Financing accounting-Stock Pick Assignment

The Assignment:

The purpose is to understand how current events can affect future accounting results and stock prices. During the quarter watch your stocks. Look for an event that move the stock relative to the market. For one event you will present the details to the class.

(note: if your stock had a large movement on a given day and the overall market – DOW, NASDAQ, S&P 500 – has a similar movement, this is most likely not caused by a news event for your stock).

For the event

A. Find the news related to the event for the company. Describe the details of the event.

B. Describe what impact you think the news event would have on

1. the expected future accounting numbers (Revenues, Gross Profit, Expenses, net income, etc).

2. What affect do you think this will have on price?

C. What happened on the day of or the day following the news (did price go up, down or remain about the same)? If different than you expected, why? (Note: some news will not occur until after the market closed and thus the effect on price will be the following day.

Some things to consider:

Examples of events include quarterly earnings announcements (including guidance), changes in management, new stock issues, gain/loss of significant contracts, product recalls or defects, take overs, significant lawsuits, fraud, etc.
Does the news event give the company new direction or indicate management is making necessary changes? Such as A major reorganization, a new CEO.
Does the news event give the company a new chance (refinancing debt) or worsen their chance (bankruptcy)?