FINS2618 Capital Markets and Institutions

Major Assignment

Term 3, 2024

Weighting:

5% (individual presentation) + 25% (written report & video presentation)

Due date:

Week 7 Timetabled Tutorial Session (individual presentation)

Week 10 Sunday 17th November 11:59pm (written report & video presentation)

The goal of this Major Assignment is to demonstrate all the key knowledge and skills gained in this course through the lectures, tutorials, iLab classes and FactSet database.

Your team are equity analysts that need to deliver a stock pitch to asset managers at State Road Global Advisors. It is expected that your team prepare a short-written document to introduce your chosen company and a recorded presentation of your stock analysis.

Select a company that is currently listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ or Euronext that satisfies all the following criteria:

(a) The stock can be found within the FactSet database

(b) The market capitalisation is within the largest 50 companies listed on that exchange

(c) The company has at least 3 years of complete financial data

You will be required to form groups of 2-4 students with your classmates in the same tutorial class starting in Week 4 (and continuing in Week 5) and then post your group’s selected company to the Discussion Forum on Moodle. This will open on Friday 4th October (Week 4) at 3pm for everyone. Your group is not allowed to analyse a company that has already been chosen by another group in this course. Thus, each group must select a different company – first come, first served.

1.   Explain the current capital structure of your company. [10 marks]

•    You may consider the distinct types and amounts of debt, hybrid, and equity instruments that this company has issued, its characteristics as well as other important details.

2.   Explain the major revenue and expense sources of your company. [5 marks]

•    You may consider different geographical segments that your company derives revenue and expenses, presenting a country/region map of revenue exposures as well as other important details.

3.   Identify the main competitors of your company. [5 marks]

•    You may consider the main competitors in the domestic market and relevant geographical segments as well as other important details.

4.   Annotate a chart with the  last twelve months’ share price of your company (November 2023- October 2024). [15 marks]

•    You  may  consider  the  key  events  which  explain  movements  in  the  share  price,  macro- economic factors, company-specific events as well as other important details.

•    You may consider overlaying this share price chart with a relevant market index over the same time period, justifying your choice and discussing its price behaviour.

•    You may consider overlaying the price history of relevant competitor(s) over the same time period and discussing its price behaviour.

5.   Describe two events that occurred in the past twelve months and how they have affected the share price and trading volumes of your company. [20 marks]

•    You may consider key corporate actions, company announcements and other high impact news events. One of the events must have a positive surprise element and the other event must have a negative surprise element.

•    You are not required to do any calculations for this description (e.g. (cumulative) abnormal returns,  market  returns  etc.)  but  will  need  to  identify  the  expected/consensus/forecast figure(s), actual figure(s), surprise (%) and/or price change (%) for each event.

•    You may consider presenting a share price chart around this event  with other important details on the same chart.

6.   Discuss  whether the  positive  or  negative event caused a bigger or smaller price and volume reaction than expected and whether the market behaviour was consistent with the efficient market hypothesis. [15 marks]

7.   Based on your analysis in the above  parts,  propose (an) investment strategy(ies) for the asset managers at State Road Global Advisors. Justify your suggestion(s). [10 marks]

GROUP FORMATION:

The Major Assignment has two components – an individual presentation (due in Week 7) and a final written report and video recording (due in Week 10).

Students are free to form. their own groups within the same tutorial with the condition that each group should have 2-4 members. Your tutor should have a record of the members in each group as well as your group number/name.

Since the goal of the Major Assignment is to provide an opportunity to gain team working skills in a safe environment, no individual submissions are allowed.

All members of the group will be initially awarded the same mark for the individual presentation, written report + video recording as they are expected to equally contribute to the final submission of the group.

GROUP DYNAMICS AND INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

Groupwork is one of the core Program Learning Outcomes at UNSW. Learning how to work in a new team is an essential skill in the workforce too.

As  a  group,  you  will  be  responsible  for  negotiating  roles,  managing  your  workloads  and  progress amongst the group. The group should collectively set out the expectations for each member’s workload clearly and to reduce any “free-rider” problems.

Individuals in groups should also work actively to overcome barriers that arise. However, any substantial problems in your group should be raised with your tutor as soon as possible.

Records of all communications, meeting attendances, task allocations, documents, work-in-progress, submission schedules etc should be kept by each group member.

Each group should set internal deadlines well before the presentation (in Week 7) and the written report and video recording (in Week 10) to ensure that there is sufficient time to compile, edit and communicate with each other before the deadline.

If a group believes that there is an evident and substantial disparity in contribution by any member, these groups may be able to engage in a peer assessment and moderation of grades for each individual in the group, at the discretion of the LIC. Peer reviews are undertaken on a case-by-case basis and require substantive evidence of both disparity in contribution and efforts to ameliorate any difficulties.

The Teaching Team will not resolve any group issues if there is no evidence that the group has tried to resolve these conflicts or barriers amongst themselves.

There  is a  universal  expectation that each student will  make  every effort to communicate clearly, contribute fairly and treat one another with the utmost respect.

INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATION (5%):

Each group must present live during their timetabled tutorial class in Week 7 (week starting Monday 21st October) of the term. All members of the group will be required to participate for a grade. The total time allocated for each group is 5 minutes.

For this presentation, the group needs to create a simple slide deck in PowerPoint with a maximum number of 1 slide per member + an introductory slide with the names and zIDs of the group members, group name/number as well as the company analysed. No references/sources need to be included in this slide deck.

During the presentation, you will need to detail the company your group has chosen, any preliminary findings, areas of responsibility, the group’s plan and work schedule for the time remaining until the submission date, how you will personally contribute to the final production of the written report and video recording.

At least 24 hours before the presentation i.e. allocated tutorial time, one member from each group needs to submit the PowerPoint slides electronically to the tutor. These slides will not be explicitly graded  separately  but  is  a  record  of  your  group's  completion  and  where  the  marks  for  the  Oral Presentation will be given as feedback to all students in Week 8. If there is no submission received latest 24 hours before the presentation, then no marks may be awarded for the presentation.

WRITTEN REPORT + VIDEO PRESENTATION (25%):

There are two components for the final submission: a written report and a video presentation.

a)   WRITTEN REPORT

The written report should be a “snapshot” summary of your chosen company presented to the asset managers at State Road Global Advisors. It should be a maximum of 3 pages:

Page 1 – Title page – Group name, student members, zIDs, company analysed, hyperlink to the video presentation recording and a maximum 200 word executive summary.

Page 2 – Content – The main body text needs to be 1.15 line spacing and in size 12 Aptos or Calibri font with normal (2.54cm) margins on all sides. Tables, graphs, charts, and diagrams are excluded from this formatting requirement but must fit within this single sided A4 page. These need to be professionally presented in the written report. No table of contents or in-text references are required. No appendices are allowed.

Page 3 – References – All reports must include a list of references/sources in academic form. using the Harvard referencing method. You will be penalised if you forget to reference your sources for this written report or use inappropriate referencing. More information on the Harvard referencing style. can be found here:

https://www.student.unsw.edu.au/harvard-referencing

Please proofread the written report before the final submission.

One member from each group needs to submit the final written report as a .pdf document via the TurnItIn link on Moodle by the end of Week 10 (Sunday 17th  November 11:59pm).

b)  VIDEO PRESENTATION

The video presentation should be 15 minutes in duration. Markers will stop watching any content after 15  minutes.  All  members  of  the  group  will  need  to  participate  and  have  their  cameras  on when presenting. Each member needs to present for at least 3 minutes.

An introductory slide needs to be included with the names and zIDs of the group members and company analysed. A final slide containing a list of all the references/sources, cited in the Harvard referencing method, that were used in the creation of this video presentation.

One member from each group needs to submit the PowerPoint slides electronically via the submission link on Moodle by the end of Week 10 (Sunday 17th  November 11:59pm). These slides will not be explicitly graded separately as they are covered in the video presentation but is a record of your group's completion and where the marks for the video presentation will be given as feedback to all groups. If there is no submission received, then no marks can be recorded for you and your group members. The video file should also be submitted by the end of Week 10 (Sunday 17th  November 11:59pm).

TOTAL MARKS                                                                                                        /100 marks