At the end of each week from week 1 to week 6 (by Sunday at Midnight CST), you are expected to provide a discussion of why the stock market behaved as it did during the week(October 3

At the end of each week from week 1 to week 6 (by Sunday at Midnight CST), you are expected to provide a discussion of why the stock market behaved as it did during the week(October 31st to Nov 4th 2022)  and how your StockTrak portfolio performed under these market conditions. For each entry, you can write it like a two-part (paragraph) blog post: part one why the stock market behaved as it did during the week; and part two how your portfolio performed under these market conditions. 

StocTrak: Its a play trading tool where you buy stocks funds with Dummy Money.Intially each student will be given 1000000$ and need to trade weekly until the end of the semester.

My Protfolio This week:(October 31st to Nov 4th 2022)

Please see attached document for My Portfolio This week.

Example:please see below example how one my classmate written on this assignment(Hows the market this week and how it effected his portfolio)-Please dont copy paste but take it as reference

Why the Stock Market Behaved as it Did (October 31st to Nov 1st)

Stocks were down slightly this week with the S&P 500 dropping -2.87%. This was in response to the Fed’s 0.75 rate hike this week and with continuing high inflation a likely additional increase of the same size in December (Investing.com, 2022). However, the jobs report beat expectations with the economy adding 261,000 jobs above the 200,000 estimate. It does appear that commodities and energy are continuing to do well as international markets are shifting with China set to ease Covid-19 restrictions, OPEC cutting production, and Russia backing out of grain/fertilizer commitments due to the Ukraine conflict. Overall, the stock market will continue to hang on every word of the Fed until rate hikes begin to decrease in size and frequency. Through the month of November into December discretionary spending will be tested and may provide additional insight into what is in store for 2023.

How my stock portfolio Performed

This week I tried to make some bigger moves but failed spectacularly. I transitioned out of corporate bonds which I had ~$100k invested and moved completely out of the energy companies that had a high exposure to natural gas prices ~$50k. From what I was seeing with the highly volatile short term natural gas prices was that prices were moving based on the projected 2-4 week weather forecast for the lower 48 instead of larger supply/demand issues internationally as they had done over the past few months. Instead of pretending like I have any insight on weather patterns I pivoted and decided to invest in some sectors that have been winners for me, particularly agriculture and energy. I purchased shares of Nutrien Ltd (NTR), ICL Group Ltd. (ICL) and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNQ). All were rated either buys or strong buy’s and from what I could tell from their finical statements and how they compared to their industry competitors their stock prices appeared to poised for success. However, I over committed on agriculture fertilizers in my mix…

“Nutrien (NTR) came out with quarterly earnings of $2.51 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.92 per share. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of -35.97%.” (Zacks Equity Research, 2022)

Earning reports for NTR came out the day after I purchased shares. Additionally, it appears that the domestic market is producing more potash and other fertilizer components in response to record high prices further depressing future outlooks across the industry. This was a costly mistake of -13.94% and a loss of -$6,303.42 to my portfolio by seeking additional risk. Most of my other stocks were relatively unchanged for the week, but my short term moves did not pay off this week.

References

Investing.com. (2022, November 4). Stock market Today: Dow Gains but ends weekly win streak amid mixed jobs report by investing.com. Investing.com. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/stock-market-today-dow-gains-but-ends-weekly-win-streak-amid-mixed-jobs-report-2933498

Zacks Equity Research. (2022, November 2). Nutrien (NTR) Q3 earnings and revenues miss estimates. Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nutrien-ntr-q3-earnings-revenues-225510484.html