Guidelines for Current Event Paper:
Overall: You will demonstrate your investment analysis strengths in the current event paper by selecting a news article from the financial or business literature concerning a publicly traded company that is of interest to you. The article should concern any of the following topics: recent financial results and/or sales & profit outlook; new business development such as launching a new product or service; booking new orders; entering a new market; merger, acquisition or restructuring; public offering of debt or equity securities; and other such events that you deem significant from a stock price perspective.
Your task in this paper is to summarize the content of the article, analyze its investment implications for the value of the stock, and based on your investment appraisal, make a buy, sell, or hold recommendation on the stock of the publicly traded company you choose. This is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your competence your proficiency in applying the concepts covered in this course. PLEASE refrain from simply replicating the template [including how the sections are labeled and so forth] shown in the sample paper. It is provided as an example of high quality of content, organization and clarity in which you are expected to come up with your own topic and professional presentation style.
1) The executive summary should begin with the buy, hold or sell recommendation in relation to the content of the news article you are writing about. The rest of the paper should explain the reason for your recommendation. A table of contents may also be included if the report has multiple sections and subheadings.
2) Calculations and support documentation should be included in the appendix, but relevant statistical support (i.e., bottom line figures such as rates of return, valuation, and so forth) should also be included in the body of the text.
3) Your goal should be to determine what the content of the news article means for the investment merits of the stock. Does the event covered in the article have a positive, negative or neutral effect on the stock price? Explain why. How does this affect your investment recommendation? For example, a company may announce increased order rates for its core business, thereby increasing its backlog of unfilled orders. One may infer that such a development improves the sales & profit outlook, and thus make the stock a likely candidate for further price appreciation. Conversely, a delayed shipment or lower demand would have the opposite effect.