In this assignment you work with the company that was assigned to you in Homework 1

Subject:ManagementPrice: Bought3

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In this assignment you work with the company that was assigned to you in Homework 1.

Select five public companies that are the closest competitors (H&M, GAP, ZARA, ABERCROMBIE & FITCH, ZARA, THE BUCKLE) of the firm you analyzed in Homework 1, and for each of the six companies (initial firm + 5 competitors) download the last five years of monthly stock prices and dividends ending on March 31, 2021 (March 31, 2016 - March 31, 2021). Do the same thing for the S&P 500 index (symbol SPY on https://finance.yahoo.com/ ). These should be the end-of-month prices. Using these data, do the calculations required below and answer the following questions:

Calculations: Using end-of-month stock prices for the last 5 years (ending on March 31, 2021), compute:

c) the expected annual return, annual standard deviation, and Sharpe ratio of the portfolio created with the six selected stocks (initial firm: AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS + 5 competitors).

Questions:

(a) Based on the Sharpe ratio,

i. how did the original company perform relative to the five competitors?

ii. which stocks were the best and worst performers, on average, over the last five years? Use the 3-month Treasury bill rate as the risk-free rate. The 3-month Treasury bill rate can be obtained from the link below.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data.htm

(b) Which of the six stocks have outperformed and which have underperformed the market (S&P 500) over this five-year period based on the raw return and risk-adjusted return (Sharpe ratio)?

A list of the original firm’s competitors can be found either in the firm’s 10-K report or in the Mergent Online database that you can find in the Pace online library.

The assignment will be graded on three criteria: 1) the accuracy of your calculations and explanations; 2) use of analytics, numbers, graphs, etc.; and 3) the organization and clarity of your written report.

Note on how to present your work:

1. Use Excel to do the calculations, but summarize your results and answer all questions in a Word document. Each numerical answer reported in your Word document should have a reference to where in the Excel spreadsheet I can find your calculations. Use only one Excel spreadsheet, but different tabs for your calculations.

2. Make your “deliverables” professional looking – as if you could show them to an investment banker in order to land an internship/job. Graphs are recommended to support your narrative.

3. Cite your sources in the Word document.

4. Submit your report (Word document and Excel file) by April 22, 11:59 pm EST through Assignments in Classes. Your group number should be the first part of the name of each submitted document (e.g. Group 1_report.docx; Group 1_calculations.xlsx; etc.).