Financial Management
Q5. Putting yourself in the position of an existing shareholder(investor) of your company, using both the annual corporate report and the information about your company’s share price in the Financial Times, provide a recommendation (with reasons) whether you rate your company’s shares as Buy, Hold or Sell.
There are a wide range of factors that affect share price. These include interest rates, inflation, the performance of the industry/sector the company is in, the performance of the company itself, and the market supply and demand for the companies’ shares.
The following graph shows Marks and Spencer’s share price over the last 12 months.
http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/investors/shareprice/chart Accessed: 05/12/11
By viewing the graph, we can see that there have been numerous fluctuations in share price over the last 12 months. At the start of the year share price was at around 370 pence per share and dropped down to around 330 pence per share after 3 months. There was then a surge in share price which reached over 400 pence per share at its peak in May. It then fell to its lowest point, just above 300 pence per share in September and there have since been small fluctuations in share price. Its current share price is at 329.00 but we expect it to continue to fluctuate slightly before finally increasing again into the New Year, as share prices do generally remain low over the Christmas period.
The following table is share information that was published in The Financial Times weekly update on Monday 5th December 2011.
| |Price |Wks% Chg | Div |Div Cov |Mcap £m | Last xd |
|Marks&Sp |330.10 |+7.3 |17 |2.3 |5,233.3 |16.11 |
Using the data available from this table and information published in the annual company report, we can work out
There are a wide range of factors that affect share price. These include interest rates, inflation, the performance of the industry/sector the company is in, the performance of the company itself, and the market supply and demand for the companies’ shares.
The following graph shows Marks and Spencer’s share price over the last 12 months.
http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/investors/shareprice/chart Accessed: 05/12/11
By viewing the graph, we can see that there have been numerous fluctuations in share price over the last 12 months. At the start of the year share price was at around 370 pence per share and dropped down to around 330 pence per share after 3 months. There was then a surge in share price which reached over 400 pence per share at its peak in May. It then fell to its lowest point, just above 300 pence per share in September and there have since been small fluctuations in share price. Its current share price is at 329.00 but we expect it to continue to fluctuate slightly before finally increasing again into the New Year, as share prices do generally remain low over the Christmas period.
The following table is share information that was published in The Financial Times weekly update on Monday 5th December 2011.
| |Price |Wks% Chg | Div |Div Cov |Mcap £m | Last xd |
|Marks&Sp |330.10 |+7.3 |17 |2.3 |5,233.3 |16.11 |
Using the data available from this table and information published in the annual company report, we can work out