Company Project

This project allows you to learn more about investing and about the activity of companies that compete in the market. You will be asked to choose a company upon which to base your analysis in a report. You will monitor and report the performance of your company’s stock over the school term and ultimately attempt to explain why your stock performed well or poorly relative to the S&P 500 Index. The explanations will offer insight into what is driving the valuations of U.S.-based stocks over time.

If you do not know the ticker symbol of the stock you want to invest in, go to the website 

finance.yahoo.com (Links to an external site.)

 and type the company’s name in the search box and click on “Search Finance.” If you want to review a list of possible stocks to choose, go to

https://finance.yahoo.com/industries (Links to an external site.)

 (which lists stocks by sectors or industries).

It is assumed that you will invest $10,000 in the stock of the company you have chosen.

You should summarize  the returns of your stock in a separate appendix in the following format:

Purchase price

Closed on

% change

Current value

Year to date

Name of firm

Ticker symbol

Amount

of investment

per share (10-28)

11-22 at:

in stock price

of investment

gains

WalMart

WMT

 $  10,000                          

119.22

119.36

0.117%

 $      10,011.74

27.64%

Your interim report (due February 5) should contain an introduction in which you discuss the reasons why the company interests you, a summary of the business activities it is engaged in (for example, my company, Walmart, operates a multinational chain of retail stores that sell household items, groceries, electronics, toys, and hardware, among many others), a summary of the current consensus on the company’s current performance and future prospects (to include, but not be limited to your own view) and an appendix containing a chart tracking the stock’s performance as compared to the S&P, in addition to the appendix shown above. This interim report could be up to the 8 pages designated for the final version, but less (4-5 pages) is quite ok.

The final version of the report (due March 8) will update the price data and modify the market analysis, with your final conclusions.  It will also include your answers to some questions that I will furnish to you in “files”. The report should not exceed 8 pages double spaced, and it must include a page of source references. Wikipedia is acceptable, but not as your only source. Your textbook should be a source, and the Wall Street Journal and Yahoo finance itself provides many references. You may use the information you provided in your weekly discussion posts, properly referenced.