Stock Market Project: Companies in the New York Stock Exchange

Choose 6 companies who offer STOCK on the New York Stock Exchange. You can go to www(dot)nyse(dot)com to see if your company is listed. On the top right of the screen you click on SYMBOL LOOKUP – then type the company’s name and if they are offering stock you will see a symbol (for their company) that you should write down. For example, if I type in the company name “Disney” – I will find that their symbol is DIS. Next, you want to find out how much each share of the company’s stock is selling for. On the same www(dot)nyse(dot)com home page – on the top right you click on “Get Quote” and hit the arrow to its right. Type in your symbol (like DIS) on the next screen and write down the number under the title “Last Trade. AS YOU CHOOSE THE 6 COMPANIES FOR YOUR PROJECT … Growth Industries: Two of the companies should come from industries (two separate industries) that you feel sell products/services that are growing in popularity. Stable Industries: Two of the companies should come from industries (two separate industries) that you feel are not growing rapidly; however, the products/services are always needed. RISK vs. REWARD: The Stable Industry has less risk of losing a lot of money because these industries do not normally have big changes in the number of people buying and selling their stock. However, this also means it has less potential for high growth and high growth can result in high profits. Personal Favorites: Two of the companies should be businesses you personally like or are interested in (example: Disney). For the Growth and Stable industry companies, explain why you believe they are in the growth mode or stable mode. Supplement your personal opinions with research, citing at least one source (magazine, internet article, etc.) for each industry/company. Decide how many shares of each stock you would buy to add up to a total investment of $95,000-$100,000. For example, if Disney stock is $40/share and you buy 1,000 shares: $40 x 1,000 = $40,000.

INTERIM REPORT - DUE MARCH 9, 2014
Look up the stock price for each of your 6 companies on the same two days of every week (for 4 weeks)...
•    Create a graph for each company showing the Closing Price on each of those days. You can use any chart style. If you do not have access to software to make a chart - you can put the data into a table.
•    Take notes on what might have caused any significant change in price...this can come from key word searches on the internet. For example, if you are tracking a cellular phone company - you might read about any announcements they made that week on a new product. This type of announcement may make more people purchase their stock because they feel their value will increase.
•    On some weeks you may not find anything specific about each company. However, keep researching and at a minimum note something of interest written about the industry.

FINAL REPORT - Due May 4, 2014
Look up the stock price for each of your 6 companies on the same two days of every week (for 4 additional weeks - you should have 8 total weeks tracked at the end of the project)...
•    Complete your graph for each company showing the Closing Price for all 8 weeks. You can use any chart style or table.
•    For the additional 4 weeks you should continue to take notes on what might have caused any significant change in price...or at a minimum, a news story about the industry in general.