Stock project

Stock Project
The goal of the stock project is for you to pick and analyze a company you might want to work for. The analysis will be of the company financials, articles you read and areas of interest to you personally.
I. Getting Started:
Pick a publicly traded United States company, that you can easily get information on, and where you would consider working. Yahoo is a great place to find stock information.
· Apple
Go to www.yahoo.com and click on the tab labeled Finance on the top of the page. Once in the finance page enter the name of the company you would like to do research on in the search bar and find the company’s stock ticker symbol.
It is important that you pick a company you are interested in, would someday want to work for, a publicly traded United States’ company, and a company you can find information and data.
II. What You Need to Find:
(Note: everything that is highlighted below and underlined needs to be included in the report).
Start your report with a description of what the company does and a brief history. You can find this at finance.yahoo.com. Enter your stock’s ticker symbol (if you do not know the symbol, there is a symbol lookup just to the right of the box) in the box at the top of the page and click on the search icon. When you get to the company’s page, click on profile. Profile is one of the sections you can click on just under the company’s stock symbol. That is where you will find the history and a brief description of the company. You can copy and paste this for this section of the project.
Include in the report 2yrs of the most current annual financial statements. Starting again at Yahoo’s Financial page, go to your company’s information page and click on Financials. The Income statement and balance sheet information will be on that page. If the financials are not listed, then I would suggest go to company’s web site and see if you can locate them there. You can copy and paste this information for this section of the project.
Financial statements to include in this project are as follows:
Income Statement (last 2 yrs. by year)
Balance sheet (last 2 yrs. by year)
Review and include the auditor’s opinion. It should say,” In our opinion, the following financial statement presents fairly in all material respects the financial position of…or in
The opinion will be in the annual report or the SEC 10K report. It will be right after the notes to the financial statements, which are right after the financial statements. I recommend you search the company’s website, annual report or
on the Security Exchange Commissions website – www.sec.gov.
Include – stock price chart for at least one year. This is also available on Yahoo, finance section (under chart). Click on chart at the side of the profile page. You can also compare your company’s stock price to a competitor’s or to several indexes (this is good for some extra credit).
Analysis. Look at the material you have found (look at the conversations section and you will find out what’s the latest talk about the company) and see what you can discover. Include in your analysis section of this project the following information.
Financial statements – answer and provide comment to all questions below.
1 Are sales up from last year?
2 Are expenses up more or less than sales?
3 Is the net income up from last year (Why)?
4 Are total assets up?
5 Are total liabilities up?
Find and comment on the following:
1 Are they introducing new products?
2 Are they expanding into new markets?
3 Are they innovative? How?
4 How do the experts rank them compared to competition?
5 What strategies have they used to be profitable during the pandemic?
Positive/Innovative information: In this section add your own research on your stock. Focus on areas that are important to you! Do you care if a company ecologically sensitive? Do you want a company that has international offices? Are you concerned with women’s Issues or Minority Issues? What about leading technology? Many magazines have lists of “best companies to work for”. More financial data can be found at sites such as Glassdoor.com, Hoover’s, Yahoo and Morningstar (http://www.morningstar.com/) are good places to look. Do not be limited by my suggestions, just make sure the research is from a reputable firm.
Negative information: Look in places other than the corporate website. Look on social media platforms, be creative in finding negative information.
8. And last include – Final Questions
Your Experiences with the company and its products
Experiences of Friends and Family with the company and its products
Would you work there (mandatory)
Would you invest your money there (mandatory)
This section is …. how do YOU feel about the company as an investment and a place to work? I want you to make this personal.
You need to give it some thought. It needs to be about at least a 1/2 page long.
III. The Report:
Start with a nice cover page followed with a table of contents. The title page must have your name on it.
The table of contents should include:
1. Brief description (in your words) and history of the company
2 Most current 2yrs annual financial statements (balance sheet & income statement)
3 The auditor’s opinion
4 Charts of the stock’s prices
5 Analysis
6 Positive/Negative Information
7 Final Questions
You will turn in stock project on blackboard. Stock project must be turned in as a pdf. I do not accept this project email!!
IV. This is the most popular way to earn extra credit!
You can make your presentation very professional or very eye catching. Make it stand out and look good! You can earn up to an extra 5% for this on final grade! You can create your stock project as a word document or using power point
Additional Items to include for Extra Credit:
Comparing your company to a competitor
Comparing your company to its industry
Find anything that is newsworthy about the company
Anything extra that would be useful to any investor

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