Select a publicly traded business or stock that plays in only one industry in which you have interest. Download the raw data on the company’s stock history.
Follow these steps to locate and download stock history from Yahoo! Finance:
Go to Yahoo Finance.
Search for and find the stock information of your chosen company. Remember do not use a company that plays in multiple industries.
Once you pull up the general data on the company, review the screen links throughout until you find the link for Historical Data. Click on the Historical Data link. Then select the following settings above the table:
Select Time Period of one year.
Select “Historical Prices.”
Select Frequency as “Daily.”
Click Apply.
Click Download Data. Go to the bottom of your screen or your Downloads folder to open the Excel file you just downloaded. Open the Excel file. Check to be sure that you have enough lines to show the whole year. If not, reset the settings at the top of the Historical Data chart and try again.
Once you are sure that you have a year’s worth of data, save the Excel file.
Using the Excel file with the year’s stock data, conduct descriptive analysis as follows:
Create a scatter plot of the highest stock price (in the column labeled “High”) against time. Write several sentences explaining the process/steps by which you created this graph.
Create a scatter plot of the lowest stock price (in the column labeled “Low”) against time. Write several sentences explaining the process/steps by which you created this graph.
Create a histogram of the adjusted daily closing stock price (in the column labeled “Adj Close”). Make sure the histogram is meaningful by adjusting the bin size so you can see the shape of the histogram. Write several sentences explaining the process/steps by which you created this graph.
Create a histogram of the stock trading volume (in the column labeled “Volume”). Make sure the histogram is meaningful by adjusting the bin size so you can see the shape of the histogram. Write several sentences explaining the process/steps by which you created each graph.
Complete the following for each of the four graphs:
Make sure the x and y axis have appropriate labels—“Stock Price in USD” or “Date D/M/Y” for example.
Change the title of the graph to communicated what the graph is communicating.
Add options—color, trendlines, legend, other?
Calculate the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the adjusted daily closing stock price.
Put answers of calculations in table format for easy review.
Write several sentences explaining the process by which you calculated these statistics.
Calculate the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of the stock volume. Put in table format for easy review. Write a sentence explaining the process by which you calculated these statistics.
Prepare a 5-8 page report that you would present to your supervisor, including the following:
An APA-formatted title page.
A 1-2 page introduction describing the background of your chosen company and its practical extensive business context. You should use at least four sources of information on the company, industries the company participates in, history, mission, platforms, products, competitive advantage, and competitors by industry.
A section labeled Graphical Representations of Data, in which you include the four graphs you created above and short descriptions of the process you used to create each graph.
A section labeled Descriptive Statistics, in which you include the statistics you calculated above and explanation of the procedures you followed to calculate the statistics.
A summary of what the data suggests. No opinion please. See textbook information on how to interpret data. Please remain unbiased in your summary. You may use additional resources (and cite) to help you interpret the data. For example: What does Standard Deviation say about stock volatility?
Your paper should be APA-formatted with in-text citations and a corresponding references page. Remember to cite the sources of your financial data. Include at least four sources of information for your page and reflect on reference page.
