Stock Market Portfolio Essay Dissertation Help

Real Estate Investment & Finance: Coursework 2016-17
You will be completing your coursework individually, a report reflecting your compilation and management of a ‘live’ share portfolio which will run for a period of 12 weeks from Friday 20th January – Friday 14th April.
Through this assignment you will gain a ‘real time’ understanding of the investment market and how portfolio performs, resulting in an overall profit or loss.
You will be able to demonstrate a working understanding of basic investment theories and principles. Learning outcomes include:
• Understanding of the interaction of the stock and the real estate markets.
• Broader knowledge of investment markets.
• Understanding the information provided within the “financial pages” of the national press.
• Developing an understanding of the factors that affect the performance of investment markets.
• Appreciating the relevance of diversification strategies.
• Developing time-management and report writing skills.
• Capacity to reflect and analyse the appropriateness of your own investment strategy in relation to risk and return.
You have been allocated £1,000,000 (one million pounds) by the trustees of MegaBucks Investments to invest in the UK stock market over a twelve week period.
The trustees, headed up by Nicola Livingstone, have provided asset allocation guidelines to which you must adhere. They are:
• The approved assets that you may invest in are Equities listed on the LSE (London stock exchange) main market, but are limited to the sectors outlined below.
• You must invest in the real estate sector and at least 7 other sectors listed in the Financial Times.
• General asset allocation guidelines:
o Assets contributed to the portfolio are to be managed to attain the highest absolute return without undue risk. Emphasis will be on short term growth of capital. You have the discretion as to asset allocation within the following parameters:
Maximum: 40% of investment value in any one sector (i.e. £400,000)
20% of market value in any one equity (i.e. £200,000)
Minimum: investment holding in any one equity: £25,000

• The trading period is from Friday 20th January to Friday 14th April.
• Construct the portfolio by Friday 20th January.
• You should record your investment decision in a format similar to that in appendix 1 (although you are welcome to develop your own spreadsheets on excel).
• The FT portfolio will enable you to monitor the performance of your shares on a regular basis – you should record the performance of your portfolio on a weekly basis, to provide evidence of shifts in value throughout the trading period – trends can be reflected upon in your final report.
• Diversification: The portfolio assets should be diversified in order to minimise the effect of any loss in any individual investments. You will be allowed to choose reasonable degrees of concentration, or lack thereof, in any one industry or security consistent with guidelines set above.
• On Friday of each week (until Friday 14th April) record the performance of your portfolio.
• The ‘sell date’ for your portfolio is Friday 14th April – when you will record your final portfolio value and assess profit / loss outcomes.

Report:
Your performance report is to be submitted on Monday 24th April by 3pm, through Turnitin on Moodle and also as hard copy to the student office.
The report should be no longer than 1500 words and you are welcome to include any addition graphs/figures/information in your appendices where relevant. The key parts to your report should include:
• Your strategy in terms of risk and return? How did you diversify?
• Best / worst performing assets – profit and loss?
• Were any of your mid-trading changes successful or particularly successful or unsuccessful and what influenced your changes?
• Overall reflection on your choice of investments – success or failure?
To address the points above I would expect to see the report include:
• An outline of your stock selection strategy and the changes made half way through the trading period.
• Pertinent information relating to the investments you chose and the motivations driving those choices. Convince me that you were fully informed in terms of your investment decisions.
• Some historical performance analysis of the stock market itself. How has the FTSE been moving recently?
• Discussion of the inclusion of property – have you chosen a REIT or a property company, or a variety of these?
• Discussion of the approach you took to diversification and strategy – high risk/low risk, value/growth companies etc?
• Commentary on the overall performance of the portfolio noting key events/news that may have affected the performance of the shares (keep an eye online and in newspapers for relevant stories – the best way to do this is to build these up on a weekly basis).
• A table reporting the value of the portfolio over the trading period (i.e. the total value of the portfolio at the end of each week) and the % loss/gain over the trading period. This may also been effectively represented graphically.
• A table reporting the value of each individual stock/share, i.e. the value of each at the start, the end of each week and the end of the trading period. This should look at each investment specifically, so it would bring out the best and worst performers.
• An overall table ranking the performance of the investments from best to worse.
• A calculation comparing the total return of your portfolio against the total return achieved on the money market (i.e. on the assumption that you could’ve invested £1,000,000 for 2 months in an ISA at the prevailing rate- does your portfolio perform better or worse overall?) Would you have been better off investing in government bonds?
• How has property in particular performed?
Remember – this is a report, which is reflecting the progress of your portfolio over the trading period. Please make sure you write in an appropriate report style – be informative and concise, use bullet points and images / graphs to represent material when you feel it is appropriate. Most importantly, remember this is not an essay – you do not have to include any heavy theoretical content, but your risk strategy needs to be clearly justified.
Feel free to be inventive and creative with how you choose to present your report – do you want to report as a company or an individual for example?