MIS 111 Applied Business Project 1

Fall 2024

Assignment Overview

A key contribution of Information systems for an enterprise is the ability to convert data into information (data in context). For this project, your task is to create a structured business report for your assigned publicly traded company from fundamental, technical, and quantitative investment perspectives. Your business report will discuss the following aspects of your assigned company:

 a profile of your assigned company and its industry;

 a fundamental analysis of your assigned company’s financial statement;

 a technical analysis assessing the trading data of your assigned company and a competitor in the same industry sector against the broader exchange market as a whole; and, finally,

 a quantitative analysis of your assigned company based on comparing key financial ratios.

Fundamental, Technical, and Quantitative Analysis Overview

The most common methods that investors use to analyze the benefits and risks associated with long-term investments in the stock market include fundamental analysis, technical analysis, and quantitative analysis. Long-term investors look for investments that offer a greater probability of maximizing their returns over a longer period of time. Generally, this means at least one year, although many financial experts suggest time frames of five to ten years or longer. One of the benefits of being a long-term investor is the ability to save and invest for big goals that require significant time to achieve the highest rewards, such as retirement.

By understanding the differences between fundamental, technical, and quantitative analysis methodologies, long-term investors give themselves access to three valuable stock-picking strategies they can use for making profitable investment decisions. Investors and analysts will frequently use a combination of fundamental, technical, and quantitative analysis when evaluating a company’s potential for growth and profitability.

 The goal of fundamental analysis is to come up with a fair value of a company by evaluating all aspects of the business, along with the industry, the market as a whole, and the domestic and global environment.

 The goal of technical analysis is to evaluate data—such as historical returns and price changes—to chart patterns that can be used to estimate future price movement for securities and the market as a whole.

 The goal of quantitative analysis is to use simple financial ratio calculations to gain insight into the valuation of a specific company or broad market.

Fundamental analysis is most often used when determining the quality of long-term investments in a wide array of securities and markets, while technical analysis is used more in the review of short-term investment decisions such as active trading of stocks. Investors use quantitative analysis to evaluate the financial stability of a company.

Adapted from: Horton, Melissa (February 5, 2020), Investopedia, “When to Use Fundamental, Technical, and Quantitative Analysis”, https://www.investopedia.com (Accessed: 18 January 2021).

Finding Your Required Assigned Company

The ticker symbol and name of your assigned company can be found on D2L in your grade book in the “ABP Company Ticker” and “ABP Company Name” items.

Accessing Financial Data at No Cost on Classic Yahoo!Finance

All information required for this assignment is available at no cost on the “Classic” Yahoo! Finance website at: https://finance.yahoo.com/ Yahoo! has removed some data from the new version of the yahoo!finance website, so if you see the “back to classic yahoo!finance” option box on the navigation bar, as shown below, you will need to change to the “classic yahoo!finance” before collecting your data.

Important Note: you are NOT required to subscribe to Yahoo!’s premium services or purchase any information for this assignment. If you encounter data that is blocked by a paywall, please contact an instructor for assistance.

While we recommend using Yahoo! Finance, you may use other sources, such as CNN Money, or other commercial investment services; however, the names used for some financial measures may not be the same used in this document.

Task 1: Company Profile

Task 1.1: Company Governance

For Task 1.1, create a table describing the governance of the company. The following information should be organized in the corresponding order as a table (you may create this table as an MS Word table in your report or you can format the table in Excel and transfer it to your report).

Your company profile must ONLY include the list of information shown in the list below (do not include any additional items) about your assigned company. To assist you in preparing your company profile, each of the following items can be found on Yahoo! Finance section shown in parentheses following each required item.

 Company’s legal company name (“Profile”)

 Company’s trading exchange and ticker symbol (“Summary”)

 Location (city, state) of its corporate headquarters (“Profile”)

 Number of Full-time Employees (“Profile”)

 Company’s industry sector (“Profile”)

 Company’s industry classification (“Profile”)

 Company’s Corporate Governance Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) Quality Score (“Profile”)

 Company’s Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Total Risk Score and Three Individual “ESG” Risk Ratings (“Sustainability”)

 Company’s Controversy Level (“Sustainability”)

Task 1.2: Financial Profile

For Task 1.2, create a second table showing your company’s “financial profile” using the information from a trading day since this ABP was posted on D2L (i.e., on or after September 2, 2024). You must include the date you collected your data as the first item in your Task 1.2 table, as shown in the style. sample below.

For your selected specific trading day (on or after September 2, 2024), prepare a table with ONLY the following data (do not include any additional items) obtained for your company from Yahoo! Finance in the [Summary], [Statistics], [Analysis], and [Holders] sections, as shown below:

 Date selected for your financial profile (on or after September 2, 2024)

 Fiscal Year Ending Date (“Statistics”)

 Daily volume (Volume) (“Summary”) [for date selected, above]

 Average daily volume (Avg. Volume) (“Summary”)

 52 week range (high and low) (“Summary”)

 Market Capitalization (“Market Cap”) (“Summary”)

 Name of the top institutional holder and the percentage held (“Holders”)

 Descriptive Analyst “Recommendation Rating” (e.g., Strong Buy) (“Analysis”)

 Average Analyst Price Target (“Analysis”)

 Analyst Price Target Range (High and Low) (“Analysis”)

Since Yahoo Finance updates the information for your company at the close of each trading day, it is highly recommended that you complete all parts of Tasks 1.1 and 1.2 of your project at the same time, or make screenshots of the Summary, Holders, Analysis, and Profile pages so you will have consistent information for your analysis.

On Yahoo Finance, the “Recommendation Rating” and “Analyst Price Targets” can be found on the “Analyst” screen in a scroll-down right-hand column.

Task 1.3: Investment Assessment

For Task 1.3, write a 150 word original (i.e., in your own words) assessment (range: 125 – 175 words) of your company’s stock price that provides context for the analysts’ Recommendation Rating guidance, as shown in Task 1.2.

Beyond the trading activity (stock price and volume) and your stock’s current share price relative to its 52-week price range, why would analysts consider your company’s stock to be “overvalued” a “buy” opportunity? Be sure to provide a specific justification based on information you found related to your company.

When preparing Task 1.3, you can consider either objective (e.g., recent financial performance or product sales trends) or subjective (e.g., press releases by your company and or other published news sources) performance measures when assessing the Recommendation Rating found on yahoo!finance.

If you use information from any other financial or investment reference as part of your analysis for Task 1.3, you must include a citation below your analysis, and the date it was referenced, if it’s an online source.

Task 2: Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis is the process of measuring a security's intrinsic value by evaluating all aspects of a business or market. Tangible assets including land, equipment, or buildings that a company owns are reviewed in combination with intangible assets such as trademarks, patents, branding, or intellectual property.

When evaluating the broader scope of the stock market, investors use fundamental analysis to review economic factors, including the overall strength of the economy and specific industry sector conditions. Fundamental analysis results in a value assigned to the security in review that is compared to the security's current price.

Task 2.1: Financial Metrics

For Task 2.1, create a table for the most recent three (3) reported fiscal year-end closes (e.g., 2023, 2022, and 2021), as shown for your company on the “Financials” page. (Do not use “TTM” (Trailing Twelve Months) as one of your fiscal years.) The data for each fiscal year is shown on the balance sheet, income statement or cash flow under the fiscal year-end close for your assigned company.

If your company has not published their results for the 2023 fiscal year, use the data for the last 3 fiscal years available, such as 2022, 2021, and 2020.

Your table should include ONLY the following data (do not include any additional items) report the following financial metrics for all three columns. Values for some metrics may be show in thousands or millions, so be sure to include an appropriate note about the magnitudes you used for your reported values.

You will select the financial information listed below from the three major financial reports (i.e., Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow) submenus shown under the “Financials” section for your assigned company’s stock.

Task 2.1 Financial Metrics

 Balance Sheet Section (Financials Section)

o Assets

 Total Assets

 Inventory

 Accounts Receivable

o Liabilities

 Total Liabilities Net Minority Interest

 Accounts Payable

 Long Term Debt and Capital Lease Obligation

o Equity

 Total Equity Gross Minority Interest /or/ Stockholder’s Equity

 Retained Earnings

 Tangible Book Value

 Income Statement Section (Financials Section)

o Total Revenue

o Cost of Revenue

o Gross Profit (negative values indicate a loss)

o Operating Income (negative values indicate a loss)

o Net Interest Income (negative values indicate a net expense)

o EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes)

 Cash Flow Statement (Financials Section)

o Operating Cash Flow

o Investing Cash Flow

o Financing Cash Flow

o End Cash Position

o Changes in Cash

 For the last trading day in the most recent fiscal year (Historical Section)

o “Adjusted Close” stock price

o Volume (number shares of stock traded)

Important Note - Consistent Use of Scaling for Table Values The values shown in the major financial reports (and large values such as the Market Capitalization on the Summary page) are commonly shown “in” (i.e., rounded off to) thousands, millions (M), or even billions (B). As shown in the sample table below, all values reported in this table are shown in millions. When using values from Yahoo! Finance for calculations, be sure that magnitudes of all of the values you are using are consistent.

Task 2.2: Media Perspectives

For Task 2.2, select one article from the Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com) about your company or its industry published within the last 12 months whose subject discusses a topic that could affect the competitive outlook for your company’s products or services, and therefore, would also be important to investors.

Based on the claims in the company’s the press release, write a 150 word original (i.e., in your own words) analysis (range: 125 – 175 words) describing how an investor could use the information in the article to make a buy/sell decision regarding your company’s stock. Be sure to include a citation to your press release including the date referenced, as is required for all online sources.