Financial Markets Summative Assignment 1 (Market Update)
BCO 224 Financial Markets

Assignment: The assignment is worth 40% of your marks for this course

Submission: Your assignment must be submitted via Turnitin on Moodle, .doc or .pdf file format for executive memo, and .ppt or .pdf for the presentation part.

Deadline: Sunday, 7th of March. Time: 23:55.

Word count: Your presentation and executive memo are individual and should be uploaded in Moodle using Turnitin. Avoid any “copy-paste” practice to prevent possible problems of plagiarism. Presentation should be between 15 and 20 slides, and executive memory should be between 1500 and 2000 words, excluding references.

Title: Follow a public traded stock and analyse the changes in stock price. Write a presentation and an executive memo of your findings. Choose one of the following companies:

1) Starbucks

2) Walt Disney

3) Nike

4) Estée Lauder

5) Las Vegas Sands

6) Marriott International

7) Yum China Holdings

8) Boeing

9) Apple

10) Any stock from US stock market

In your presentation you should:

1) Describe graphically the trend of the stock prices during the last 4 months and, in more detail, during the last 3 weeks.

2) Explain the observed trends

3) Relate these trends to relevant contextual information (example: public health crisis in China and worldwide)

4) Regarding this context, briefly forecast the changes in prices for the next month.

5) Make a recommendation: “Buy”, “Sell” or “Hold”.

In your executive memo you should:

1) Explain your findings based on the information contained in the presentation. The presentation of these findings must be clear and useful to inform decision making.

2) Make business recommendations based on these findings.

Remember that

“An executive memory is a short document that aims to inform management or decision makers about any issues in connection with the business (projects and project developments) that would need approval with the management.”

Rubric:

Criterium

Points

Graphical description

10

Correct explanation of price trends

15

Relevant findings and recommendations

25

Connection to relevant contextual information

25

Verbal explanations are complete, clear and backed with relevant data

10

Conclusions are clear, and logical

10

Harvard referencing system used

2.5

Essay is in required word range (1000, 1250 words)

C