Step 1 Evaluate / Screen Stocks

The objective of this section is to create a watchlist of 5 stocks and 5 ETFs. There are numerous websites that have good stock screening tools such as Morningstar and Yahoo. For this assignment you may use any stock screener. Some examples are:

1. Provide a list of 5 stocks screened with parameters of your choosing.

2. What screens did you use and why?

3. Note on the volatility, beta, and valuation relative to peers, for each stock.

We will examine ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) next. For this part of the assignment you need to use:

1. Provide a list of 5 ETFs screened with parameters of your choosing. 2. What screens did you use and why?

3. What are the Investment Themes of each fund? Confirm the investment theme by discussing the top five holding of the ETF.

4. Note on the one-year performance, 5-year performance (if exists), valuation (based on P/E ratio), dividend yield , standard deviation and volatility of the ETF compared to peer ETFs, as well as to the other 4 ETFs you chose to study.

Step 2 Buy Securities

Create a free account in a simulator of your choice, one example is https://www.wallstreetsurvivor. com/register.

The first question is always: What do I buy? That is up to you under some constraints.

An obvious suggestion is to use the stocks and/or ETFs that you researched in Step 1 above,

or other local or national companies where you like/shop. You are free to purchase any security with a few caveats:

1. The weight of the portfolio invested in stocks and equity ETFs should be (100 - Your age)%. The rest of the portfolio should be invested in bond ETFs. For example, if you are 20, approximately 80% of the portfolio will be in equities (ETFs and stocks) and the rest in bond ETFs.

2. No less than five securities in your portfolio. No more than 10% in any individual stock. No more than 30% in any individual ETF.

3. I suggest you do not purchase any security with a share price of $5 or less. They are usually very volatile and sometimes hard to research (which you will be doing in a later paper).

4. You may trade in and out of securities as you see fit, but make sure you keep at least $50,000 invested and a core of 4-5 securities at all points.

5. You are allowed to use margin, but it will make your performance more volatile.

Step 3 Tabulate your Transactions and Holdings

Copy all of your initial transactions from the virtual trade platform and report your holdings.