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Terms and Definitions
Stock: A type of security that signifies ownership in a corporation and represents a claim on part of the corporation's assets and earnings.There are two main types of stock: common and preferred.
Common stock: Usually entitles the owner to vote at shareholders' meetings and to receive dividends.
Preferred stock: Generally does not have voting rights, but has a higher claim on assets and earnings than the common shares.
Outstanding: Used in the context of general equities. Stock held by shareholders (verses the company's treasury stock).
Market capitalization: The total dollar value of all outstanding shares. Computed as shares times current market price. Capitalization is a measure of corporate size.
Market value: (1) The price at which a security is trading and could presumably be purchased or sold. (2) What investors believe a firm is worth; calculated by multiplying the number of shares outstanding by the current market price of a firm's shares.
Value stocks: Stocks with low price/book ratios or price/earnings ratios. Historically, value stocks have enjoyed higher average returns than growth stocks (stocks with high price/book or P/E ratios) in a variety of countries.
Earnings per share (EPS): A company's profit divided by its number of common outstanding shares. If a company earning $2 million in one year had 2 million common shares of stock outstanding, its EPS would be $1 per share. In calculating EPS, the company often uses a weighted average of shares outstanding over the reporting term. The one-year (historical or trailing) EPS growth rate is calculated as the percentage change in earnings per share. The prospective EPS growth rate is calculated as the percentage change in this year's earnings and the consensus forecast earnings for next year.
Price earning ratio: Ratio for valuing a company that measures its current share price relative to its per-share earnings. For example, suppose that a company is currently trading at $43 a share and its earnings over the last 12 months were $1.95 per share.
- Glossary of Stock Market TermsSource: NASDAQ
Search by term or browse by letter more than 8,000 terms and definitions related to the stock market.
What is a media company?
Selecting Conglomerates
In order to tell what part of a conglomerate is involved in media, use Hoovers.
- Look up the company profile
- Select the "Product and Operations" tab.
- Scroll down to the Sales area
- Aim for companies that are 20% or more involved in media sales
Disney as a Test Case
| Public | |
| Traded as | NYSE: DIS Dow Jones Industrial Average Component S&P 500 Component |
| Industry | Mass media Entertainment |
| Predecessors | Laugh-O-Gram Studio |
| Founded | October 16, 1923 Los Angeles, California, United States[1] |
| Founders | Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney |
| Headquarters | 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, California, United States |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
|
Key people
|
Bob Iger (Chairman and CEO) |
| Products | Cable television, publishing, films,music, video games, theme parks,broadcasting, radio, web portals |
| Services | Licensing |
| Revenue |  US$ 48.813 billion (2014)[2]:25 |
| US$ 12.246 billion (2014)[2]:26 |
|
| US$ 8.004 billion (2014)[2]:26 |
|
| Total assets | US$ 84.186 billion (2014)[2]:66 |
| Total equity |  US$ 44.958 billion (2014)[2]:66 |
|
Number of employees
|
180,000 (2014)[2]:1 |
| Divisions | |
| Subsidiaries | |
| Website | thewaltdisneycompany |
How to select a media company?
Potential Sectors:
- Internet publishing, broadcasting & search portals
- TV broadcasting
- Advertising and marketing services
- Internet music distribution and downloads
- Music production and distribution
- Radio broadcasting
- Newspaper publishers
- Motion picture production and distribution
- Digital advertising services
- Film and video
- Magazine publishers
- Book publishing
Avoid:
- software companies
- computer hardware manufacturers
- phone companies
- World's Largest Media Companies Of 2015Source: Forbes
Subset of Forbes Global 2000 List, an annual compilation of world’s biggest public companies. - Nielson Top Tens & TrendsSource: Nielson
Top Tens. Compiled weekly, monthly or quarterly. - Top Media Companies on the 2014 Inc. 5000Source: INC
Annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America.
How to choose stocks?
Disney as a Test Case
Now that we've identified Disney as a media company, we want to look at its financial viability and its stocks historically.
| 2015 Sales | $52.47B |
|---|---|
| 1-Year Sales Growth | 7.48% |
| 2015 Net Income | $8.38B |
| 1-Year Net Income Growth | 11.75% |
| Total Assets | $88.18B |
| Market Value | $152.99B |
| Prescreen Score | Low Risk |
Disney grew this year and is projected to continue growth at about the same rate.
As of January 21, stocks were down in comparison to 6 months ago. However, if we take into account the global instability in the financial markets, we can say this isn't a Disney-specific problem. To confirm this, we want to look at other comperable stocks and confirm that their prices were down also.
Keeping a eye on the news
Stay on top of global financial trends by reading the Wall Street Journal and other financial publications.
Tip: Try a search for your company's name, or for the name of an executive.
Example: Search for facebook or "mark zuckerberg". (Use quotes to keep words together.)
If you can't find company-specific information, try searching for your company's areas of focus.
Example: Search for "search engine optimization" and marketing.
- NASDAQ Investing ToolsSource: NASDAQ
The Custom Stock Alerts tool automatically sends you e-mails when stocks you've entered match your pre-set conditions in the pre-market, regular hours or after-hours trading sessions. - Barron's OnlineAmerica's premier financial magazine. It provides in-depth analysis and commentary on the markets, updated every business day online.
Small Cap Stocks
You are also going to need to purchase some small cap stocks. You are likely to find less information about these stocks and will have to use industry trends to inform your purchasing decisions.
Try signing up for a newsletter like that from Penny Pick Alerts to learn about good small cap stock options.
- Yahoo's Stock ScreenerSource: Yahoo
Tool for finding small cap stocks.
- Mergent Intellect This link opens in a new window
Database of private and public business data, industry news from Key Business Ratios and First Research reports, and job search tool.
Setting up alerts for current Information
Setting Up a Google Alert
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. You must have a gmail account to use this service. Read more....
Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is a free service that will send users alerts on stocks, investment strategies, etc. Must register to access.
Getting Help
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The Writing Center
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Tutors help you gain a fresh perspective on the writing process, and can assist with any stage of the process: choosing a topic or working through writer's block, generating ideas, creating an outline, sharpening a thesis, arranging and organizing paragraphs, citing correctly and fluently, editing grammar and mechanics, and more.
Instructors receive a copy of the tutor report completed during the session, to illustrate your engagement with the writing process and meeting the demands of writing across disciplines.
Services are on a walk-in basis, so no appointment is necessary. Schedules are posted in the Writing Center, on Inside DelVal, and on professors' Blackboard course pages.
Tutors look forward to working with you!
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