Wall Street Survivor Investment Simulation

DFA’s investment strategy is based on their belief in the principle that stock market is efficient. They attempt to match a broad-based, value-weighted small-stock index and position themselves in the market as a passive fund manager that still claimed to add value by capturing specific dimensions of risks identified by financial science. DFA’s investment strategy incorporates elements of both passive and active management. It is passive in the sense that like many other index managers, it focuses on the importance of diversification, lower turnover and lower fees than actively managed portfolios. It is active in the sense that it develops its small-value stock focus based on academic research and uses certain techniques (such as

According to these it can be concluded that GM Corporation’s risk management policy is based on a mostly passive hedging strategy. In general, passive hedging is used by highly risk-averse companies that

Mr. Lee and the other executives expect to generate a higher profit from hedging since they have majority of their personal wealth invested into the firm. The focus of any hedging program should always be to minimize the firm’s risk of loss, but that does not mean the they will

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.

Just like everything else, the stocks had problems. Many of those problems were the people though. The people invested all of their

In the beginning of the simulation, I decided to choose my stocks wisely instead of impulse buying the stocks of companies I liked. I chose my stocks wisely by looking at how the stock has been doing over time. The stocks I chose were two shares of AbbVie for 131.82, 4 shares of Panera bread for 993.04, one share of Walgreens for 82.88 and 10 shares of Con.Ed for 784.30

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.

Toward the beginning of the stock market game, I honestly did not know what I was doing, but I managed to remain in the Top 10 ranks, which made me feel like I was doing something right or correct. However, after finding out how the stock market actually worked, I began testing out some strategies such as short-selling and covering, but to my dismay, I wasn’t very good at it. I invested in random stocks that I “thought” would be successful and didn’t think much of it, until I went for it. With all the penalties in mind, I tried my best to keep my account updated, so that it wouldn’t go back too far behind, but the more that I tried fixing my account, the worse I found myself.

Explain why investors may be attracted to high-risk investments such as exchange-traded derivatives, global funds, and other complex investment vehicles.

BP America had a different defined contribution plan. The company offered employees the opportunity to buy shares of company stock, invest in a stable income fund managed internally and seven public mutual funds. The mutual funds included three active funds on US equities, one active fund on international equities, two active balanced funds that invested on bonds and stocks, and one index fund. Plan assets were valued at $2 billion, and the plan had 12,892 participants, making it smaller to Amoco’s. In contrast to Amoco’s plan, only 16% of the assets were invested in company stock, and 51% of the assets were invested in the stable income fund. The rest of the assets were invested mostly in one of the equity funds. Each participant on average had assets of $156,800 in the plan, and made annual contributions of about

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.

Established in January 1999, Pine Street Capital (PSC) was a market-neutral hedge fund that specialized in the technology field, facing market risk and trying to decide whether and which way to use in order to hedge equity market risk. They choose technology sector because the partners of PSC felt that they have enough ability to evaluate this sector and specially be good at picking out-performing stock. Short-selling of NASDAQ and options hedging strategy are the two major hedging choices for PSC. Either strategy has its own advantages in different economic periods and conditions. The fund has just through one of the most volatile periods in NASDAQ 's history, and it was trying to decide whether it should continue its risk management

Nevertheless, the company Aspen needs to hedge its account. Indeed, they are in the case of economic distress: they care about their image (they need to show their robustness to their customers), they want to show the stability of the company (smoothing the account figures rather than the cash flow), and even if they need cash, they want to avoid any impact to the clients.

Further, our strategy involved paying attention to current events and attempting to use them to generate a return. For example, Horizon Pharmaceuticals’ stock price took a nosedive after an October 19th New York Times article suggested that Horizon was attempting to thwart Express Scripts’ attempts to lower the price of prescription drugs. The decision was made to buy 100 shares of stock in Horizon when its price spiraled down to a measly $14.62 per share, as we expected Horizon would do something to stop the bleeding, and historically has been a pretty volatile stock. Horizon came back with a scorching rebuttal in an open letter later that day, spiking its stock price more than 30% on October 23rd, and by October 28th, this move landed us our greatest return of any stock that we purchased and held until the end of the period: 18% (see appendix).

2. If the NASDAQ index falls, an increase in the value of the puts may approximate the loss in the portfolio’s value. The protective put limits the portfolio’s downside