Stock Market Project: Final Report

I will attach the assignment instructions. Only the section that says Final Report due May 4 is what I need completed. I will also attach your previous work completed which is Part one of the Stock Market Project and Part 2 which was the Interim report so that writer will know what information is being used for this Final Report. The grading scale for the assignment should be attached with the file. At the end of the assignment you are asked to compare your results with what you would have made if you invested in a CD. Here are sample bank rates that you can use. The highest rate is 1 year and you would make .20% after the first year (then you would renew at the current offer). Let's use .20% for this project. If you invested $100,000, after the first year you would make $100,000 x .20% (that is 20% of 1%) = $200. If you had this same rate each year and interest was not compounded, your total earnings would be $200 x 5 years =$1,000. Compare this $1,000 gain to what you made or loss in your stock project.

FIN 150: PERSONAL FINANCE (Spring 2014)

PROJECT: You have been given $100,000 to invest in the Stock Market. 'You will be choosing which real-life stocks to purchase and will track their price changes during the semester.

ASSIGNMENT PART ONE - Due February 2, 2014

Choose 6 companies who offer STOCK on the New York Stock Exchange. You can go to www(dot)nyse(dot)com to see if your company is listed. On the top right of the screen you click on SYMBOL LOOKUP - then type the company's name and if they are offering stock you will see a symbol (for their company) that you should write down. For example, if I type in the company name "Disney" - I will find that their symbol is DIS.

Next, you want to find out how much each share of the company's stock is selling for. On the same www(dot)nyse(dot)com home page - on the top right you click on "Get Quote" and hit the arrow to its right. Type in your symbol (like DIS) on the next screen and write down the number under the title "Last Trade".

AS YOU CHOOSE THE 6 COMPANIES FOR YOUR PROJECT ...

Growth Industries: Two of the companies should come from industries (two separate industries) that you feel sell products/services that are growing in popularity.

Stable Industries: Two of the companies should come from industries (two separate industries) that you feel are not growing rapidly; however, the products/services are always needed.

RISK vs. REWARD: The Stable Industry has less risk of losing a lot of money because these industries do not normally have big changes in the number of people buying and selling their stock. However, this also means it has less potential for high growth and high growth can result in high profits.

Personal Favorites: Two of the companies should be businesses you personally like or are interested in (example: Disney).

For the Growth and Stable industry companies, explain why you believe they are in the growth mode or stable mode. Supplement your personal opinions with research, citing at least one source (magazine, internet article, etc.) for each industry/company.

Decide how many shares of each stock you would buy to add up to a total investment of $95,000-$100,000.

For examDle. if Disnev stock is 440/share and vou buv 1.000 shares: 440 x 1.000 = 440.000.

INTERIM REPORT - DUE MARCH 9, 2014

Look up the stock price for each of your 6 companies on the same two days of every week (for 4 weeks)...

•    Create a graph for each company showing the Closing Price on each of those days. You can use any chart style. If you do not have access to software to make a chart - you can put the data into a table.

•    Take notes on what might have caused any significant change in price...this can come from key word searches on the internet. For example, if you are tracking a cellular phone company - you might read about any announcements they made that week on a new product. This type of announcement may make more people purchase their stock because they feel their value will increase.

•    On some weeks you may not find anything specific about each company. However, keep researching and at a minimum note something of interest written about the industry.

ACKGROUND INFORMATION ON STOCKS

COMMON STOCK: Corporations sell common stock as a way to bring in revenue. When you purchase a corporation's stock, you are an investor hoping to make a profit. You make money if the dollar value of the stock increases because you can sell that stock for more money than you bought it for. The stock is not a physical product that you receive - it is an investment in a company.

For example, if you buy one share of a corporation's stock for $20 and its value increases to $30 - you could sell it (for $30) and get back $10 more than you bought it for - so you made a $10 profit. If that stock's value decreases from $20 to $15 - if you sell it you will receive $5 less than you bought it for so you have a loss rather than a profit on your investment.

WHY A STOCK'S VALUE CHANGES: A stock's value goes up (and that means its dollar value goes up) when more people want to purchase it in order to invest in that company. Reasons for more people wanting to invest in a company could include: 1) news that they will be launching a new product so sales/profit will increase, 2) news that the company is expanding so sales/profit will increase, 3) the economy is changing and that type of company does well in the new environment.

A stock value goes down when people don't believe that company will be profitable so they sell their stock (and that lowers the stock's dollar value). Reasons for people to want to sell their investment in the company could include: 1) annual report shows the company is losing money, 2) no new products are being announced to remain competitive, 3) the economy is getting worse and people don't tend to purchase this type of product when money is scarce.
PURCHASING STOCK:

If a stock's value is $25 and you purchase 150 shares, this is how you calculate how much you spent:

$25 value per share x 150 shares = $3,750.

Not every company sells stock. For those who do, they assign a Ticker Symbol to it (example: Aflac's ticker symbol is AFL). When you look up AFL you look for the Closing or Last Price, which is the price paid at the last transaction of the day. You then look at the Change, which is the change from today's Closing Price and the previous business day's Closing Price.

To find your stocks' price, you can go to sites including www(dot)fidelity(dot)com. On this site you will see two white boxes on top of the screen. Type the company name in the "Search" box to find the ticker symbol. Type the Ticker Symbol in the "Quote" screen to find the stock's price.