In this assignment, you will make an initial purchase of publicly traded stocks in order to build your portfolio. You will have a spending budget of $10,000 to be purchased in units of 100 shares (include commission cost).  Take into consideration that transaction costs are a flat 6% of the gross purchase. Before you purchase and record your purchased stock, you will need to complete the following steps: 

1.  Create your personal investment objectives and financial goals, using the portfolio spending amounts and allocation of the various types of investment alternatives in the Final Project (key areas to consider may be risk and safety of principal, current income versus capital appreciation, liquidity considerations, and managing and evaluating the portfolio over a short-term or long-term).
2. Discuss the types of stocks or categories of stocks that you will take ownership of and why?
3. Develop a company profile sheet or fact sheet for each stock company you have selected.
4. Analyze your selected stock companies’ fundamentals, which should include a summary of the companies’ qualitative and quantitative data. Also include supporting data justifying why you selected the companies. Additionally,  
5. Create a tracking spreadsheet or table for your purchases.
6. Develop a holding return calculations table for your purchases.
7. Summarize the companies’ peer-group analysis, year-end comparison, annual financial highlights, news events of the companies, and ratio analysis.

The Building your Stock Portfolio paper,

• Must be 3 double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted

For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).

• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
• Must use at least two credible sources in addition to the course text, including a minimum of two from the Ashford University Library.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate reference page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.