Finance

Purpose This assignment is intended to help you learn how to apply statistical methods when analyzing operational data, evaluating the performance of current marketing strategies, and recommending actionable business decisions. This is an opportunity to build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills within the context of data analysis and interpretation. You’ll gain a first-hand understanding of how data analytics supports decision-making and adds value to an organization. Scenario: Pastas R Us, Inc. is a fast-casual restaurant chain specializing in noodle-based dishes,  soups, and salads. Since its inception, the business development team has favored opening new restaurants in areas (within a 3-mile radius) that satisfy the following demographic conditions·  Median age between 25 – 45 years old·  Household median income above national average·  At least 15% college-educated adult population Last year, the marketing department rolled out a Loyalty Card strategy to increase sales. Under this program, customers present their Loyalty Card when paying for their orders and receive some free food after making 10 purchases. The company has collected data from its 74 restaurants to track important variables such as average sales per customer, year-on-year sales growth, sales per sq. ft., Loyalty Card usage as a percentage of sales, and others. A key metric of financial performance in the restaurant industry is annual sales per sq. ft. For example, if a 1200 sq. ft. restaurant recorded $2 million in sales last year, then it sold $1,667 per sq. ft. Executive management wants to know whether the current expansion criteria can be improved. They want to evaluate the effectiveness of the Loyalty Card marketing strategy and identify feasible, actionable opportunities for improvement. As a member of the analytics department, you’ve been assigned the responsibility of conducting a thorough statistical analysis of the company’s available database to answer executive management’s questions. Report: Write a 750-word statistical report that includes the following sections:·  Section 1: Scope and descriptive statistics·  Section 2: Analysis·  Section 3: Recommendations and Implementation Section 1 – Scope and descriptive statistics·  State the report’s objective·  Discuss the nature of the current database. What variables were analyzed?·  Summarize your descriptive statistics findings from Excel. Use a table and insert appropriate graphs. Section 2 – Analysis ·  Using Excel, create scatter plots and display the regression equations for the following pairs of variables:·  “BachDeg%” versus “Sales/SqFt”·  “MedIncome” versus “Sales/SqFt”·  “MedAge” versus “Sales/SqFt”·  “LoyaltyCard(%)” versus “sales growth(%)”·  In your report, include the scatter plots. For each scatter plot, designate the type of relationship observed (increasing/positive, decreasing/negative, or no relationship) and determine what you can conclude from these relationships. Section 3: Recommendations and implementation·  Based on your findings above, assess which expansion criteria seem to be more effective. Could any expansion criterion be changed or eliminated? If so, which ones and why?·  Based on your findings above, does it appear as if the Loyalty Card is positively correlated with sales growth? Would you recommend changing this marketing strategy?·  Based on your previous findings, recommend marketing positioning that targets a specific demographic. (Hint: Are younger people patronizing the restaurants more than older people?)·  Indicate what information should be collected to track and evaluate the effectiveness of your recommendations. How can this data be collected? (Hint: Would you use survey/samples or census?)Cite references to support your assignment.

Reflect on the assigned readings for Week 2 and then type a two-page paper regarding what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), the term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding.  Define and describe what you thought was worthy of your understanding in half a page, and then explain why you felt it was important, how you will use it, and/or how important it is in project planning. 1. Identify a major public infrastructure project that is either underway, complete, or proposed in your region. This could be a bridge, road, building, or something of that nature. For the project you have identified, think of as many stakeholders and stakeholder groups as you can. Create a three-column table. In column 1, list the stakeholders. In column 2, list what each stakeholder wants to get from the project. In column 3, list the influence each stakeholder has over the project.2. How can the stakeholders change over the course of a project? Give examples of changes in who the stakeholders are, and also in how their interests or influence over the project might change throughout the term of the project.

ExxonMobil ( XOM) is one of the half- dozen major oil companies in the world. The firm has four primary operating divisions ( upstream, downstream, chemical, and global services) as well as a number of operating companies that it has acquired over the years. A recent major acquisition was XTO Energy, which was acquired in 2009 for $ 41 billion. The XTO acquisition gave ExxonMobil a significant presence in the development of domestic unconventional natural gas resources, including the development of shale gas formations, which was booming at the time. Assume that you have just been hired to be an analyst working for ExxonMobil’s chief financial officer. Your first assignment was to look into the proper cost of capital for use in making corporate investments across the company’s many business units. a. Would you recommend that ExxonMobil use a single company-wide cost of capital for analyzing capital expenditures in all its business units? Why or why not? b. If you were to evaluate divisional costs of capital, how would you go about estimating these costs of capital for ExxonMobil? Discuss how you would approach the problem in terms of how you would evaluate the weights to use for various sources of capital as well as how you would estimate the costs of individual sources of capital for each division. Instructions:  In 600-750 words in length (not including title page and reference page), respond to the case below. Your paper must include at least two scholarly journal references (in addition to your book). Refer to the Writing Assignment Grading Criteria below for requirements in content, organization, writing style, grammar, and APA 7th edition format. Your paper should have, at the very least, a title page, introduction and conclusion paragraphs, level headings, references, and citations.

 Financial Research Report Introduction Imagine that you are a financial manager researching investments for your client. Think of a friend or a family member as a client. Define their characteristics and goals such as an employee or employer, relatively young (less than 40 years) or close to retirement, having some savings/property, a risk taker or risk averter, etc. Next, use Nexis Uni at the Strayer University library, located at Nexis Uni, click on “Company Dossier” to research the stock of any U.S. publicly traded company that you may consider as an investment opportunity for your client. Your investment should align with your client’s investment goals. (Note: Please ensure that you are able to find enough information about this company in order to complete this assignment. You will create an appendix, in which you will insert related information.) Instructions Your final financial research report will be 6–8 pages long and be completed in two parts. This assignment only covers the first part. This assignment requires you to use at least five quality academic resources and cover the following topics: Rationale for choosing the company in which to invest. Ratio analysis. Stock price analysis. Recommendations. Refer to the following resources to assist with completing your assignment: Stock Selection Forbes: Six Rules to Follow When Picking Stocks. CNN Money: Stocks: Investing in Stocks. The Motley Fool: 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly. Seeking Alpha: The Graham And Dodd Method For Valuing Stocks. Investopedia: Guide to Stock-Picking Strategies. Seeking Alpha: Get Your Smart Beta Here! Dividend Growth Stocks As ‘Strategic Beta’ Investments. Market and Company Information U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: Market Structure. Yahoo! Finance. Seeking Alpha (Note: This is also available through the Android or iTunes App store.) Morningstar (Note: You can create a no-cost Basic Access account.) Research Hub, located in the left menu of your course in Blackboard. Part 1 (1–2 pages) Provide a rationale for the stock that you selected, indicating the significant economic, financial, and other factors that led you to consider this stock. Suggest the primary reasons why the selected stock is a suitable investment for your client? Include a description of your client’s profile. List five resources you’ll use to complete this assignment and begin to build your reference list. Remember you must use at least five quality academic resources for the final assignment. This course requires the use of Strayer Writing Standards. For assistance and information, please refer to the Strayer Writing Standards link in the left-hand menu of your course. Check with your professor for any additional instructions. The specific course learning outcome associated with this assignment is as follows: Determine the suitability of an investment strategy that considers external risk factors and a literature review.

Using the Personal Monthly Budget template found in Microsoft Excel, create a personal record of your money coming in and money going out by completing entries under the Projected column of the spreadsheet.  You will NOT be submitting this spreadsheet as this is your personal information.  For this assignment, write a summary of what you learn from this exercise. Does your income exceed your expenses? If so, how much are you saving each month, and is it enough? How do you know it is enough? If not, what are your goals for addressing the deficit (i.e. job change, cut back on expenses, etc) How is your short-term savings—if you had an emergency, would you have enough in savings to handle the situation? Why is a savings account important? How much do you need to have in savings? What are some tips to accumulating savings? What else did you learn from this budgeting exercise that could help you and/or your family finances going forward Write a 1-2 page paper that addresses these questions after completing your budget worksheet? Use the template provided. Follow APA format, including a title page, introduction, conclusion, citations, and a minimum of one scholarly reference (not Wikipedia or Investopedia). See the attached PPT file. Turnitin report of no more than 20% similarity index is required. Submit all answers as one file by midnight ET, Day 7 (Sunday). Use the naming convention JSmith_Week 2 Assignment Supporting Material

Read the case: Nest Wealth Asset Management, Inc Submit in 2 to 5-pages of analyses and answer the question: How is Nest Wealth positioned against these market forces? What are its strengths? What are its vulnerabilities? https://www.wealthmanagement.com/estate-planning/more-taxes-rich https://www.wealthmanagement.com/news/advisors-prep-clients-potential-tax-increases https://www.wealthmanagement.com/news/advisors-prep-clients-potential-tax-increases

Discuss financing options for your business.  Which do you think is a good fit for your business and why?

Using the Personal Monthly Budget template found in Microsoft Excel, create a personal record of your money coming in and money going out by completing entries under the Projected column of the spreadsheet.  You will NOT be submitting this spreadsheet as this is your personal information.  For this assignment, write a summary of what you learn from this exercise. Does your income exceed your expenses? If so, how much are you saving each month, and is it enough? How do you know it is enough? If not, what are your goals for addressing the deficit (i.e. job change, cut back on expenses, etc) How is your short-term savings—if you had an emergency, would you have enough in savings to handle the situation? Why is a savings account important? How much do you need to have in savings? What are some tips for accumulating savings? What else did you learn from this budgeting exercise that could help you and/or your family finances going forward Write a 1-2 page paper that addresses these questions after completing your budget worksheet? Use the template provided. Follow APA format, including a title page, introduction, conclusion, citations, and a minimum of one scholarly reference (not Wikipedia or Investopedia). See the attached PPT file. Turnitin report of no more than 20% similarity index is required. Submit all answers as one file by midnight ET, Day 7 (Sunday). Use the naming convention JSmith_Week 2 Assignment Supporting Material

Masters Project about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market, details are flexible. However, a quantitative project where data collection and analysis is must. Marking criteria as follows: Problem formulation (10%) Literature review (20%) Research approach (20%) Analysis and inferences (25%) Conclusions, recommendations and reflections (20%) Presentation (5%). 

Produce a report from Betram, the financial vice president to the Ostrem’s outlining the process for determination of which projects should be accept.     In analyzing the projects, you should be doing the following: Compute the estimated Beta for VKF using the company and market returns and then compute cost of equity using CAPM. Note the appropriate return for market and risk free is the geometric mean not arithmetic mean. Compute the weighted average cost of capital for the firm given the current capital structure and after computing the relevant costs for after-tax long-term debt and equity.. Simply, without consideration for the life of the projects, calculate NPV, IRR, PI and MIRR for each project using the current cost of capital, note that the Ankeny proposal is riskier. Assume the reinvestment rate for MIRR is the weighted average cost of capital for the firm. Based on your computations in requirement number two, which projects should be accepted? Note: Projects 1245-A, 1245-B and 1245-C are mutually exclusive. Since Projects 1245-A, 1245-B and 1245-C are mutually exclusive and have unequal lives it is appropriate to use other techniques to evaluate the projects. Use the equivalent annuity approach and the replacement chain approach as better techniques for evaluating these three projects. Does this change your decision? Why? .