FINM7403 Written Project Marking Rubric Semester 2, 2023
Part A Insufficient Below Expectation Competent Effective
Ideas
[1 mark]
DEFAULT
[2 marks]
□ You’ve made a conclusion about
the state of the Australian
economy.
□ You proposed a potential
qualitative shock that might affect
the economy in the future and
this shock actually has some non-
negligible chance of occurring.
□ You’ve included any references
for the core ideas that would
require research.
[3 marks]
□ Your conclusion about the state of the
economy is easy for the reader to understand.
□ You’ve made a conclusion about market
expectations of the future of the economy
and this conclusion is also easy for the reader
to understand.
□ Most reasonable readers would consider your
proposed shock to be realistic (it does not
need to have a high chance of occurring, but
the chance of occurrence must be high
enough that a reasonable reader would care
to consider it)
□ References are provided for most of your
ideas that require research.
[4 marks]
□ Your conclusion about the state
of the economy is accurate to
reality.
□ Your conclusion about market
expectations is accurate to
reality.
□ Any reasonable reader would
consider your proposed shock to
be realistic.
□ Your proposed economic shock is
well-supported by research.
□ High quality references are
provided for all of your ideas that
require research.
Argument
[1 mark]
DEFAULT
[2 marks]
□ You’ve included any kind of
narrative that describes what it
would look like for the shock to
occur and how that would impact
the economy.
□ You’ve attempted to explain why
you chose the particular
industries that you chose.
[3 marks]
□ The narrative of your shock is detailed.
□ The narrative of your shock actually makes
sense given the shock that you chose.
□ You’ve discussed at least one or two
consequences of the shock that matter for
industry selection.
□ Your explanation of which industries you
chose is easy for the reader to understand.
[4 marks]
□ The narrative of your shock is
very well developed and includes
lots of detail that is easy to
understand.
□ The narrative describes all of the
major consequences of the shock
that would be relevant to
industry selection.
□ The explanation you gave for
which industries you’ve chosen
covers all of the relevant points
accurately.
FINM7403 Written Project Marking Rubric Semester 2, 2023
Analysis
[1 mark]
DEFAULT
[2 marks]
□ You’ve demonstrated the basic
process of looking at a time-series
of economic indicators and drawing
conclusions from that data.
□ You’ve calculated the historical
returns, variances and covariances
of each of the industry indexes in
your portfolio and adjusted the
returns and variances in a way that
is at least basically connected to the
narrative you gave for the economic
shock.
□ You attempt to undertake a
numerical optimisation to select
portfolio weights and complete at
least some of the steps successfully.
[3 marks]
□ You’ve analysed historical qualitative
shocks as well as numerical indicators.
□ The way that you analyse economic
indicators and shocks follows a logical
procedure that a reasonable reader
would expect to give an accurate
assessment of the economy if it were
done well.
□ The adjustments you make to historical
index returns and variances are mostly
adjustments that a reasonable reader
would think to make after reading your
economic shock story.
□ You have at most a few errors in your
weights optimisation procedure, and
otherwise complete it accurately.
[4 marks]
□ Your analysis of indicators and
qualitative shocks covers most or
all of the major relevant features
of the current economy.
□ Your analysis is completed
accurately.
□ The adjustments you make to
historical index returns and
variances never deviate from
what would be reasonable given
your economic story.
□ You have completed your
weights optimisation without any
errors.
Structure
& Clarity
[0 marks]
DEFAULT
[1 mark]
□ You’ve written your report in
paragraph format.
□ Most of your paragraphs contain
related ideas.
□ The sequence of paragraphs mostly
tells the story of your analysis in
order.
[2 marks]
□ You’ve included an introduction and
conclusion paragraph for Part A of the
report.
□ Almost all of your paragraphs contain
related ideas and are easy for the
reader to understand.
□ The reader can mostly understand why
you included each part of your analysis
because of how you’ve explained it.
[3 marks]
□ All of your paragraphs contain
related ideas.
□ None of your writing leaves the
reader confused about what you
meant.
□ The reader understands
throughout reading your report
why each section is included and
has a basic idea about what they
should expect from the rest of
the report at all times.
□ Your introduction and conclusion
for Part A set up and summarise
the rest of Part A very well.

FINM7403 Written Project Marking Rubric Semester 2, 2023


Part B Insufficient Below Expectation Competent Effective
Argument
[1 mark]
DEFAULT
[2 marks]
□ Most of the time that you’ve had to make a
decision about how you’re going to
complete any part of your valuation
methods, you’ve attempted to explain why
you did it that way.
□ Most of the time you’ve had to make an
assumption for your analysis to be valid, or
you’ve had to estimate a figure in your
analysis, you’ve attempted to explain why
you made that assumption or estimated the
figure in that way.
□ You’ve included a decision about which
stocks to increase in weight and which to
decrease in weight and attempted to
explain why you made that decision.
[3 marks]
□ Most of the time that you
attempt to justify your decisions
your justification is sensible.
□ Most of the time that you
attempt to explain your
assumptions or estimations,
you’ve done so in a detailed and
understandable way.
□ Your explanation for the weight
adjustments is one that most
reasonable readers would agree
follows from your analysis.
[4 marks]
□ All decisions are justified, and each
justification is sensible.
□ All assumptions and estimates are
explained, and each explanation is
detailed and understandable.
□ Your explanation for the weight
adjustments is one that any
reasonable reader would agree
accurately follows from the
conclusions of your analysis.

FINM7403 Written Project Marking Rubric Semester 2, 2023


Analysis
[0 marks]
DEFAULT
[1 mark]
□ You’ve included a financial
statement analysis as one of
your valuation methods.
□ You’ve included a DCF
analysis as one of your
valuation methods and have
completed the analysis to
obtain a price target.
□ You’ve included a method of
multiples analysis as one of
your valuation methods and
the conclusions you got from
this method mattered in
some way for your overall
analysis.
[2 marks]
□ Your financial statement analysis
looks at several important ratios
in a way that is easy for the reader
to understand.
□ You’ve completed your DCF
analysis with at most a few
mistakes in the process or
calculations.
□ The conclusion of your multiples
analysis makes a difference to
your overall analysis in a way that
is explained so that it’s easy for
the reader to understand it.
□ You’ve made a comment about
any time a valuation multiple
provides a meaningfully different
valuation than another multiple or
another valuation method.
[3 marks]
□ Your financial statement analysis looks at
many key ratios that would matter for the
valuation of each firm.
□ Your financial statement analysis comments
on trends in ratios over time and/or across
firms.
□ You’ve made a comment about any time a
ratio trend implied a conclusion about the
valuation of each firm that is meaningfully
different from the conclusions of other ratios
or other valuation methods.
□ You’ve completed your DCF without errors.
□ You’ve chosen sensible multiples to use in
valuing each firm and fully explained the
relevant conclusions of those multiples.
□ You’ve provided a detailed explanation for
each time that a valuation multiple provides a
valuation that is meaningfully different than
another multiple or another valuation
method.
Structure
& Clarity
[0 marks]
DEFAULT
[1 mark]
□ You’ve written your report in
paragraph format.
□ Most of your paragraphs
contain related ideas.
□ The sequence of paragraphs
mostly tells the story of each
part of your analysis in order.
[2 marks]
□ You’ve included an introduction
and conclusion paragraph for Part
B of the report.
□ Almost all of your paragraphs
contain related ideas and are easy
for the reader to understand.
□ The reader can mostly understand
why you included each part of
your analysis because of how
you’ve explained it.
[3 marks]
□ All of your paragraphs contain related ideas.
□ None of your writing leaves the reader
confused about what you meant.
□ The reader understands throughout reading
your report why each section is included and
has a basic idea about what they should
expect from the rest of the report at all times.
□ Your introduction and conclusion for Part B
set up and summarise the rest of Part B very
well.