Prof. Chunming Yuan
ECON 475/675 Financial Investment Analysis
Department of Economics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Project Assignment I
(***You are expected to finish both parts***)
Part I: Finding Basic Financial Information
WARNING: A goal of this Assignment is to practice getting financial information online by having you go to real websites. However, many of the websites you visit will offer advertisements for financial projects and many of these advertisements are basically scams. Nothing in this class is meant to be an endorsement of any company or any offer. Throughout your investing life you will be exposed to many kinds of financial offers and you need to do your research and be suspicious about anything you read.
1. Finding information about a stock
Go to a popular website for financial information (such as money.cnn.com or finance.yahoo.com or bloomberg.com) and find the information requested below.
Report:
Your report may be written as a list, but be sure to use complete sentences. You should include the following information:
· Your company’s name and ticker symbol.
· The quoted price along with the day and time of quote
· The previous day’s closing price and the percent change.
· The percent change year-to-date and the closing value at the start of the year.
· The market capitalization of the company.
· How would you describe the behavior of the stock price over the last two years?
2. Examine an Actively-Managed Stock Mutual Fund
Find an actively-managed stock mutual fund (that is, a fund that is trying to “beat the market” and not a passively-managed fund such as an index fund). Any actively-managed stock fund is fine. Look up the description of the fund online and report key information.
Report:
Your report may be written as a list, but be sure to use complete sentences. You should include the following information:
· The name of the fund and the mutual fund company.
· According to the fund, what is its strategy?
· What is its style?
· Is it very diversified in terms of industries or countries invested in?
· What index is used as a benchmark? How has it performed compared with its benchmark over the last year? Over the last five years (or the life of the fund if it hasn’t been in existence for five years)?
· Does it have a Morningstar rating? How has it performed?
· Is there a load? What is the expense ratio?
· Give one other fact about the fund.
Part II: Quantifying Investment Returns
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