FINS1612 Capital Markets and Institutions
Group Assignment
Term 2, 2021 (version 1.1)


Assignment Task:

The objective of this assignment is to put the knowledge you acquired in the first half of the
course into practice. Specifically, your task is to undertake an analysis of the major forces
that have explained the equity performance over the last 12 months of the Global Consumer
Cyclical category defined in Yahoo Finance https://finance.yahoo.com/sector/ms_consumer_cyclical
The idea is not to focus on the performance of any one these stocks, but rather how they have
generally performed as a category. You may choose a representative group of stocks to
explain how the forces you identify have shaped the performance of the category. By way of
simplicity, you may focus on US stocks as English language information is abundant.
However, you may choose stocks from other global regions.


Learning Outcomes:

At the completion of this assignment, you are expected to acquire and demonstrate:

• An understanding of how theories covered in the course can be used to explain and
understand financial market patterns and trends of the stocks in the category of global
Consumer Cyclical stocks.
• Develop the ability to collect and compile sources of market information and present
a detailed and convincing analysis of equity markets and a forecast of market
conditions.
• The ability to work cooperatively in a group.


Scenario:

You are a research team working within the sales and trading division of an investment bank.
You are tasked with providing an analysis to your clients of the major forces that have shaped
movements in the Consumer Cyclicals over the past 12 movements, and to provide a
preliminary forecast of how you expect them to perform over the next 12 months.


Assignment Weighting and Questions:

The assignment is worth 20% of your final grade. It is comprised of two questions worth a
total of 20 marks:

1. List and explain the THREE most important factors that have impacted upon on the
level of the Consumer Cyclical firms over the last 12 months ending 30 June 2021.
Provide evidence referenced from articles and analysis in your information search.
(15 marks)

2. Provide a preliminary forecast of how you expect this category of stocks to perform
over the next 12 months relative to an appropriate index such as the S&P500
(5 marks)


Assignment Guidance and Tips

• It is important to note that there are no right or wrong answers for the assignment, nor
is there a right or wrong way of going about the analysis. In the real world, analyst often
disagree and do things in different ways. Therefore, the main criteria in assessing the
assignment is the how well researched your analysis is and how well reasoned your
arguments are.
• Obviously the COVID-19 pandemic has affected almost everything that drives stock
market valuations over the past year. Therefore, if you choose COVID-19 as one factor to
analyse, you are still permitted to discuss the pandemic again in your analysis of other
factors.
• It may be useful to graph the S&P500 Index or an appropriate index over the last year,
to visualise any notable breakpoints or any major shifts, and then investigate the major news
items or economic indicators that were released at the time.
• A number of Consumer Cyclical stocks are heavily weighted in the S&P 500 Index,
and therefore any changes in share prices of firms heavily affects the index. Therefore, it is
also acceptable for you to pick these group of firms and analyse their valuation changes, as
one of the three factors.
• In thinking about your 12-month forecast of the Index (question 2), a useful place to
start is to analyse how the factors you identified in question 1 could change over the next 12-
months. You can also rely on forward looking or leading economic indicators if appropriate.


Structure of the Assignment

List each factor, followed by your analysis and research. Your discussion should be
supported by evidence. All evidence you use should be referenced and a bibliography
provided at the end of the assignment.

Your analysis should (where possible) draw on concepts you learned in class, to describe the
mechanisms through which the factors you choose influences equity markets. As an example,
below I highlight some concepts from weeks 1-5 that should be particularly relevant to the
assignment.

• The discussion of the macro-economic context of interest rate determination
• Understanding stock valuation through the NPV method. In particular, you need to
think about:
• How might cash flows be affected by the factors you identify?
• How are discount rates affected by the factors you identify?
• Financial ratios (for any industry analysis you perform), e.g. PE ratios.





Resources:

Factset provides comprehensive news and market reports though its StreetAccount service.
All students should have access to Factset from their iLab assessment. A short video
(provided by a previous lecturer) shows you how to access market analysis and news reports.
You will need to adjust what is said in this video for use in this assignment.

The UNSW Library website provides access to a variety of full-text journal and magazine
articles. Visit http://library.unsw.edu.au. Full-text newspaper articles can be found on the
Factiva database. The library also has full-time staff who can train you on how to search for
articles.

Professional investment companies (such as fund managers and investment banks), Brokers
and the ASX often produce free market analysis reports that can also be a helpful source of
information.

You are also free to use any other resources you deem appropriate such as Google Finance
and Yahoo Finance.


Team Setup:

The assignment is a group assignment and must be done in groups of your choice of either
3 or 4 students (max). A group formation tool is available for you to use on Moodle.
If you cannot find a group by the end of week 5 then you will be assigned into a group.


Contributions and Responsibilities:

Each group should have weekly meetings. In the initial meetings, the group should clearly
set out the expectations for each member’s workload. This will help to ensure that any
“free-rider” problems can be minimized.

Before submission, all group members will complete and sign a ‘cover sheet’ indicating
the level of actual contribution of each student, including the number of meetings attended
and percentage contribution in three areas: research, synthesis and writing. A mark of ZERO
will be awarded to any student who fails to sign the cover sheet. The final cover sheet
must be submitted with the report as attachments.

It is also imperative that you identify groups conflicts and bring them to the attention of the
teaching staff (your tutor and lecturer) early (i.e. as soon as they arise) and that records of all
communication, meeting attendances, submission schedules, and input documents are kept by
each group member. In the event of a serious group conflict, where there is disagreement
about individual contributions, the lecturer will adjust the marks individually based on
this additional information.

The teaching staff will NOT resolve any group conflicts reported within three days of
the assignment due date and after the due date. You should set final internal deadlines
well before the submission to ensure that there is enough time to put together the final
touches.


Word limit:

There is a 1500-word limit for your report (not including the bibliography, appendices,
charts or tables). This is not a lengthy assignment. A few paragraphs of analysis on each
factor you choose should be sufficient. You need to be concise!


Assessment Criteria:

The following criteria will be used for assessing your assignment:

• Whether your discussion is COMPELLING. That is, it is thoroughly research and
well-grounded in the theory we learned in class.
• Whether information in the report is CORRECT and CLEAR. That is, it is factually
correct, well written, and that there are no inconsistencies, grammar and spelling mistakes.
• Whether the report is CONCISE. You should be able to synthesize all the information
you collect into a concise and clear analysis (rather than waffling on).


Assignment weight, Due Date and Submission:

This assignment is worth 20% of your final grade. Starting with the grade awarded to the
assignment, students’ individual grades will be adjusted according to the information
provided on the cover sheet.

The report is due on Friday 6 August at 5:00 pm (the Due Date) – Week 10. This must be
submitted via Turnitin on the Moodle page as a single PDF document.

Starting from 5:01 pm of the Due Date, a late penalty of one mark per calendar day
applies for late submissions (up to a loss of 20 marks).



Peer Assessment:

Each student is asked to assess the peers in their team using the rubric below. We will
aggregate the peer assessments and each student will receive an average of their team
members’ peer assessments (not individual scores) for each criteria. The average scores are
meant as additional feedback and will not affect individual marks received, EXCEPT in
the case of dispute where information may be used to further adjust students’ grades (in
addition to the cover sheet information already collected).

































































































































































































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