate cloud computing by encouraging consumers and business to rely exclusively on HOP hardware to do the job. The company showed huge investments the last year in order to fulfill its objectives. These included a $2.7 billion purchase of 3 Com and $1.2 billion purchase of Palm. HP merged with IBM to become the world's biggest seller of servers. Its revenues for the last year were $126,033 (a 10% change from 2009) with its profits $8,761 (14.4% from 2009) (Fortune 500; Hewlett-Packard).

CVS dropped from its previous rank of 18 on the Fortune 500 list to 21 but retains its place of the largest pharmacy outlet in the U.S. with more than 7,100 CVS retail outlets, and a health clinic group. In comparison, Kroger and Walgreen are ranked at 25 and 32 respectively on the Fortune 500 list for 2011 (Fortune 500; CVS)

How has the recession (2008-2009) affected companies balance sheets?

Wal-mart particularly profited from the recession in that it offered inexpensive goods as well as promising a range of products in oen go. Their profits between 2008 to 2010 surged from between 7% to $14.3 billion (Fortune 500).

As regards Coke, decline has not been solely to recession but due primarily to the fact that the public has come to largely desire healthier, sugar-free, and more 'natural' beverages such as bottled water and tea as well as pure fruit juices. Health is the current market's concern. The carbonated soft drink industry does not project that image, even though they may attempt to redefine themselves.

Hewlett-Packard has been affected by the recession firing nearly 25,000 employees, reducing salaries and demonstrating a 13% decline in earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2009. Max Hurd was CEO then, and apparently the recession affected his job for he too was laid off to be replaced by Leo Apotheker who vowed to turn the impact of the recession on HP around (Computerworld)

CVS suffered greatly by the recession scoring losses that plummeted 17% below their original 2008 high and still have not returned to their former glory.