Rajiv
About ME
Hi, I’m Rajiv, and I’m a 9th grader at DHS. I love computers, news, quiz bowl, history, geography, video games, stocks, and talking to friends. I also love traveling; I’ve been to twelve countries. Also, apparently, I am one of the only people who likes to eat plain pasta. I chose this project because it combines two of my interests: computers, and stocks. It will also help me learn more about the process of financial analysis of companies.
Project
My project is an Investor’s Guide to computer hardware companies. It will be written as a report and be condensed into a presentation for Achievers' night. It will give an overview of the company’s history, financials, and at the end a recommendation on whether to buy that company’s stock. It will include charts, graphs, and infographics to keep the reader interested.
Mentor
Michael cantwell
Michael Cantwell has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry and technology. Michael began his career in the early 1990's building distributed systems for large enterprises around the world and later founded a consulting firm to serve clients across the financial sector. During his tenure at Morgan Stanley in New York City, Michael led the transformation of the firm's national retail infrastructure as chief architect and earned his Series 7 license. In 2008 Michael joined Cisco Systems to lead their Financial Services Solutions Architecture practice and worked with Cisco's largest banking and insurance customers. Today, Michael is a consultant and investor focused on technology and startup opportunities.
Michael lives in Darien, CT with his wife Tatiana and daughters Madeleine and Victoria.
Reflection
Overall, I felt that my project was a fun experience, and I learned a lot from it. Mainly, I learned how to research and write about semiconductor companies and manage my time so that I could finish my project. My project at the start was too ambitious to fully achieve, but in my opinion, that is better than having a project that is too easy to complete and hard to expand upon. Nevertheless, I feel like was a certain degree of procrastination, and I probably could have gotten more done in the first semester. Having peers working on their projects helped me focus on my own project and let me see where others are in terms of progress. My teachers made sure that everyone would finish their project on time, something that I found helpful. Overall, I had a fun experience and would recommend the Achiever’s program to anyone who wants to do a deep dive on any topic.
Project Report presentation #4
Well, I'm currently at 2/6 companies, which means I definitely need to pick up the pace.
Mini Goal 5 Plan
Finish drafting the report and decide how to present my information at Achievers' Night so it will inform and inspire the audience.
Project Report presentation #3
I only managed to cover 1/6 companies, but I reworked the format and feel that I am better prepared for the sections of the report about other companies.
Mini Goal 4 Plan
Ambitious, but I want to rough draft most of the report for each of the companies by the end of February.
Project Report presentation #2
I have successfully outlined my report, but I have not really been able to fill any of the information into the presentation, because I realized I needed to do more in-depth research before starting, learning about Growth vs. Value stocks and a number of statistics and ratings that would help me accurately judge the performance of companies. Originally, I do not think I really gave enough time for research, but now I have all of the tools I need to start writing.
Mini-Goal 3 Plan
I am going to try to write 50% of a rough draft of the report (3-4 companies) before the end of the mini-goal period.
Project Report Presentation #1
My first mini-goal was to gather preliminary research and choose which stocks I should review. It did not make sense to start writing the report without gathering any information before, so I decided to give myself time to understand the basics of how these companies work. This mini-goal was completed without too many hiccups. I put my notes into a document with linked sources.
Mini-Goal 2 Plan
My second mini-goal is to figure out what is important to include in the report and create an outline of the report, asking for help from people who are experienced in financial reports. When I have completed that, I will fill in some of the simple parts of the report (i.e company overviews, statistics, etc.)