Stock Market Game Paper

Although the board game is an exaggerated version of how monopolists operate in our present-day economy, there are various lessons that can be taken away from this experience. First, a lesson I learned was that owning properties on the red and orange sections of the board were the most beneficial because the probability of landing on those areas is very high. Because of this, those select properties will have a great chance of earning a profit. Second, the board game taught me that buying both utilities (Electric Company and Waterworks) and/or owning all, or much of, railroads, is very helpful towards earning the most

Today I will be trying to convince you to invest in the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. What makes this stock great you may ask is that it has more than 5,000 stores and clubs nationwide. The stock cost $71.67 per share and the stock has gone up $1.59. Walmart first opened common stock to the public in 1970 and began trading on NYSE on August 25,1972. Walmart has emphasized the importance of keeping its merchandise in stock for shoppers. The company’s stock have risen about 15% this year. Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer. The employees are more evident as Wal-Mart becomes a more pleasant place to shop. Walmart has said it will invest billions in lowering

The lower the risk that is associated with an investment, that investment usually has a potential for lower returns. Conversely, if there are high levels of risk associated with an investment, and in turn a potential for a higher return.

Starbucks shares have gone up and down during the past 3 weeks. “The results, announced after markets closed, sent Starbucks shares down 3.5% in after-hours trading.”(Weise,E) I bought 100 stocks from Starbucks; it first started off at 55.37 and increased to 56.31. I expected for Starbucks performance to be the best, but its stocks are unreliable. Their percentage week change fluctuates. When I initially started doing research on Starbucks the week percentage was at -1.02% and has reach to 2.41%, but later went down to .66%. Their stocks have been unsteady and their weakness is that the prices of their coffee is expensive. “By contrast, a year of drinking at Starbucks, based on two $2 cups a day, will run more than $1,400--not including any snacks

There are many different ways to save money and there are different things to save for. A savings plan for an immediate want is apparently different than a savings strategy for retirement. One may choose to select stocks, bonds, or mutual funds for a savings strategy, however, my personal choice is to invest in bonds first, then mutual funds.

The purpose of participating in the stock market game is to explore the fundamentals of the stock market. It does this by providing a tangible, real-time simulation of the stock market, and how current events affect the DOW. The stock market game also teaches students to make smart decisions and most importantly to be patient.

Over the past ten weeks a group of students and I participated in the Wisconsin Stock Market Simulation. We started with one hundred thousand dollars to invest over the course of ten weeks. It was our job to determine the stocks we purchased, the amount that we spent, and the strategy to use to approach the stock market.

* Utilizing the constant growth dividend discount model (DDM), the value of Wal-Mart’s stock price is $60.20. The most recent closing price of Wal-Mart stock was $53.48. Given this information, the constant growth DDM valuation suggests that the Wal-Mart stock is currently undervalued.

Over the past 6 weeks, I have watched some of my stocks do increasingly well, while others have plummeted. Overall, I ended up making a profit of $147.01 which isn’t spectacular but isn’t terrible either compared to others in the class who lost around $2,000. If I had only invested in the 90 shares of iRobot (IRBT) for 6 weeks at $48.93 a share, I would have come out with a profit of $567.31. What killed me were the 50 shares I invested in Procter & Gamble (PG) at $87.40 a share. Given that PG was such an expensive stock and that I bought so many shares of it, losing the slightest amount of money for each share left a significant impact on the amount of money I walked away with in the end.

Adversely, among the errors I made, the first one was making a rushed decision of selling 3 shares of my Nike stock. As previously mentioned, my investment objective was growth. Therefore, I was not planning to sell any of my stocks soon. Although, any sale that results in gain is a good deal, which this was the case, now I am more conscious of when to sell a stock. If when reviewing the analysis of my research I find an error that is one reason to sell it, because I should always rely on my data. Another reason would be if the stock becomes overvalued, because it will most likely decline in the future. Also, other mistakes I made was not investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds. An exchange-traded fund is a marketable security,

The stock market game assignment was a new learning experience. The simulation gave us $100,000.00 to buy and sell domestic equities. The guidelines made the game a bit more straightforward by not allowing students to trade certain items. This assignment gave students the opportunity to see how the trading market works. Overall the stock market game assignment was a great way for any student to learn how the market works by having hands on experience with buying and trading their own stocks.

In oligopoly market, each firm has substantial market power with high degree of interdependence. The key for success in a oligopoly market is to gain more market share than the competitors. Increasing the price can lead to loss of market share to the competitors, so in the oligopoly market, if a firm decreases the price, the other firms will always follow, but if a firm increase the price, the other firms will not follow. The demand curve is kinked.

Another possible outcome for Wal-Mart is that the stock price may go up due to this program. According to the initiative, on February of 2009 Wal-Mart reactivated the repurchase of their shares. At that time, there was five billion dollars left in the initiative to repurchase stock. If the conditions are right, according to the book value the stock price should go up after the repurchase. After the repurchase of the stock, there will be less common shares outstanding and therefore the total assets minus the total liabilities divided by now a lower number of shares will result in a higher price per share.

where TV is the terminal value we calculate the present day intrinsic value of the Wal-Mart stock to be $62.15 hence the market value is consider low compared to our forecasted value. This method replicates the basic foundation of the Discount Cash flow Model (DCF), which in our opinion is the preferred method in valuation studies.

Wal-Mart is a company which operates in the service sector, more specifically in the “Discount, Variety Stores/Retail” industry. The company’s superior performance is demonstrated through the fact that it was America’s largest company (in terms of revenue) in 2002, and the reputation of the company is reflected in the opinion of “Fortune” who have identified Wal-Mart as one of the world’s most admired companies. In 2004 Wal-Mart had been hiring 1.4 million employees – making it the largest corporation in the world. Wal-Mart’s share prices have also been stable at time of stock market volatility. There are