In order to help you develop the final Trading report, I require that you set up a Trading Project Journal. Every day when you when you read the WSJ and find something interesting, relevant about the days news, I want you to make an entry in the journal. Just copy & paste the URL of the news article (it would be from any source other the WSJ as well). Also write a few lines of summary why this article/news is important..
You are given an initial account balance of $250,000 to invest. You can make a maximum of 200 trades during the simulation period. As we cover various valuation and security selection techniques during the semester, you will be required to base at least one trade on that technique. Your portfolio should include each type of security/ETF that we discuss in the course. You should document your trades/motivation in a journal throughout the semester and be prepared to discuss your various trades in class.
This activity represents 15% of your final course will be based on the following factors:
- Trading style – active vs. passive, long-term vs short term
- rationale, consistency and frequency of trades made
- detailed discussion or your trades and what you learnt from the trading – the journal entries you have made (5%)
- Well written, professional trading report this should be derived from the Journal entries that you made
- Excel sheet downloaded from wsj.com site containing all your trading transaction (5%)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Save the final report as LastName_FirstName.doc
- Upload the Excel file containing the transactions as LastName_FirstName.xls
- Upload/attach the file in the Assignments folder under the WSJ Trading Project.
- WSJ Portfolio final report is due on June 15 by 11:59 p.m. EST
- Your final course paper will be a 5-7 page (double-spaced) paper where you will discuss the investment decision process, the investment performance during the semester, and the impact on the risk/performance of your portfolio. The report should also include a statement about what you learned from the experience and what you would have done differently had you taken this course before taking part in the exercise
- You must have a table containing the list of trades made (at least 20 if you have a lot of trades), date bought & sold, amount used, profit. The table has to be in Excel, end of the table you will tabulate your total profit loss by each week and end of entire period.
- You can use as many graphs or charts to explain the trades you made or the technical indicators used in making the trades. The charts and graphs do not count towards to 5-7 page written report.
- Give a list of the references at the end of the report. The references can be news articles, data sources used, even video links or programs that you watched. Any information that is relevant in you trading decision can be listed in the references.
- LATE ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE PENALIZED
WSJ Trading Project Journal
In order to help you develop the final Trading report, I require that you set up a Trading Project Journal. Every day when you when you read the WSJ and find something interesting, relevant about the day’s news, I want you to make an entry in the journal. Just copy & paste the URL of the news article (it would be from any source other the WSJ as well). Also write a few lines of summary why this article/news is important. If you think that the news is important and will help you to make a trade decision, document that as well in the journal. The grade for the journal would be the consistency of use. The more often you update the journal the better it will be. If you read the WSJ or any other financial information online or otherwise, document what you do. Make entries as & when you read them so towards the end of the semester you will have a wealth of references from which you can easily write a comprehensive trading report. The rationale for this journal it to inculcate discipline, make it a daily habit of following market moving news and consistency in documenting what you read. To quote Confucius, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” You will learn a lot by doing this journal. So please do it an daily basis. It is not required that you have to document everything but you need to document whatever is relevant. A good rule of thumb would be to have at least 3 entries /week, that is one good article at least every two days.
