About this assignment

The purpose of this assigmnent is to provide the opportunitiy for you to better understand the factors driving two most often-used financial instruments: stocks and bonds.

Objectives

After completing this assignment, you should have a clearer sense of how to do the following:

Compare and contrast various measures of stock market index performance
Differentiate the calculations amongst holding period return, capital gain return, and income return
Describe various studies regarding historical equity performance
Determine advantages and disadvantages of various dollar cost investment schemes
Describe the priority of claim to assets for equity holders and connect to risk and return perceptions
Calculate and evaluate various financial ratios to gather a sense of the financial condition of the firm
Calculate the value of a stock using various discount model approaches
Calculate the value of a stock using various ratios given requisite value drivers
Determine various implications of asset pricing studies on the fundamental approach to stock valuation techniques
Describe various features and characteristics of all bonds
Identify sources of risk and return to the bond investor
Differentiate risk-free from risky bonds
Describe how to acquire and retire bonds in the marketplace
Determine the factors that impact bond prices
Calculate the value of a bond given inputs
Calculate various yield and return measures for bonds
Illustrate the inverse relationship between bond prices, interest rates, and explain how interest rate changes impacts bond price sensitivity
Describe various active and passive bond portfolio management strategies
Differentiate characteristics amongst sovereign and local debt
Differentiate between risk and return calculations between various government and non-government bonds taking into account differential tax treatment impacts on return expectations

Directions

This assignment will be completed through the Canvas questions found at the bottom of this module component. All you have to do is select an answer and then submit it.

Assessment

You will receive 1 point for each question. Note that these are multiple-choice, so watch carefully what you select.

Academic integrity

This is an open-everything assignment. Feel free to use whatever resources you have at your disposal. Although you are allowed to work with others, I recommend you do your best to complete the assignment on your own. The Skill Check is constructed in a very similar format to the Homework assignments, except that you are not allowed to communicate with others. Hence, try your best to complete on your own, and if you run into problems, shoot me a question via Canvas message.