You will complete and submit a written report and supporting PowerPoint slide show about the MarketWatch portfolio management simulation assignment. You will not present your analysis in front of the class, so if you want to add commentary for any slide, please do so in the notes section. Both documents $($written report and PowerPoint Presentation$)$ must be uploaded to canvas no later than the due date $.$ After that time, no more transactions will be allowed, and your access to the simulator will cease. It is important that you track your weekly progress throughout the semester, so you are able to use that information to generate your written report and PowerPoint. Waiting until the end of the course to try and complete this assignment is ill advised. It is important for you to work on this assignment each week of the course.

While trading the stock market may be new to you, and you may be unsure of what to do$,$ you are still required to conduct transactions each week. The best way to learn about investing is to engage in it$.$ It does not matter how you perform $($this is an educational simulation$).$ Your grade will not be influenced by your overall performance. Rather, your grade will be determined on your ability to demonstrate what you learn through engaging in in this activity.

The written report should include the following:

Cover page$$including the name of your investment firm, your name, the course name, and the date.

Table of Contents

Overall Investment Strategy:$$What was the rational for the investments selected? Did you use a top$-$down approach of first analyzing the economic outlook, which industries would do well given your economic forecast, and specifically what stocks within those industries you thought were worthwhile investments. Did you use a value investing strategy $($Warren Buffett$)$ in which you identified stocks trading below their intrinsic values, and assumed these investment would move up toward their true value. Did you use behavioral finance as a strategy, by focusing on investor sentiment$,$ past history of stock prices, and predicted the future price based upon a pattern on the chart. Did you adopt the random walk$/$efficient market hypotheses, and used darts to select stocks because the chances of outperforming the market according to these theories is largely based on chance? You do not need to use any of these strategies. You could use discounted cash flows valuations or other valuation methods we will learn about this term, or you could just create your own strategy. No matter which strategic framework you select, make sure you explain what the strategy is$,$ what validity it has $($have others used it with success$),$ and why you selected that strategy.

Weekly performance of your investments. Once we begin to trade, you will be responsible for monitoring the performance of your funds$$ investments each week, and compare that performance with the S&P $500$ index. Explain why your investments each week, did better, worse, or equaled the markets performance. What news events occurred during that week $($political$,$ economic, financial etc.$)$ that were notable? Did these events have any impact on your portfolio? Why did you select the investments you chose? Each week, you are required to update and submit the stock market challenge tracking spreadsheet.

Highlight your best overall performing investment for the semester and the worst one. Talk about the companies, what they do$,$ why you selected them, and why they did either very well $($best performer$)$ or really bad $($worst performer$).$

Conclusion. What was the overall performance of your fund during the competition? What was the total absolute return of your portfolio over the entire semester? How did that compare with the S & P $500$ over the same period? Were there things you think you should have or could have done better to improve your performance? What lessons did you learn from this this activity? On a scale of $1-10$ do you feel better prepared to invest for yourself as a result of this assignment $(1=$ not prepared at all to invest, $10=$ very prepared to invest$)?$ What is your investment strategy personally? Do you currently invest, if so$,$ what is your strategy for doing so$.$ If not, why not $($please do not say I do not have any money to invest$).$

Other items you can consider for your presentation, but are not required include:

Which positions exceeded your expectations? What conditions caused this?

Which positions under performed for you? What factors created the performance gap?

What are the key things you learned from your Virtual Stock Exchange experience?

How will your Virtual Stock Exchange experience influence your personal investing in the future?