Final Managing Quality

8/6/2019 Final Managing Quality

1/6

H i g h e r C o l l e g e s O f T e c h n o l o g y

D u b a i M e n s C o l l e g e

Investment Analysis [BMFS N450] Page 1 of 6

BUSINESS DEPARTMENT

Course Title: Managing Financial Principles and Techniques

Subject/Course Code: EBMG N460

Semester: February 2011 to June 2011

Assessment Type: Group Report & Presentation

Assessment Title: Company Research Assignment

Assessment Weight: 20%

SubmissionDeadline:

Time: During Class

Date: 31st May 2011

Week Number: 17

SubmissionInstructions:

In order to be fair to students who have submitted theirassignments on time, and to encourage effective time-management skills, late submission of this assignmentwithout prior approval will normally receive the followingpenalties at the professional discretion of the relevantteacher:

1) Up to 3 working days late:

The work will receive the lowest possible passing grade.

2) More than 3 working days late:

The assignment will receive a fail grade.

Format:

Font: Arial; Font Size: 12 pt.

Spacing: 1.5 lines

Margins: 2.5cm top/bottom, 2.5cm left/right.

Cover Page: Include your Student Name, Student ID andsignature. Also use the Student Declaration submissioncover page.

Report Binding: Report must be bound and professionallypresented.

Referencing: The MLA style of academic referencing must be usedthroughout your assignment.


2/6




Plagiarism:

Plagiarism means copying the ideas and/or language of

any source without acknowledging that source, without

proper quotation (even single words or short phrases) taken

directly from that source, and without citation of all

paraphrased as well as quoted ideas from that source.

Plagiarism occurs when anyone attempts to present the

published or unpublished work (ideas and/or language) of

any person as his or her own without referencing. This

means no COPY and PASTE! Plagiarism is cheating, which

will result in dismissal from the HCT.

LearningOutcomes:

Learning Outcome 2: Examine the techniques for theevaluation of potential investment expenditure decisions.

Learning Outcome 4: Interpret financial statements forplanning and decision-making.

Assignment Outline:

This group assignment will introduce students to various concepts related to theshare [or stock] market, with particular emphasis on the Dubai Financial Market.

A general outline of the requirements of this assignment follows:

The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else andproduces the best results. [Edward de Bono]


3/6


4/6




Guidance Notes

Q1. What does the company do?

Locate the principal activities of this company and for further details visit thecompanys website (youll often find some companies have an about us sectionwhich may be useful). If possible provide pictures of goods and/or services thiscompany produces.

Q2. When did the company first become a listed company?

Check the official listing date under the company details table. The official listingdate is the date this business first became a public company.

Q3. (A)Describe the general trend in the companys share price over the lastsix months.

Locate the price history chart on the DFM website and read the key at the top of thechart. The red line shows the companys share price over the last twelve months.Print out this chart and circle the major high and low points in the chart. Now thatyouve pinpointed the major peaks (highs) and troughs (lows) in share price andwhen they occurred, write a couple of sentences describing the trend.

Q3. (B)Describe the general trend in the DFM General Index in the last twelvemonths.

The DFM General Index is a market index. It measures the share price movement ofthe largest companies on the DFM. It is similar to the many different indices usedthroughout the world. When you feel unwell sometimes a thermometer is used to

check your temperature. Theses indices are like thermometers and are used to checkthe overall health or performance of the respective share market. Give examples ofother indices throughout the world. How do these compare?

Q3. (C)Describe the performance of this companys share price compared tothe DFM General Index over the last twelve months.

The blue line on the chart shows the DFM General Index over the last twelve months.When you describe the overall trend or movement look for extreme highs and lows inthe chart. Your description should include facts stating what the index was at aparticular time when it had reached its lowest or highest point.

Try to use adjectives to describe the highs and lows rather than just saying it wentup or it went down. Listen to a finance report on the news. Do you notice how theyuse different words for up and down? Here are some adjectives to help you out.

A note about descriptive words:

Words to describe upward trend:

Peaked, climbed, surged to, shot to

Words to describe downward trend:

Reached its lowest point, declined, dropped to, weakened

Words to describe no or little changeRemained constant, remained steady, held firm


5/6




Q4. Check the companys last announcement to the market and describe whyyou think it might have been important for the company to make thatannouncement.

Locate company disclosure. The DFM, as the market regulator, requires companiesto disclose (make known) any information that may affect share prices or influenceinvestment decisions. For example, a company will make an announcement when itreleases its annual report. An annual report will contain information on the companysprofit or loss that may cause investors to buy or sell those shares. Other examples ofwhen announcements may occur is when a company is a takeover target, newtechnological breakthroughs occur or if there is a change in the top people who runthe company.

In addition, companies are obliged to make reports which investors might regard asadministrative. For example, issues of shares as a result of dividend reinvestmentplans, new office addresses, etc. It is useful for students to differentiate betweenannouncements that might have market impact and those that wont affect the shareprice.

Q5. Is your company due to pay a dividend in the future and if so how much?

Dividends are received when the company you own shares in decides to distributepart of its profits to shareholders. Dividends are usually expressed as cents pershare. If you have 100 shares and the dividend is 15 cents you will receive a dividendcheque for $15.

Q6. What GICS industry group does your company belong to?

Find out some information about the GICS Industry Group. GICS stands for Global

Industry Classification Standard. Companies can be put into groups or categorizedaccording to their main business activity.

Q7. Now that you know the industry group your company belongs to, write abrief paragraph about how this sector of the market has performed over theyear.

To answer this question, go to the DFM home page: http://www2.dfm.ae

Now that you know the GICS Industry Group your company belongs to, locate theindex group in the table and you can see at a glance whether the index hasincreased (green upward arrow) or decreased (red downward arrow) since the close

of trading on the previous day. The movement column will give you the precisechange in the index since the close of trading on the previous day.

When discussing how a company has performed, you can use either relative orabsolute performance. If you are considering the change in value or performance of ashare or sector over the past year, not compared with anything else, this is calledabsolute performance.

However, if you were to compare how a share performed against something else, forexample the DFM General Index, this is called relative performance. Relativeperformance can sometimes be a difficult concept to grasp. Perhaps an analogy ofthe weather might help. If you are in winter what is a hot day? In summer what is a

hot day?


6/6




Our expectations and how we measure things often depends on the performance ofother things around us. Shopping is another good example. Suppose I buy some newjeans. I might be happy with the price I paid until I walk past a shop which has thejeans for sale at a lower price.

If I own shares that fall a little bit when other shares are tumbling down, I might think Ihave been quite lucky. On the other hand, I might be disappointed if my shares go upby a small amount when the whole market is booming.

Investment fund managers are often measured by how their funds undermanagement have changed in value compared to a bench mark index. They arecompared on the basis of relative performance rather than absolute performance.Suppose their benchmark index is, say, the DFM General Index and suppose thisindex rises by 3% over the measurement period. Suppose also that their funds undermanagement have risen in value by 4%. They will say they have outperformed themarket. Conversely for underperformance.

For example, during 2008 share prices fell quite heavily in some months. A fund thathad fallen by 5% will be considered to have done quite well compared to a fund thatfell by say 10%. It is the same in the DFM Share Trading Game [Assessment #4].The winner might have lost money if the market was falling and everyone else haslost even more!

A note about indices:

An index is a way of measuring the performance of a market over time. Think of anindex as a tool to help gauge how a particular market is performing. Indices orindexes are both words that are used when referring to more than one index. In mycountry of origin [Australia], the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) Code for theS&P/ASX 200 is XJO and for the All Ordinaries index it is XAO. Can you think of anyother examples?

And Furthermore:

To open a shop is easy; to keep it open is an art. [Chinese Proverb]

You can buy a person's hands but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where hisenthusiasm, his loyalty is. [Stephen Covey]

Documents

Final Managing Quality