FINANCIAL RESEARCH REPORT

 
Financial Research Report
Overview
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
This final financial research report will be 6–8 pages long, including an edited version of the first part of your assignment submitted in Week 7. 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.
Mergent Online (Note: This resource is also available through the Strayer Learning Resource Center.)
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.

This assignment will be 6–8 pages including points 1 and 2 from Part 1 completed in Week 7.

Include your rationale, primary reasons for stock selection, and client’s profile from Part 1, making any revisions based upon Part 1 feedback if applicable.
Select any five financial ratios that you have learned about in the text. Analyze the past 3 years of the selected financial ratios for the company; you may obtain this information from the company’s financial statements. Determine the company’s financial health. (Note: Suggested ratios include, but are not limited to, current ratio, quick ratio, earnings per share, and price earnings ratio.)
Based on your financial review, determine the risk level of the stock from your investor’s point of view. Indicate key strategies that you may use in order to minimize these perceived risks.
Provide your recommendations of this stock as an investment opportunity. Support your rationale with resources, such as peer-reviewed articles, material from the Strayer University Library, and reviews by market analysts.
Conduct a literature review and list at least five quality academic resources. Note: Wikipedia and other similar websites do not qualify as academic resources.

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:

Create investment recommendations based on research that includes the rationale and risk mitigation for the chosen strategies.

  
Financial Research Report
In this report, the main objective is to research an investment for my client who is less than 40 years of age. In this case, according to the analysis of the client details, he is great risk tolerance and also has a high-risk capacity which some of the goals being to achieve a lifetime milestone like buying a house in the future. Considering the client characteristic, one of the companies I would consider is the Coca-Cola company due to its global status and iconic name making it a solid company with defensive stock. This report will major on the rationale for picking coca-cola as the preferred company for the investment, ration analysis, analysis of the stock price, and also gives a recommendation. 
Coca-Cola Company is an international brand that deals with beverages such as sports drinks, soft drinks, fruit juices among others. Being one of the most recognizedbrands in the world is established in more than 200 countries and this makes it a stable company that may offer many benefits if one decides to invest in it. Some of the reasons to decide to invest with the company include its adaptability, determined in getting bigger, established with the fair and just employer, doing better than its competitors, and last it is Buffett’s favorite(Kharkia, 2014).  Considering the company has been a century old, it has maintained its market leadership through its adaptability strategy which indicates that the organization is not going anywhere shortly as it has been able to form a network of loyal customers. For instance, after healthy concerns that were associated with fast foods and drinks, the company was able to come up with radical changes to ensure the consumer needs are met and the same time ensuring their health is preserved. This included strategy such as diet version for Coca Cola favorite classic which has super passed most of the competitors of the organizations. The company also has the scope of getting bigger and continues to establish its brand products ranging at round 500 to countries exceeding 200 thus making it ideal for investment. Also, coca-cola is a fair and just employer helping create a team of well-performing employees. With such a company, growth is usually experienced as employees will be innovative making the company a lead market in its field of beverages. The organization also controls a large market share than its competitors making it deal for continued revenue generation. Lastly it Buffett’s favorite one of the lead investors in the world with much knowledge of the business world trends and what is likely to bring profit in the future. Considering all these qualities associated with coca-cola, deciding to invest in the company would be the best choice.
Ratio Analysis
This can be defined as the process of quantitatively analyzing an organization to gain an insight into its liquidity, profitability, and operational efficiency by standing its financial states. In this case, my data will be based on the year 2016 to the year 2019 for the ration analysis. The data below has been retrieved from Macrotrends LLC. (2020).
  
Annual Data

2019-12-31

2018-12-31

2017-12-31

2016-12-31
 
Current Ratio

0.7567

0.8662

1.3439

1.2818
 
Debt/Equity

2.0269

2.32

2.5128

1.9685
 
Long-term Debt/   Capital

0.566

0.5711

0.6217

0.5611
 
Operating margin 

27.0649

26.6822

21.4156

20.6794
 
Gross Margin

60.7712

61.9038

62.1093

60.6683
 
EBITDA Margin

30.7277

29.8484

24.8951

24.948
 
Pre-Tax Profit Margin 

28.9433

23.9796

19.0268

19.4348
 
Net profit margin

23.936

18.758

3.4464

15.5913
 
Asset Turnover 

0.4314

0.4122

0.412

0.4797
 
Inventory Turnover   Ratio

4.3264

4.255

5.168

6.1551
 
ROE

42.587

33.9805

36.9616

33.6201
 
ROA

10.4016

7.7822

1.4597

7.5054
 
ROI

18.4823

14.5744

2.5579

12.3809
 
Per Share Book Value 

4.9294

4.4653

4.4557

5.4151
 
Per Share Operating   Cash Flow

0.6531

0.1457

-0.3849

-0.3767
 
Per Share Free Cash   Flow 

0.7061

0.2231

-0.2811

-0.3
In the different ratios indicated in the above analysis, in 2016, the company had a ratio of 1.2818 meaning it had assets more than enough for its liability cover in the 12 months that followed. Then in 2017, it increased the ratio to 1.3439 the decreased to 0.8662 in 2018 and 0.7567 in 2019. The ratio is in 2019 indicates that the organization has some liquidity issues. An analysis of the total asset turnover of the coca-cola company, had 0.48 in 2016 while this ration decreased over the years and stood at 0.43 in 2019. This indicates how assets are being utilized of the period less optimally by the firm(Borosky, 2020). The other analysis to mention will be on the return of the equity which was 33.62 in 2016 and stood at 42.59. This indicates that the company relies on debt for growth and operations improved substantially maybe through cost-cutting measures strategies. The last analysis, in this case, will be the debt/equity analysis where data indicates that in 2016 it was 1.97 while in 2017 it was 2.51 and the declined readily to 2019 at 2.03. Generally, for the past few years, the data shows that the company has been profitable although they have been some setbacks in 2019 overall.
Stock Price
  
Trading Data
 
Volume 

9.83M
 
3 months Avg Volume

17.11M
 
Previous close

48.21
 
Open

48.20
 
Day Range

47.96-48.50
Considering the coronavirus which had impacted businesses in a major way this year, the firm has gained around 20% since match to its current level in August of about 48 dollars. This is after a drop in March as investors feared the economic downturn due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. The stock still is below the compared to February when it stood at 60. Regardless of this decrease which can be justified, for the time being, the stock price is likely to increase although at a modest rate as organizations and world government continues to adapting better measures of dealing with the outbreak. This downturn can also be compared to 2008 during the recession period where the firm stock declined steadily only to recover by 2010. The same case is expected to be experienced this time depending on the impact of the covid19 but mostly, there is expected improvement on demand which may boost the market expectations(Team, 2020). 
Recommendations
Considering the ration analysis and stock analysis of the global brand, it can be concluded that investing with coca-cola company would be a good choice. The market may be not fairing well current but soon, it is expected that the global economy will be back to its normality with lockdown and bans lifted thus resulting in to increase in consumer demand. Generally, in the past, the organization has been very profitable collecting revenues in billions of dollars from its established brands across different countries. So in most cases by the end of 2020 considering the organizations earns fees even from franchisees, it’s likely to lead to high sales, followed by healthy growth in revenues in 2021 and post the covid19 errors. So it could be the right time to invest in stock as their price is relatively low and expected to rise with the world defeat on the current pandemic considering it is a large-cap company with a good establishment and more coca-cola is well trusted and recognized by investors(Forbes, 2012).
Reference
Borosky, P. (2020). Quality Business Plan: Business plan writer for small businesses. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from https://qualitybusinessplan.com/coca-cola-financial-statement-and-financial-ratios-analysis//
Kharkia, R. (2014). Five Reasons Why You Should Invest in Coca-Cola. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from https://www.gurufocus.com/news/265534/five-reasons-why-you-should-invest-in-cocacola/
Macrotrends LLC. (2020). Coca-Cola Financial Ratios for Analysis 2005-2020: KO. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KO/coca-cola/financial-ratios/
Team, T. (2020). Coca-Cola’s Stock At $45: More Gains? Retrieved August 19, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/07/10/coca-colas-stock-at-45-more-gains//
Forbes. (2012). Six Rules to Follow When Picking Stocks. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2012/06/15/six-rules-to-follow-when-picking-stocks//

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