Assessment Instructions

You are an investment manager, and your client would like to invest her/his money in a company that has listed shares on major stock exchanges. You are required to write a report on the company that the client is interested in investing in. You may assume that the client has an understanding of the risk involved in investing in shares.

You will be allocated a publicly listed company. You are expected to produce an investment report and recommendation on the shares of this company. This should include the following sections.

Company profile: a single paragraph giving an overview of the company summarising its performance over the last twelve months, its products and the markets in which it operates. The remainder of the first page would summarise data on price performance and valuations. It would end with your recommendation on whether to buy, sell or hold the shares in the company.
Performance and news analysis: Compare the company’s returns with that of the market as well as calculating the company’s risk adjusted return Identify news (which include earnings announcements, release of relevant economic data, analysts’ recommendations) which are relevant to the firm’s price performance as well as supporting your analysis in the report.
Valuation: Perform a multistage growth dividend discount model (DDM) using the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) to calculate the cost of equity. Use Price multiples such as PE (Price to earnings), PB (Price to Book) and PS (Price to Sales) and DY (Dividend Yield) metrics to complement the DDM valuation. The valuation results are to be presented using the security market line (SML). Finally, a discussion on the DDM versus price multiples to inform the client is required.

Conclusion: This will demonstrate your understanding of the subject and ability to include the results in a coherent summary

Assessment aims:

To think critically and examine the investment in question from a number of perspectives, and concepts, and present good arguments.
To write a professional report and communicate with clarity and coherence.
To apply theoretical concepts studied throughout the module .
To evaluate the reaction of the company’s share price to financial news and to the index.
To apply DDM and price multiples valuation methods.
To develop skills using available financial software, including but not limited to Fame and Bloomberg, to synthesise and evaluate investment information.(The use of Bloomberg system is not compulsory and all the information is available from a range of financial databases)
To be able to evaluate companies’ performance and to propose recommendations.

Marking Criteria

A	(70-100%)	First Class Pass; Excellent work at L3 level that exceeds the requirement of the module learning outcomes in all important dimensions
B	(60-69%)	Upper Second-Class Pass; Very good work at L3 level – satisfied all important requirements of assessment task and module learning outcomes
C	(50-59%)	Upper Second-Class Pass: Good work at L3 level – student demonstrates achievement against all learning outcomes but with some limitations
D	(40-49%)	Third Class Pass; Does meet marginally the required overall standard – may have some good qualities but some learning outcomes are not met
E	(0-40%)	Fail; Contains significant flaws, few of the learning outcomes for the module have been demonstrated

The following marking scheme is used:

Tear Sheet	10%
Risk Adjusted Return	10%
News analysis both firm-specific and systematic	10%
Multi-stage DDM valuation	20%
Valuation by Multiples	10%
SML analysis	10%
Valuation discussion	10%
Conclusion and recommendation	20%
Total	100%

Formatting

Please use the MS Word format (no PDF or other format). We cannot ensure that other formats are compatible with markers’ software.

All work should be word processed in 12-point font Arial, Times New Roman or Calibri

The first page of your coursework must include:

Your student number
The module name and number
Your word count
The coursework title

Furthermore, the report must consist of a summary tear sheet (not more than 1 page), the main report (not more than 6 pages) to support your analysis based on the analytical elements described above in the task section.

Word Limit

The maximum word limit for this coursework is 2,000.

There is no +/- 10% on word count and anything after the maximum word count will not be marked.
this word count includes everything in the main body of the text (including headings, tables, citations, quotes, lists, etc.).
The references, bibliography and footnotes (provided footnotes only include references) are NOT included in this word count.

Referencing and Assessment Offences

Please ensure you reference all sources used when developing your assessment, using the UWE Harvard system. Failure to properly reference your work to original source material can be grounds for the assessment offence of plagiarism and may result in failure of the assessment or more serious implications.

Text-matching software (e.g. SafeAssign) is used to check every submission against other submissions made at the same time, previous submissions to UWE and other universities, and internet sources. We may also manually search for matches. When submitting your work, you will be required to confirm that the work is your own.

It is an assessment offence to:

Copy work from any source, including your own previous assessments, and present it as your own work for this assessment, or to provide your own work to others
Work with others on the assessment in any way, or for anyone to make amends on your work (including proof-readers, who may highlight issues but not edit the work)
Change individual words but keep, essentially, the same sentences and/or structures from other sources: this will be detected by text-matching software. Please write in your own words and style to convey your own learning.

Before submitting your work, please ensure that:

You have proof-read you work thoroughly to ensure your work is presented appropriately
You have addressed all the required elements of the assessment
You have referenced in accordance with the guidance provided
You have addressed each of the marking criterion
The submission is in the correct format