Question 1                                                                                      

Visit the Australian Stock Exchange website, www.asx.com.au and from “Prices and research” drop-down menu, select “Company information”. Type in the ASX code “CSR” (CSR Limited), and find out details about the company. Also, type in the ASX code “SFR” (Sandfire Resources NL), and find out the details about that company. Both these companies belong to material sector. Information available in the ASX website will be inadequate for your purpose, you will need to search the internet for more information. Your task will be to get the opening prices of CSR and SFR shares for every quarter from January 2008 to December 2017 (unadjusted prices). If you are retrieving the monthly prices, read the values in the beginning of every Quarter (January, April, July, October) for every year from 2008 to 2017 (Total 40 observations). To provide you with some guidance as to what the unadjusted prices look like, two charts accompany this question obtained from ANZ Share Investing, Australia. After you have researched share prices and financial sector, answer the following questions:

(a)      List all the quarterly opening price values in two tables, one for CSR and the other for SFR. Then construct a stem-and-leaf display with one stem value in the middle, and CSR leaves on the right side and SFR leaves on the left side. (Must use EXCEL or similar for the plot.)

(b)     Construct a relative frequency histogram for CSR and a frequency polygon for SFR on the same graph with equal class widths, the first class being “$0 to less than $1”. Use two different colours for CSR and SFR. Graph must be done in EXCEL or similar software.

(c)      Draw a bar chart of market capitals (or total assets) in 2017 (in million Australian dollars) of 6 companies listed in ASX that trade in similar products or do similar business as CSR or SFR with at least AUD100 million in market capital.  Graphing must be done in EXCEL or with similar software.

If one wishes to invest in CSR or SFR, what is the market recommendation (for example, from Morningstar, Fatprophets, InvestSmart, etc.)? If you cannot find the information, what would be your recommendation based on your research of these two companies (trend, P/E ratio, dividend yield, debt and Beta)? 

(Note: Use only the original values of share prices and not adjusted values.)