Investment Analysis

This paper discusses the issues that are important in investing in securities and reviews the author’s portfolio.

This paper stresses that, to protect the individual investor from significant losses, an investor should select stocks in different industries. The author points out that the major influences on a stock’s safety ranking are the company’s financial strength as measured by balance sheet, the company’s key financial ratios, and the stability of its price over the past five years. The paper reviews and makes recommendation for revision of the author’s investment portfolio, which included Home Depot (HD), a retail hard goods sector; Sysco (SYY), a provider of food and beverage products to the hospitality industry; Dupont (DD, primarily a science company, American Express (AXP), a world leader of financial services and Sunoco (Sun), the U.S. based manufacturer of petroleum and petrochemical products.

Table of Contents
Risk, Reward, Risk Tolerance, their effects on the Time to Retirement
Diversity as a Minimization of Ris.
Timeliness Rank
Safety Rank
Technical Rank
Price/Earnings Ratios
Target Price Range
Portfolio Review
Sysco Corporation
Recent Company History
Key Indicators
Portfolio Performance
Sunoco
Stock Holding Performance
Dupont
Stock Holding
Home Depot
Key Indicators
Stock Holding
American Express
Key Indicators
Portfolio Analysis
The integer rankings on this graph do not have any specific monetary value, nor is the risk to reward potential line necessarily a smooth sloped line. This representation is drawn to demonstrate one of the most important aspects of investing. When an investment has a higher risk factor, when it is more speculative in nature, the potential for return is greater than an investment, which has a lower potential risk. The same relationship is true regarding risk of loss. The higher the level of risk in any investment, the potential is greater the investor to suffer an unexpected loss. For this reason, each investor must determine two important aspects before entering the investment market place.