Stock Trak Investment Report

[Portfolio Investment Analysis]

Portfolio management is an important factor that determines the performance of the portfolio. To perform well in the portfolio, it is not only essential to develop personal investment strategies, but analyzing current financial trend is also vital. Stock Trak is an online portfolio simulation that allows students to try out different investment strategies, and also get a hand on experience in what the real market trading conditions are. By managing the portfolio, I have acquired some new knowledge of investment strategies and also become more familiar with the current market by following closely to the financial headlines.

My portfolio composed of only a few specific stocks of some large information technology companies. The main compositions are Apple Inc., Google Inc., and International Business Machines Corp (IBM). By investing different stocks in the same industry, it comes to my attention that even though they are in the similar category, the life cycles of these stocks are still very different. It is interesting to compare and analyze the different progress of those companies, and also to see how different factors affecting the performance of a specific stock and the portfolio as a whole.

[Portfolio Performance Analysis]

My overall return is 7.92%, which is about average and is a little over performed comparing to the S&P 500 average of 7.71% during the same period of time. Analyzing the historical data and financial report, paying close attention to the related current news and industrial trend, and using P/E ratio and EPS to examine the performance of the companies and portfolios are several things that I learned by utilizing the simulation to maximize the profit.

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) was the first investment on my portfolio. It was purchased on September 6th, 2011 and sold on October 27th, 2011 with quantity of 10 shares. The purchase price was $164.45 and the closing price was $185.69, which gave me a total return of $192.40 after deducting commissions.

The weekly performance of IBM stock presented a contestant growth. One highlight of the falling of stock price in the 6th week in the investment period was when IBM presented the 3rd quarter financial report. The investors weren’t satisfied with the profit report which they expected to be better especially when other IT companies were doing well in the 3rd quarter. One mistake I made was that I didn’t follow closely to the financial report of the company; therefore, I missed the peak of the stock price. From this experience, I learned that financial reports and current news are important indicators of the stock price. By following closely to the current event and analyzing the financial report, investors can maximize the profit and also become more familiar to the market.