Many investment banks employ analysts to write equity research reports on public companies to advise their clients on their stock investments. In many cases, an initial equity research report is 20 to 50 pages long! For this class, you will focus on only three of the many important sections typically included in an equity research report. Thankfully, your Mini Equity Research Report will be much shorter than those published by investment banks!
In Week 1, you chose a publicly traded company to use throughout this class for the Mini Equity Research Report. In the first section of the Mini Equity Research Report, you evaluate the historical financial performance of the company (Week 1). In the second section of the Mini Equity Research Report, you evaluate the companys performance using common financial ratios, and you compare the company to the competitors performance with the same financial ratios (Week 2). Finally, in Sections 3 and 4 of the report, you develop a value for the companys stock and compare your value to the current market price of the stock (Weeks 3 and 4). Based on the analysis you present in these four sections, you will develop your recommendation to buy, hold, or sell the stock of this company.
It is very rare for one company to have only positive facts. Most companies have some good facts and some weak facts. In Sections 1 and 2 of the Mini Equity Research Report, you will analyze a variety of financial data for your selected company. As the equity analyst, it is your responsibility to combine the positive and negative facts into one recommendation (buy, hold, or sell). It is important to consider the importance of each fact and acknowledge that there is no perfect answer. Your recommendation should be based on the strength of the positive facts while recognizing the risks from the negative facts.
This week, you will write the introduction (including your stock recommendation) and the conclusion of the Mini Equity Research Report. In addition, you will revise the four sections from the first four weeks of class and combine them into this Mini Equity Research Report. Finally, you will submit your final Appendices A, B, C, and D with the Mini Equity Research Report.
Prepare:
Prior to beginning work on this final project,
