Select an industry and a company within the selected industry to complete a comprehensive analysis. Develop a well-written paper focusing on fundamental and technical research. The goal is to obtain a better understanding of the financial analysis process by studying public information and market data to make informed investment decisions.
Course Project Requirements: Your Course Project consists of valuing a firm using fundamental and technical analyses and presenting your investment recommendation. Your course project will consist of a 5-6 page paper following APA format and will include at least one graphic (refer to the line chart under technical analysis below). The project should include a title page, introduction, analysis, graphic(s), conclusion, and reference page.
Fundamental Analysis: You will prepare a top-down fundamental analysis that covers economic, industry, company, and financial analysis (Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8). The analysis should parallel the type of analysis conducted by a professional security analyst (although not with the same degree of rigor).
Economic analysis (Chapter 5): Your paper must cover current monetary-fiscal policy, government policy, economic indicators, inflation, gross domestic product growth (GDP), unemployment, and any foreign trade and world events that are currently affecting the securities markets.
Industry analysis (Chapter 6): Your paper must cover the life-cycle phase your chosen industry is in, the implications of such, and the industry structure (including but not limited to economic factors, competitive factors, and government regulation).
Company/financial analysis (Chapters 7 and 8): Choose a specific company within your chosen industry in which you would like to invest. Value the firm using a dividend valuation model, an earnings valuation model, and the P/E ratio. Forecast earnings per share for the next two years. Using the most recent two years of financial statements (annual report or 10-k), perform a ratio analysis using the 20 ratios presented in Chapter 8. (You do not need to calculate these ratios, but must properly cite your sources.) The analysis should comment on the most recent year's ratios and on any trends between the two years, in addition to research industry norms for the profitability, asset-utilization, liquidity, debt-utilization, and price ratios, and analyze your selected firm's performance against the industry.
Technical analysis: (Chapter 10) Using one of the readily available charting resources on the Internet, prepare a line chart on the company's price and volume movement. Discuss the overall movement of the stock price and the relationship of the stock price to volume. Using a straight line of best fit through the data, comment on the stock price that you project for the future.
Investment recommendation: Based upon the fundamental and technical analysis, present your investment recommendation, tying together the results and data from your fundamental and technical analysis and supporting your investment recommendation with your results and data.