Investment Research Assignment

Imagine that you have $100,000 to invest. You are going to invest it all in one investment for the next 5 years, at least, at which point you will reevaluate both your investment and personal situations.

You will invest it all in one of the following investments these are your only 2 options:

A bank account earning 5% per year.

Common stock of __________.

You will be performing the analysis from the perspective of an investor who is 25 years from retirement and the investors income is greater than living expenses. The investor has a liquid net worth of $1,000,000 of which 40% is invested in the S&P 500 index, 40% in a medium-duration, high quality bond fund and 20% in a savings account earning 5% interest per year. You are to determine if the investor should take $100,000 from the savings account and purchase $100,000 of this companys common stock.

Where are you going to invest your $100,000? Why?

Your recommendation should comprehensively but succinctly provide sufficient information for the investor to approve your recommendation by being able to address the investors reasonable questions including the following:

What is the problem? What are you trying to figure out?

What historical financial information helped you make your decision ratios, growth rates, margins, projections, competition?

What role does risk play and how do you account for it in your analysis?

What industry information helped you make your decision such as competition, overall markets, and state of the economy?

What are you assuming about the future?

What are the critical factors that led you to choose the option you chose?

Please limit your response to 3 pages, typed, double-spaced, plus no more than 2 pages of exhibits. This is both a math and a story assignment: your math has to support your story and your story has to support your math. 3 pages of text plus 2 pages of exhibits is not a lot to cover this assignment; you need to be concise, relevant, and convincing in those 5 pages.

There is no right answer. But there are right approaches, wrong answers and wrong approaches. You will be graded on the quality of your approach, the accuracy of your analysis, and how convincing your argument is.

INSTRUCTIONS TO INSTRUCTORS:

This is still a draft and is subject to changes. The blue words are comments and notes to faculty; the black words are the actual assignment.

Assignment to be handed out in Week 7, due in Week 9, worth 10-12% of the course grade. To me, its clear how I can teach the course to make sure theyre ready for this. And, during Week 8, we can talk about the assignment in class such as what sources and calculations to use. It may require 4 pages, but not more. And, randomly assigning 5 or so companies can reduce cheating, but keep grading and assessing reasonably manageable. Hopefully.

Please have students submit their assignments in hard-copy, or whatever form you want for your own grading and assessing, and have them submit their assignments into a dropbox or folder within D2L. This is probably easier than making photocopies or having them email the assignments in. We the Curriculum Committee and Deans Office may need to access these electronic copies in the future for preparing assessment reports. And, we should be able to migrate this dropbox from your D2L class site into a common site that contains all of the assignments from all sections later. I can help you set up this dropbox if you need help.

Our updated list of companies

Apple

Nike

Whole Foods

Microsoft

Tesla

Schintzer Steel

The Greenbriar Companies

Columbia Sportswear

Mentor Graphics

Craft Brew Alliance

Google

Under Armour

Facebook

LinkedIn

Krispy Kreme

Walmart

Boeing

Oracle

Cisco

McDonalds

Home Depot

Lowes

Exxon Mobil

Chevron

Procter & Gamble

Pfizer

Walt Disney

Caterpillar

PepsiCo

Yum! Brands

Dominos Pizza

Starbucks

Costco

Chipotle Mexican Grill

Amazon.com -

Netflix

Herbalife

Willamette Valley Vineyards

Vail Resorts

Target

Stericycle

Kroger

Nordstrom

UPS

FedEx

Goldman Sachs

Johnson & Johnson

Intel

Shimano

Wells Fargo & Co

Key Technology

Undergraduate BA & BS Programs

Assurance of Learning

Overview and Narrative

Learning Goals and Objectives

Learning Goal #1: Problem Solving & Decision Making

Graduates of the Business Administration Baccalaureate program will have the capacity to recognize and understand a wide range of common and novel business problems and to follow.

Objectives:

Students will construct clear and specific problem statements using contextually relevant evidence.

Students will employ in-depth information and data from relevant sources throughout the problem solving process.

Students will thoroughly evaluate solutions from multiple dimensions and using appropriate analytical tools.

Students will make decisions based on a synthesis of research, data analysis, and evaluation of solutions.

Learning Goal #3: Business Communication

Graduates of the Business Administration Baccalaureate program will effectively communicate complex information with a variety of stakeholders to increase knowledge and achieve objectives.

Objectives:

Students will demonstrate a thorough consideration of context, purpose, and audience in the communication.

Students will present a central message in a clear, concise, and convincing manner.

Students will skillfully articulate complex information in a manner that allows the message to be understood by multiple stakeholders.

Students will demonstrate a consistent use of credible, relevant sources that supports the message or credibility of the communicator.