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Who fuc[Darkblue][/Darkblue]king cares? Half the kids will be asleep, and the other half will not understand any of the point made because said teacher is horrible. He has yet to clearly explain anything this year. I really think you're looking too deeply into this. But since you have such curiosity I will type the layout.

In your group of three people, you will draw a company to do research on. You will ultimately trying to answer the folloing question: To what extent is this corporation ethical? You will use the ethics evalution handout to evaluate the company. In addition to the main question, you should aslso find out the loaction of the company (base and branches,) the products they produce or service they sell, and if it is internation or not. Ask yourself: What makes this comany different?

[....................]

1. A 5 minute presentation. The rest of the calss will act as investor and/or consumer. You can either take the position that they should buy into you company because it is ethical, or should be way of it becase it is unethical. In the latter cause you may take a sarcastic[...].

2. Fact sheet...

3. Poster representing the most important aspects of your company.

Eithical Corporations Evaluation. (I'm going to give the categories, not specific questions within said categories.)

Candor, Women's issues, Charitable Giving and Commnuity involvement, Progressive staff policies, Labour relations, Envirnomental Management, Environmental Performance, Management practices and Consumer relations and Canadian content.

Exactly. Literally our teach handed us the assignment at the end of the class and said "Have at'er kids." F[Aliceblue][/Aliceblue]ucking prick.


Edited, Thu Apr 27 00:35:38 2006 by LtGoose

Well Allakhazam's has been pretty good to me, but not good enough to give a percentage of my savings to someone to invest for me, so I have spent quite a bit of time over the past few years teaching myself about investing. To play the stock market, you need to ask yourself what you are looking for. Are you looking to make a decent annual percentage and compound your money over time? Are you hoping to make a safe percentage you can almost be guaranteed to get each year? Do you want to hit it big and get rich? Also, you need to decide your risk tolerance. Are you willing to risk losing everything for the chance to make a lot? Are you going to go nuts when you check and find that you are down 10%?

If you don't want to ever see your investments drop, buy individual bonds or t-bills. Those are the most safe investments. For the basic investor who just wants to make a decent percentage off the stock market and doesn't want to take big risks, think Vanguard index funds. The S&P 500 index fund has beaten 75% of all other funds over time and has a very low fee basis, so that your earnings go to you and not some bad investment person. If you want to just put money somewhere and forget about it, then go to Vanguard and check out their funds and pick a balance between small, mid and large cap funds, or just pick one of their lifestyle finds like the Star fund and keep it there. You will not do as well as some riskier funds, but you will get a safe investment that will make a steady income for a low fee.

If you want to be risky, then you need to spend time doing research. I've actually been pretty good at picking out stocks that are undervalued. Part of the secret is just having a feel for it. But basically I look for companies that have good and steady management and a solid product that have just been unappreciated for some reason by Wall Street. Many times you can find stocks that have been dragged down by bad quarters or weak sectors that should otherwise be strong and pick them up and ride them.

One thing to keep in mind when trading stocks is that if you sell a stock within a year of when you buy it, it is normal income and taxed at your standard rate, which can be as much as 32%. However, if you hold onto a stock for a year, selling it is a capital gain and only taxed at 15%. That doesn't mean don't sell a falling stock to save taxes, but it does mean you should keep a stock though a year if you can.

If you really want to learn about investing, watch "Mad Money" on MSNBC, and buy Jim Cramer's book. The guy's amazing, and a lot of what I was doing kind of instinctively he was recommending in his book in a far better way than I can ever explain it.