What's going on?

As of 12:00 today, the Walmart stock is up .55%. However over the course of the last month, it has gradually been decreasing and since I do not want to lose any more money I will sell my group's shares in the company. Also there is a lawsuit making headlines against the store for sexual discrimination (Forbes.com) so I have a feeling their stock will soon drop as a result of it. According to the article, "Women are only 33% of the company's managers but comprise 65% of hourly employees." We should keep up with our investments to ensure that we are not losing money, and if the stocks are dropping, you will be able to sell them that much quicker.

~Sydney Carlin

What's going on? MCD

Right now McDonald's is said to decrease for this day, this is because Happy meal toys are now banned by a law to be distributed with happy meals in McDonald's in Santa Clara, this probably led to a smaller demand in food bought from McDonald's, because it probably lost many of their young customers that used to go to McDonald's mostly for the toys. However I would still keep McDonald's because, even thought it has a decrease for this day, when looking at how well it is doing today compared to the past years, it looks like McDonald's is the most then it has ever been for the past five years. Therefore I would keep McDonald's because there is a possibility of it increasing even more, especially if the plan of opening a branch in China pulls through.

-Alexandra Yepifanova

What's going on? KO

The current stock quote for Coca Cola(KO) 53.93, having gone up .21 points so far today. I hold my KO shares, simply because in the last 2 months the value has been in around the same place (it keeps fluctuating between 55 and 53 points). A news article, "The Power of Coke's Durable Competitive Advantage", states that "Coke’s distribution ability, superior management, and excellent product innovation truly make the company a “business castle” with a wide “economic moat”. Coke has consistently shown that it can adapt well. Also, Coca Cola stock may experience a very sharp increase very soon. In the summer, The Coca Cola company plans to release a new product: a fruit drink. This was the primary reason that I bought the KO stock in the first place. The price of Coca cola stock will likely go up in the summer, thus, since i have already have shares within it, I plan to reap the benefits.

--Essowe Tchalim

Mutual Fund Blog

Our group will invest in the Rydex S&P mutual fund because the recent quotes have shown that the fund is earning money. Also many of the holdings in their portfolio are companies we have looked at and are performing well. For instance RYTNX has shares in Apple which has been

Spring Break

I will not invest in the American Dairy Inc. (ADY) stock. In the last month, the price of this stock has decreased by around almost points ( it went from 21.75 to 19.95). When i looked back further into the ADY stock, I saw that this industry's stock has been on the decline for the last 6 months. It also seems that i am not the only one who has notice this. According to the article "SmarTrend Detects Continued Selling Pressure in Shares of American Dairy (ADY)" it seems that "SmarTrend identified a Downtrend for American Dairy". In the last six months ADY has not been doing too well, and as a result buying its stock would not be the most prudent or beneficial decision.
-Essowe Tchalim

Group

After reading several articles about Walmart, our group has decided to invest in the company due to its performance in the stock market. According to the stock quotes, even though the economy is grinding to a halt, Walmart's price has been increasing gradually over the last few years. One article that supports our reasoning to invest in Walmart involves the health care plan. Three companies including Walmart are likely to benefit from the law that recently went into affect. Since it is a a provider of in-store clinics, Walmart will be expanding many of their services to other stores around the nation. Walmart's policies and wages have also put it in a good place. Another article "In a praise of Walmart" states that there is a "big rush to get jobs in Walmart", a primary reason being that it pays employees an average of $10 per hour, which is much higher than the nation's average minimum wage rates.

Based on the article "Best Buy, Wal-Mart win most of Circuit City's share: NPD" by By Andria Cheng, MarketWatch after circuit city shut down wal-mart and best buy have been taking up circuit city's shares. an now more wal-marts are being build on places were circuit city one's stood. also according to the article "analysts said Best Buy is also facing growing competition from Wal-Mart, which continues to increase its expansion in electronics and has told MarketWatch it plans to sell 3-D TVs before the holiday season this year." so and eventhought bestbuy is currently investing in more shares of technology the wal-mart, wal-mark continues to catch up to best buy, for example "Best Buy increased its share of the flat panel television market by 5.2 percentage points, followed by Wal-Mart's 3.2 points. Best Buy also gained 5.5 percentage points in its share of the notebook computers while Wal-Mart reaped 2.3 points."

-Alexandra Yepifanova

Spring Break

I will not invest in Starbucks since it is not selling for a high price and has been dropping recently. In the past few days it has been going up and down, fluctuating constantly and I don't think that would be an ideal stock to invest in given the state of our economy. While you do see a Starbucks on practically every block in the city, more and more people probably have to find cheaper ways to get coffee since Starbucks is known to be a bit pricier than McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts. Over the last few years, Starbucks has seen more and more competition from places like McDonald's, and now with Americans being strapped for cash, many will choose to get their coffee for $1 instead of $4. The article from kamcity.com supports my reasoning for not investing in the corporation. It says that Starbucks will be shutting 19 more outlets this year due to poor performance. It has already shut 43 outlets last year and I'm sure there will be more to come in the next couple of years as well.

-Sydney Carlin

Spring Break -MSFT

I am buying 100 shares of Microsoft (MSFT) because I believe that the company's stocks will continue to increase in the future. The income growth of the company has increased to 59.6% annually and the price of the stock seems to stay at a steady rate. The range between the daily high and the daily low is relatively small, which means that the shares do not have drastic changes in their value and the company is not in danger of losing profit. To try and become more successful, Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo in hopes of being on a more leveled competitive field with Google, who has been currently winning the online services against Microsoft. Based on this information that I received in the article, found on moneycentral.msn.com by Charley Blaine and Elizabeth Strott, "Microsoft Offers to buy Yahoo", I believe that the company will be able to be more successful in winning their online battle with Google. This union between the two companies will help to make them a more formidable competitor to Google and would make the odds more even.

~Courtney Chu~

Spring break -MCD

I will invest in McDonald's stock for a couple of reasons. One reason is because McDonald's is currently a pretty successful fast-food business, even with competition with other fast food places like burger king, McDonald's still pretty popular. Even thought the major problem that would ever cause McDonald's to earn less of a profit and become less popular, is because of it’s blame for much of America’s obesity and other health risks. Still because it’s cheap and is easy to find anywhere, McDonald's is far from loosing customers because of it’s health risks. The major reason why I would want to invest in McDonald's stock is because, according to money.msn.com article by Alyce Lomax, “it has announced plans to nearly double the number of Golden Arches locations in that highly coveted market” in china. China currently has over 1.3 billion people living in it, also one of five people in this world are currently living in China. If this plan pulls through, McDonald's will be highly successful, eventually bringing the stock price higher, and is a good chance to make a profit.

-Alexandra Yepifanova