Job Shadow

Job Shadow Post

Scott Hecht, my job shadow, told me I was to arrive at Western Engineering at 10 am, I don't need to bring a lunch and  I am supposed to wear jeans and boots because we will be moving around in the field through out the day. Western Engineering's address is 1110 Road 9. He didn't have any questions for me.

I am excited to talk to him about different types of engineering and see what he does.

60 Minutes Questions

1. What is your opinion of the topic of the video? Explain why.
    My opinion on the topic is that letting members of Congress use information that no one else is allowed to know is not okay. Other people, like Martha Stewart, have been put in jail for using insider trading information so why is Congress different? They are citizen of the US just like we are so they should have to face the same penalties.

2. What can you do about your opinion? How can you make your opinion count?
     I can voice my opinion. I can make my opinion count by finding more people with similar views who would be willing to make a group effort to change what goes on in Congress.

3. What is insider trading? What was the information that cause Martha Stewart to go to prison?
     Insider trading is stock trading done with information that is not publicly known. Martha Stewart went to prison because of information she got about ImClone, a biopharmaceutical company, saying that the stock of this company was going to drop badly so sell while prices are still high.

4. What is Black Friday and when did it get its name? What is Cyber Monday?
     Black Friday is the day that kicks off the holiday shopping season. Black Friday got its name because it causes most businesses to go into "the black" meaning they are making good profit. Cyber Monday is the online equivalent of Black Friday.

Candy Stock

My experience with Candy Stock was okay but not great. The fifth grader with my group only counted how much money we had and didn't give any opinion on what we should buy. Also my group was not good at getting around to buy from other groups so we ended up with almost exactly what we started with.

Game Standards

3.2 Students formulate solutions to economic problems.      - My Country helps students formulate solutions by making us work through the need for more energy. It makes us work through this problem by telling us we don't have enough energy to run a business, so until we fix it we can't expand our country. Though instead of just having us build an energy plant we have to use natural energy from wind.

3.1 Students explain how different economic systems are organized for production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.
      - The different systems work with each other to create an economy. For example the transportation section transports people around to buy different products like shoes.


3.4 Students demonstrate an understanding of economical principles that influence individual financial planning
      - Every business makes money but the amounts they make are different. A business that has a more secure business plan than another business will make more money in the long run.

4.3 Students evaluate the impact of technology and how it has shaped history and influenced the modern world
      - Technology has influenced our world by letting us simulate running companies, towns, and countries. This helps us understand how to manage finances to keep a business, town or country alive.

4.2 Students analyze current events to better understand the world in which they live
      - When a new business opens, the money being put back into the economy grows. This happens by the business making money and allowing more people to work for them so that more people have money to spend.


4.4 Students explain how past events impact the present and the future
      - Past events such as making a bigger business impact present and future a lot. By making a business bigger it allows for more people to have jobs, it brings more people in and allows for more products to be produced and more services rendered.


5.1 Students interpret charts, maps and graphs to answer questions dealing with people, places, events or environments
      - We interpret maps of our country to know what is where and where we can build. We interpret the charts of how much more money we will make if we upgrade a certain business a certain amount of times.

5.3 Students demonstrate an ability to organize and process information about people, places and environments
       - We have the ability to organize the people by what they do as a job. Also, we have the ability to organize the country into different sectors like the business sector, the transportation sector and a residential sector.

Journal 7

Journal 6

Occupy Wall Street

I disagree with the Occupy Wall Street protest because I do not feel it is the government's job to create jobs for the unemployed. While finding a job is tough it is not impossible. One problem people have is only wanting their dream job and in society right now that doesn't work. It is possible to get buy in today's economy but you have to work for it, not expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter.

Journal 5

Comments

1. Bennett
2. Anya
3. Brooke Thomas
4. Tess
5. Alex E
6. Brandi
7. Samantha Melton
8. Christian
9. Mariah
10. Jonathan

Journal 4

One transaction I made this week was buying 300 shares of General Electric Company. I bought the stock at $16.50 a share which is approximately 2 dollars above their 52 week low and 5 dollars below their 52 week high leaving a good window for the stock to grow. I believe the stock will grow $2-3 soon because GE just launched a new entity, Research Circle Technology in September. As a whole GE's competitors are doing around the same, stock wise but GE has a right in the middle price that isn't outrageous to buy but not a stock that has too low of a price. All the companies have just about the same graph but lately GE has a positive slope whereas the competition has a negative slope.

Journal 3

One transaction I made this week was selling my 100 shares of JCPenny stock. I sold the JCP stock because while the 52 week range was $23.44 to $41.00 the 3 weeks I've had this stock the has been steadily losing money. Yesterday JCP gained $1.34 a share from the price I bought it at so I jumped in and sold the stock to gain some money back to invest or trade in a different company that would make me money. I bought JCP at $27.13 a share and sold it at $28.47 a share. Another reason I chose to sell JCP because compared to JCP's competitor, Nordstorm, JCP is the worse off company. While JCP is losing money almost everyday Nordstorm has been gaining money almost everyday. I beleive that if I had continued to hold on to my JCP stock the stock would have hit a low of around $24.00.

A second transaction I made was buying Qualcomm as an investment. I bought 200 shares at $50.60 a share. Qualcomm's 52 week range is $42.45 to $59.84. I bought in the middle of Qualcomm's range so the stock has a potential to grow aroung 10 dollars. I believe that the stock will gain about $3-4 because with most people out to get the latest technology and Qualcomm makes a good deal of that technology. Compared to Qualcomm's competitor Ericsson, Qualcomm is trading at a higher price. Ericsson while making good products is worth less than half of what Qualcomm is worth because, while Ericsson was founded 13 years before Qualcomm, Qualcomm only took 8 years to take off as a good company and keep selling products. Ericsoon on the other hand had to wait 21 years before their company really took off but unlike Qualcomm, Ericsson, after 3 years, took a huge dive in company worth from going from trading at over $100 to trading at $3. Qualcomm keep trading a fairly constant rate compared to Ericsson, so Qualcomm is a more reliable stock.

Journal 2

A transaction I made this week was buying stock in Verizon. After a good deal of research I found that they are coming out with multiple new phones in the next few months. I bought this at a trade because the catalyst will be the new phones coming out and then the market will most likely go back to where it is now. I bought the stock at $37.15 which is toward the higher end of the 52 week range which ranged from $31.60-$38.95. But even though the stock is at the higher end I expect there to be at least a two to four dollar increase within the next weeks to the next months. One of Verizon's main competitors, Sprint, on the other hand is doing okay but not great. Right now Sprint is down in the stock market, trading at prices that are very close to their 52 week low. While Sprint is coming out with new phones also I believe that Verizon will make a better return on their products.


A second transaction I made this week was buying Pandora Media stock. I bought this because Pandora now has a deal with Hyundai to put Pandora Radio in new Veloster. Also, Pandora is has released a lot of its restrictions on its music so I see the potential for the stock to grow. The 52 week range is $9.33-$26.00 and I bought the stock at $13.86. This leaves room to almost double. I expect Pandora's stock to rise at least three to five dollars soon because Pandora is also an app for phones, iPads, iPods, and many other devices. The stock will rise because as people acquire new devices they will down-load the app more. Sirius XM Radio is one of the biggest competition for Pandora. Sirius may have a larger market cap than Pandora but Sirius XM Radio's 52 week range is within about a $1.20 from its lowest trading price to its highest trading price which does leave very much room to make money on this stock because from what I can see Sirius XM is not in a position right now to get above their 52 week range from last year.

Journal Entry 1

One of my companies is Dell and I bought the stock at 14.75 a share which is under what the top trading price was for the last 52 weeks so I believe the stock will continues to go up to a maximum trading amount of $16.75. This is because right now Dell is sitting in the median range for trading value and I believe that the market will continue to increase so that Dell will come close to the high of the last 52 weeks. I bought Dell because the day I bought it the market was going up and so was the price of stock so I grabbed Dell early to try and make some money but with the way the market has been the last few days Dell has been losing me money. Compared to their competitor Apple, Dell has been doing better. 

Ten Brands

My favorite shoes are Nike tennis shoes. Suave is my favorite shampoo. The toothpaste brand I use the  most is Aim. Right now DayQuil is one of my favorite brands right now. Dell is my favorite computer brand. Toyota is my favorite brand of vehicle. Arizona is my favorite brand of jeans. Jif is my favorite brand of peanut butter. LG is my favorite brand of phone. My favorite gaming system is a Wii.

Top 10 Brands

9/11 Blog Post

The attacks on September 11, 2011 were a huge shock to the United States. Al-Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Centers and took out part of the Pentagon. If Al-Qaeda's purpose was to get rid of the United States' power house status, they have started that process. Al-Qaeda has proven the US is not unattackable.

Entry 2

My cause is saving the environment. I want to save the environment because if the environment is destroyed so is human life. I would talk to Lisa Jackson who is an administator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Entry 1

I want to learn more about how the stock market works and how to make the best choices concerning the stock market. Also I want to learn more about the economic system of the United States.