AboutPaul Henneman Expertise Stock forecasting and fair market valuations.
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Expert: Paul Henneman Date: 10/18/2007 Subject: pepsico stock
Question hello!
i am a student at san diego state university and i am doing an informational report about why buy pepsi co? and i was wondering what topics in my ten page report should i focus on(topics) when im writing about pepsico stock. i am lost please help- or revfer me to someone!! thanks
Answer Trisha,
Thank you for your question! I normally don't believe in answering homework type questions, but I appreciate a student looking for help to get started. Thank you for simply not asking me for your full report (which is what most students do!) I would be more than happy to try to point you in a direction to get started.
First, there are a few very basic things that almost every investor will look at when thinking about investing in a stock. Earnings and the relationship this has to the current stock price is perhaps the most accepted and used data point in investing. So I suggest that you do some google searches, and see what you can find out about Pepsi's current earnings per share, and the resulting P/E ratio (Price to earnings ratio). A quick search for P/E ratio will tell you what this is, and how to find it. http://finance.yahoo.com for example will have most of the important data points you will need, including the above. The ticker symbol for Pepsi is PEP, that is the easiest way to look it up on sites like Yahoo finance.
I would also suggest that you visit Pepsi's investor relations website. There should be a great deal of information there, including earnings data, very complicated reports, and other stuff that may be too much to get into for your report. But there should be some more general information that you can use as well. Here is a link to the Pepsi Co Investor Relations website: http://www.pepsico.com/
I would suggest using those press releases as sources to quote, and a real wealth of information. For example, on 10/11/2007 (Just a week ago), there is a release announcing strong third quarter earnings. Remember what I said above, strong earnings for an investor is perhaps the most important thing.
These types of news events put Pepsi in the spot light, good for stock price.
I hope this gets you started! To sum up: I would use google searches, the yahoo finance website for actual data, and the Pepsi investor relations website to dig up a bunch of information that you can organize into your report. Be sure to cite your sources, even information that you get from a website should be noted with a footnote or endnote to establish where you got the information from.
I would start with general information about Pepsi such as the size of the company (this is generally quoted in terms of 'Market cap'), and how long the company has been around, and major products and other brands that Pepsi owns. This all points to a long established, growing, and safe company.
Next perhaps discuss some of the ways that investors use to decide what stocks to buy. Google searches can get you some information on this. Or just focus this section on earnings.
Then go into the materials you can find out on Pepsi's investor relations website, and conclude with data points such as earnings and other information.
After all that, be sure to provide your analysis on if all this information adds up to a company that you think someone should buy into! Does Pepsi's information and data that you find out fit well into the methodologies that investors use to find stocks to invest in?
Please do not hesitate to follow up with me if I can be of any additional service,
Sincerely,
Paul Henneman
President
ValuEngine Inc
www.ValuEngine.com
