4. You’re a new financial analyst for the brokerage firm of Lodge and Howe. A client has expressed an interest in the following companies:

General Motors (GM), Harley-Davidson (HOG), Starbucks (SBUX), and Microsoft (MSFT), and you’ve been asked to provide him with a brief overview of each firm. The letters in parentheses are symbols used to represent company names when security prices are quoted in financial markets. Use either the names or symbols to get to the overview page for each company. Once there, do the following exercises.

a. Briefly summarize the nature of each firm’s business.

b. Based on the graph provided on each overview page, write a paragraph discussing the stock’s price performance relative to that of the market as a whole.
The market is represented by a price index called the S&P 500. Your comments should include statements as to whether the stock’s price seems to move up and down with the market or against it, and whether it moves more or less vigorously than the market.

c. How large is the company in terms of annual sales and total assets?

d. How profitable has it been recently? Answer this by stating net income (profits)
as a percent of sales. What is the trend of sales and profits over the last three years?

e. What are professional analysts saying about investing in the stock?

f. What is the stock selling for right now? How recent is that quote? What did the stock open at this morning? Is the price moving up or down?
g. Look back at the graph. Does the stock seem volatile to you? Think in terms of the range of price movement over the last several months as a percent of an average of the high and low prices.