Any topic (writer's choice)

Project description
An introduction to the investment process. An understanding of how individuals and institutions make their investment decisions. A broad exposure to a range of topics including selection of securities, security analysis, instruments, and investment trends. The risks and returns involved in investing in different financial instruments are examined.

1.Illustrate the basic types of securities and financial markets as well as how trading in those markets is conducted;
2.Demonstrate efficiency of portfolio diversification;
3.Construct and use the security market line;
4.Analyze the choices to be made in an actively managed bond portfolio;
5.Evaluate various techniques used to analyze stocks and the stock market;
6.Calculate values of different types of derivative instruments;
7.Apply international investment strategies advantageously;
8.Integrate basic concepts from prior pre-requisite courses:
a.Financial Statement Analysis;
b.Time value of money;
c.Risk & Return analysis.

A1.Project: A project will be assigned during the semester which will entail use of data sets collected from internet sites and/or Bloomberg and S&P Market Insight. Students will then require the use of various financial functions of Excel in spreadsheets. The project includes:
a.Construction of an efficient frontier for a group of individual or portfolios of securities;
b.Estimating the Index Market Model using historical data;
c.Estimating and comparing the betas of several firms in a industry using the Index Market Model; and
d.Estimating the value of the stock using DDM and other calculation techniques.

The concepts and topics of this course are regularly applied in The Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com) and The Financial Times (http://www.ft.com). You are encouraged to read them as often as possible. Also check out the Web sites recommended by the authors at the end of each chapter.

Companies used:
BP, Stock price: BP (NYSE)
Rosneft, Stock price: ROSN (MCX)
ArchCoal, Stock price: ACIIQ (OTCMKTS)

Compare these companies to the market and industry using the Dow jones and s&p. Look at their trend using concepts from the text and discuss how you feel the companies will perform over the next year and why.