First, you need to pick a public company to analyze. You should have already informed me of the company you have picked.

A brief description of the components of the assignment follows:

1. COMPANY BACKGROUND

• Describe the company and its main product or service lines, the general location of its facilities, and the geography of its markets. Recent history, including mergers, acquisitions, troubles, successes, and other points of interest should also be mentioned.

• Provide some basic financial data to describe the company. How big is it? Is it successful? Is it growing?

• Describe the company's main industry.

• Identify major competitors and briefly compare these competitors to your company. Include financial indicators.

• Discuss recent economic conditions in the industry, as well as prospects for the future.

2. STOCK PRICE ANALYSIS

In this section, you will develop time series of DAILY closing prices of your company's common stock price AND the S&P 500 stock market index.

Prepare a table of the closing prices of the index and your company's stock price. Compute the rate of return on both the index and your stock.

3. RISK AND RETURN ANALYSIS

Here you will use the daily data to assess the risk and return of your company and others. As noted earlier, you should find information on your company, its industry, and its competitors in Yahoo Finance.