Congratulations to this semesters winners on the Market Watch project.  Pending final audits, the winners are:

1. (7 extra credit points) ISU investors
2. (5 extra credit points) KEL242

And the cellar dweller for an extra 4 points is JDH Investments who had an eye-popping -55% returns (egads!) 

Congrats to the winners!

This Friday, April 17, the Financial Management Association is going up to Chicago for a networking lunch and panel discussion.  They are taking a van so the ride is free.  If you are interested in more information, contact Ken Kanentsev (kakamen@ilstu.edu) and Dr. Trefzger at jwtrefz@ilstu.edu.

Under assignments, find homework #5 practicing YTC, realized yield, and duration.  It is due on Wednesday, April 22.

#4 - assume that there are 15 years to maturity.

I've posted assignment 4 which practices bond valuation.  It is due on Wednesday, April 15.

Let's make the second Market Watch report (and letter) due on Monday, April 20th, instead of April 17th. 

I still encourage you to get started very early, but this will give you a bit more time to make sure that everyone in the group has had time to review the letter and corrected spelling and other potential errors.

The Market Watch Project ends this Wednesday, April 8th when the market closes at 3pm.  The second reports will reflect data as of the close on this day. 

Don't forget that there are a couple extra things that you need to have completed by this Wednesday (some groups may have already completed these tasks based before the first report date):

1. Make sure that 90% of your money is invested.
2. You need to have at least two "reverse trades".  If you've only bought stock, this means you sell two stocks.  If you have only short positions, you must cover two of them.  Basically, you need to do two realized gain transactions.
3. Be sure to be reasonably diversified, which means some close to at least 10 stocks with no major concentration in any one particular company.

The second client report is due next Friday, April 17th and must be accompanied by a client letter.  See the project assignment for specific issues to address in the letter.

Here are the financial statements from which we calculated ratios.

Recent details of changes in retail sales shows how resilient defensive companies are.  Look at the industries that increased vs. those that decreased - classic defensive vs. cyclical industries.