2023 Part 3 is about tracking the stock price during the semester and recording the data on a | Assignments Online

Part 3 is about tracking the stock price during the semester and recording the data on a spreadsheet, analyzing and presenting the data for each of your stocks in graphic form. Instructions are as follows:

Project Part 3.  Track your portfolio and companies throughout the term and on the Discussion Board, describing the stocks and their performance.  Use the requirements for the Discussion Boards defined above.  Also discussed would there be any changes you have made in your portfolio. 

Keep up with the performance of your portfolio and major news, both domestic and globally, concerning your stocks.  You will regularly discuss and review your portfolio on the Discussion Board (DB).  You will do this referring to domestic and global events including the performance of international financial markets that affect your stocks and your portfolio.  This requires that you check the DB regularly.  On the DB, explain why you have requested any trade.  This should be fun – and these are easy participation points!

An easy way to set up your portfolio is to track it in Yahoo finance or Google finance, but you can also record the prices in a spreadsheet yourself – this will help later. 

-Part 4 of the Project is about a qualitative assessment of your portfolio. Here you will able to express whether the stocks you chose should be held, more shares added (bought to increase holdings), or sold because you don’t believe they are strong earners in the future. To support your assessments of each stock you must describe how the stock is reacting including a comparison of each stock and the entire portfolio to the S&P 500 performance in the same time period, graphics supporting the numerical comparison. 

Purpose of Assignment (WHY)

with the process of investing through the US stock market, also called the equities market (to distinguish the market for trading equities from the market for trading bonds which are debt). The stock trades that will be made by each student are designed to gain experience in a controlled environment investing hypothetical funds and transferring those skills to future actual funds held by students or the student as the representative of a corporation including the research analytics that encourages a better investing result, the markets investors use, the specifics of trading language and trading process and the ability to understand the reasons trades were made and analysis of the performance of the trades after the trades have concluded.

Program Competencies

• Global

Program Learning Outcome

• PLO4: Assess the structure and functions of the U.S. and international financial markets and institutions.

Course Learning Outcomes

• Apply risk-return analysis in making decisions on stock ownership.
• Analyze the performance of individual and portfolio investments.
• Understanding how and why a student personally chooses an investment provides a greater understanding of what investment criteria is important to that student; what emotional factors affect that student (example: are they a risk taker or risk avoider), what types of firm’s is the student interested in for investing (examples; what industry, what size, level of technology, geographic location). Additionally, the student will learn to organize and track the investments made in the class structure with a global perspective in mind.

Assignment Description (WHAT)

For this Part, you will be making a report to your investment committee that discusses and summarizes the performance of your stock portfolio.  Use closing prices as of Thursday, April 15, to calculate your returns. What is the final market value of your portfolio (including dividends received and added to non-interest earning cash)?  If the final market value of your portfolio is less than $1,000,000, your portfolio lost money.

Provide a graph of the daily stock prices (high, low, and closing) for each of your stocks.  Include the volume on each graph, with the scale shown on the right side of the graph.  Be sure to label the graphs! 

Provide a graph of the value of your portfolio and the value of the closing S&P 500 if $1,000,000 were invested in that initially.  This is the normalized value.  By normalized, you have scaled the S&P 500 closing prices so that its price on the first day ($1,000,000) is the same as the portfolio’s closing price on that first day. 

In the final section of your report, recommend for or against the inclusion of each of these stocks in the portfolio and defend your recommendation.  Use the information you have obtained in Part 1 Deliverable 2 to support your argument.

Calculations: Use the closing price of your stocks on Thursday of Week 13, April 9, to calculate your returns. 

1. Report the “purchase” and “sale” prices of your stocks from the beginning and end of the semester along with any dividends you might have received. Calculate the buy-and-hold return of each stock [(MVend – MVbeginning + DIV) / MVbeginning] and the buy-and-hold return on your portfolio.
2. Determine the final market value of your portfolio (including dividends received). If the final market value of your portfolio is less than $1,000,000, your investment lost money.
3. Calculate the market value of
   1. Your portfolio for each day (including cash). I suggest that you do this by adding up the daily closing market values of your assets held and the cash you hold, including the total dividends received up to date. 
   2. The S&P 500 index portfolio over this same period assuming you keep the same amount in cash. We are using the S&P 500 index as our proxy for the market.
4. Plot the daily market value of your portfolio and the daily market value of the S&P 500 using your calculations in #3.
5. Using the market values you calculated in #3, calculate the daily returns (percent) for
   1. your portfolio
   2. The S&P 500 index portfolio.
6. Using your calculations in #5, calculate
   1. The average daily return and the standard deviation of daily returns for both the S&P 500 index and your portfolio.
   2. your portfolio’s beta by calculating the covariance of your portfolio’s daily returns with the S&P 500’s daily returns and dividing that by the variance of the S&P 500.

Write-up:  Assume that you are preparing a relatively short report (maximum of 10 pages double-spaced) for your investment committee.  You will be graded on the quality of your writing as well as the quality of your analysis.  Do not simply answer the following questions – this should be a financial report!  These questions are intended to provide guidance.

1. Introduction
2. Comment on the individual and portfolio returns and on any information/events (market-wide or firm-specific) that may have contributed to the performance of your stocks. Describe and explain any trades you made.  (Suggested length: a short, concise paragraph for each stock).
3. From your calculations, if you held the S&P 500 instead of your stocks, how much money would you have ended up with? Would you have been better or worse off to hold the index?  Analyze the reasons for any differences.
4. Based on your calculations for standard deviation and beta, how risky was your portfolio compared to the index? Again, analyze the causes of the differences.
5. Finally, what are your plans going forward? That is, if this class continued and you had the chance to alter your portfolio holdings now, would you choose to sell any of your stocks or would you want to keep holding them?  What will you tell the investment committee?  Be explicit.

Deliverables:

1. Your report (8 – 10 pages double-spaced, 12 pt. font) plus graphs.
2. Spreadsheet of returns and calculations, and market value plot – 2-pages maximum – make it neat and readable..