Investment/Data Analysis Project



Investment/Data Analysis ProjectPre-Calculus – Spring 2016ObjectiveTo learn about various types of investments and investment strategiesTo analyze and predict investment prices using data modelingAssignmentEach student will be given a hypothetical bankroll of $1 million. This money will be allocated across five different categories of investments: stocks, mutual funds, commodities, certificates of deposit and real estate.The allocation can be done in any way desired, provided that some money is spent in each category. The following information will need to be provided for each investment type (in MS Word format):Stocks – Stock name, stock ticker symbol (example: AAPL), price per share, and number of shares orderedMutual fund – Mutual fund name, mutual fund ticket symbol, price per share, number of shares orderedCommodities – Type of commodity, price per unit, unit that the commodity is measured in (example: gallons, bushels, etc.), and how many units you are buyingCDs – Lending institution (example: TD Bank), annual percentage yield (APY), minimum deposit required by that CD, term of the CD, amount you’re investing in the CDReal estate – House address, description of house, house listing price, purchase price (assume 7% off listing price), Zestimate (this will be the basis for your profit/loss). Remember that you are also permitted and encouraged to invest in condos/land, etc.Once a week we will use the laptops to track price changes and a running tally of profits/losses. Please keep a document containing links to all investment choices so that you can easily determine the values each time we track our progress. The best way to organize your data would be in MS Excel (I will provide a template if this is the way you’d like to track your data). I would recommend devoting a separate portion of a spreadsheet to each investment type. Maybe the rows in the “Stocks” worksheet could be the companies that you have purchased stock in, and the values on different dates could be entered in the columns following it. Please keep this clear and well-organized.A few months from now, we will perform an analysis on the data, and combine this information into a short paper (3 pages maximum). I realize that this could be made much longer, but rest assured that if you follow the criteria below you will receive full credit for the quiz grade. The following is a list of the key points that I would like to see in the paper:Brief background about the purpose of the project.Your primary investment strategy. For example, maybe you don’t think CDs are a worthwhile investment, but think house prices are about to move upwards. Also you bought Google stock because analysts seem to agree that the stock will do well over the short-term, etc.How did each investment turned out? For example, did the house do poorly and the mutual funds well? Perform a short data analysis for each investment type. For example, maybe you could use your data to create a linear or exponential trend line to predict prices for this investment in the future, and comment on the likelihood that this would represent reality.Why do you think the investments turned out the way that they did? Did you weight one of your investment categories too heavily? What would you do differently next time?What did you learn from the project? Be honest!At the conclusion of the project, you will submit both the Word and Excel documents to mbixler@mail..Sample ResourcesGeneral market news and market info fund and stock research Commodities CDs (Go to Bank Rates > CD Rates)Real estate Investment advice (If you watch these videos, you will know more about economics and investments than 99% of the public) ................
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