Introduction: Stock Market Project

Over the course of 3 Months my Team tracked 6 different companies by buying stock.

Step 1: Autozone(AZO)

Autozone, is an auto-parts retail store and is in the "Services" sector. As a security, we believed this was a good choice on multiple reasons: it's a large name in the auto parts business, due to the unfavorable economy people will try and do things themselves more often, and with the extreme weather of the season there will be more mechanical failure.

So far Autozone, or AZO, has been performing wonderfully. In mid October we purchased 185 shares in AZO stock at $107.25($19,841).

As of 12/11/08 stock has risen to about $126/share, which means about a $3,000 gain.

Autozone's competitors are Advanced Auto Parts, O'Reily Automotive Inc., and Pep Boys.

Step 2: Hasboro(HAS)

Hasboro is one of the largest names in Toys&Games, under the Consumer Goods sector.. With an outstanding safety record, generosity in charitable organizations, Hasbro looked like a great candidate to buy stock in. With the holiday season approaching we expected the value of Hasbro stock to rise.

However that was not the case, stock had fairly uneventful ups and downs, ending more recently on the 8th with a loss of $1.37/share

Hasbro's competitor, Mattel, had just about the same ups and downs.

We bought a total of 666 shares at $29.98 per share, the total $19,966.68.

Step 3: AT&T(T)

AT&T is a Domestic Telecom Service Provider, in the Technology sector. AT&T offers low priced service and easy payment plans. This company also has a large range of attractive cell-phones that are exclusive to them. We invested in AT&T because we believe with strict security and large cost of travel many people will be communicating through such services more often during the holidays. AT&T is also the only provider that offers the iPhone, which has gained a large amount of popularity ever since its release.

We bought 765 shares of AT&T at $26.07/share, spending a total of 19,941.55. AT&T didn't disappoint. The stock rose almost every week. We decided to sell our AT&T stock in early December in order to equalize our portfolio. We sold our shares and gained almost 2,000 extra.

AT&T's main competitor is Verizon. Both are strong companies and have a similar trend on a week to week basis, as shown in the graph below. Verizon is strong because they are more diversified in the Telecom business offering fast internet and high quality TV through Fiber Optic systems.

Step 4: Diageo(DEO)

Diageo is a name that most people don't recognize. However Diageo's products are known the world over. A britished based beverage company Diageo has a wide range of products including Guiness(Beer), Smithwicks(Beer), Jose Cuervo(Tequila), Smirnoff(Vodka), and Johnny Walker(Scotch). Due to the increased alcohol intake during the end of the year, with a high concentration of holidays, we decided that a "sin stock" such as this would hold high value come December.

We aquired a total of 317 shares at $63.09/share spending a grand total of $19,999.53.

As it turned out DEO went into a steady decline, dropping from the $63.09/share to the current $56.03/share. Which just perfectly demonstrates that not everything is guaranteed, especially not on the stock market.

Step 5: Toyota Motor Corporation(TM)

Toyota Motor corp. is in the Consumer Products sector under Automotive Manufacturing. A strong brand that gained a strong grip in America with the release of the Prius Hybrid vehicle, a vehicle that sips on gas and helps the environment by reducing carbon emissions. Based on that alone we decided that Toyota would be a good brand to buy.

We bought 287 shares at $69.52/share spending a total of $19,952.24

With unstable oil-prices and the bail-outs automotive manufacture stocks have plummeted. Todays worth of our stocks have slipped to just under $18,000. The stocks are now at $62.58 a $7 difference per share.

Step 6: Coca-Cola Bottling Company Consolidated(COKE)

After selling our shares in AT&T we bought up Coca-Cola Co. Consolidated. This is the distribution and bottling branch of Coca Cola Company(KO) We decided to try out Coke noting a trend in it's rise and fall in stocks. At the time when we were on the search for new stocks to buy, Coke was low in price.

we bought 475 shares at $42/share, spending $19,960.

In the short time that we've held the shares Coke has stayed at about the same price/share, currently $42.17. Coca-Cola's main competitor is Pepsi. Pepsi being another soda distributor has pretty much stayed in the same price range as Coke. The Pepsi stock used in the graph is simlar to COKE being Pepsico's bottling subsidiary. Both companies offer similar beverage products(i.e. Diet, Zero Calorie, similar flavors, and Juice brands).