uni assignment: what companies to invest in

jimjam1

Hi there,

i've got an assignment for uni, and was hoping someone could give me a little help starting out. I need to choose 3 international companies in different industries and invest an imaginery $10,000 in each, and track them over 3 months, then using press clippings/news reports etc, try to explain why the share price rose/fell etc. I think the best place to do this is Financial Times.

I want help choosing the 3 companies to invest in. My main concern is the second part of the assignment, which is to then take the top 3 competitors of my chosen companies and contrast their performance during the same period. I've looked around, and found that the companies I wanted to invest in (BP, Adidas, McDonalds) have way too many press releases to read and then condense into a tight word count.

So, can someone advise me on possible international companies that would be good for this assignment.

Thanks you in advance.
J

Lokolo

Are you based in the USA? or UK?

jimjam1

uk, the only criteria on the companies i choose are they must be multinationals.

EDIT: I used $ as i have an american keyboard, it GBP i will invest.

dunstonh

Pretty much pick from the FTSE100 then as the FTSE100 is heavily weighted towards global companies.

BP would be a pretty easy example of share price volatility. Yes there is a lots of info but even a novice could see what is going on.

I would say yahoo finance is a good way to get your information. For example, if you picked ARM Holdings, you can look here daily for information : http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ARM.L

jimjam1

Thanks Dunstonh, i didn't realise yahoo did that. It also has a 'competitors' link as well, so i can find out the main competitors.

I can't find adidas on the FTSE though, i'll need to do some research on what they're trading under, if at all.

(i'm new to the stock exchange, it's going to take a while to gt used to it!)

turbobob

Adidas are a German company - http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ADS.DE

Yes most of what you need you can find on Yahoo finance

jimjam1

Do you reckon quoting Yahoo finance in a uni assignment is OK? I cant see why not, it seems very in-depth...

EDIT: In fact, Yahoo is brilliant, it even gives me news articles relevant to my asignment.

THANKS!!!!

dunstonh

Do you reckon quoting Yahoo finance in a uni assignment is OK?

Yahoo finance is often a capture of other media outlet information. Some of the sites it links are a bit "novice" or opinion rather than fact. Reuters often appears as one of the media sites it links to. Think of it as a news portal rather than a news supplier.

Lokolo

Whats even more awesome, is if you view the chart, sometimes it works, but it will tell you news articles at that point in time (so if theres a massive drop there will be a new article on the value line and link you to it)

(i am struggling to find this though so maybe thinking it was just a sad dream I had)

turbobob

Lokolo wrote: »

Whats even more awesome, is if you view the chart, sometimes it works, but it will tell you news articles at that point in time (so if theres a massive drop there will be a new article on the value line and link you to it)

(i am struggling to find this though so maybe thinking it was just a sad dream I had)

It is there but you have to choose it. I'm not sure if it works on all companies, but go to "Interactive Chart" and choose the "Events" drop down. You can overlay news stories, broker upgrades/downgrades on the chart.

Example for MaccyD's - http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MCD+Interactive#chart2:symbol=mcd;range=5y;indicator=ke_sd+volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

jimjam1

you guys have been a real help, i may need to ask some more q's when i get into the assignment.

THANK YOU!