1. Chris Markus
Aaron Harden
Stock Project Evaluation
For our stock project, we decided to invest in five companies. The five companies we
invested in were Craft Brew Alliance Inc. (BREW), Cardiome Pharma Corp. (CRME), Health
Insurance Innovations Inc. (HIIQ), Takkt AG (TTK.DE), and Aspen Group Inc. (ASPU). Below
are the quantities and prices that we initially paid for each investment:
Company Quantity Price Total
BREW 200 $13.88 $2776
CRME 300 $7.92 $2376
HIIQ 200 $10.12 $2024
TTK.DE 225 $12.44 $2799
ASPU 102 $0.245 $24.99
When deciding which stocks to invest in, we took a few factors into consideration. One
factor was the time of the year. Since we only had about a month to watch these stocks grow, we
tried to pick companies that did well leading up to the holiday season. For example, BREW was
chosen because typically around the holiday season, many adults drink craft beers, which is what
BREW specializes in. We also looked at companies in the healthcare industry because it is a
growing field. Because of that reasoning, we choose to invest in CRME and HIIQ. Going back to
us investing near the holiday season, we choose TTK.DE because it was in the marketing
industry and typically around the holidays, companies are trying to market their products in order

2. to attract sales from customers. Lastly, we needed a penny stock in order to get as close to
$10,000 as possible, so we chose ASPU, which provides online distance-learning services for
those looking to further their education. We choose this company because it is a relatively young
company (less than 2 years from becoming public) and the risk was very minimal because of
how cheap the stock price is.
Stock Performance
BREW was our most consistent stock in our portfolio. We were pleased with this stocks
performance because it had its up and downs just like any stock but it stayed relatively consistent
with only a minimal loss of $0.30 per share. Had this project gone on for a longer period of time,
I believe we would have seen a better benefit based off its increase in value over the last two
years ($2.68 to $13.77 currently).
CRME was consistent like BREW but we ended up receiving a gain of $0.21 per share
rather than a loss. Because we bought 300 shares of CRME compared to 200 shares of BREW,
we saw a better overall return on our investment. After hitting its low of $1.30 per share in
December of 2012 over the previous five years, CRME has slowly been regaining its value back.
Similar to BREW, I believe if this project were to last longer, we would have seen more of a
benefit from this stock.
Unfortunately, HIIQ was our biggest disappointment by far, falling from its highest price
per share during our project at $11.30 to a whopping $7.52 per share only 11 days later, resulting
in an overall loss of $2.60 per share based on our original purchase price of $10.12 per share.
The big loss was due to the fact that company had low relative seasonal sales during the third
quarter, resulting in a net loss of $612 thousand based on the quarterly report and financial

3. statements on Yahoo! In the “Headlines” section. It was also downgraded from “hold” to “sell”
on November 19th via “TheStreet,” an article in the also in the “Headlines” section. Out of all the
stocks we choose, this one was researched the least and ended up hurting our portfolio badly. If
we had to do it all over again, we would have done more research and more than likely
purchased another company.
Our best performing stock was TTK.DE, which increased from our original purchase
price at $12.44 per share to $13.24, an increase of $0.80 per share. Similar to CRME, we
purchased a higher volume of stock in this company compared to the other three, purchasing 225
shares. This allowed us to have a slightly larger return on our investment compared to if we had
only purchased 200 shares. The $13.24 price per share was the highest price during the period of
our project.
The last stock was our penny stock, ASPU. This stock originally cost $0.245 per share
and ended with a price of $0.22 per share. Because of the low price and low volume (only 102)
shares purchased, we did not expect any significant impact from this stock towards our portfolio.
Rather, it was more of just a filler than anything to make sure we used as close to all of the
$10,000 as possible. However, it stayed consistent throughout the course of our project and again
that is something we predicted considering the original cost and its past prices.
Overall, we were pleased with our portfolio minus the HIIQ stock, which ultimately hurt
us. Our portfolio reached its highest value of $10,467.31 on November 10th. After that date
however, our portfolio only surpassed the $10,000 mark twice in the next 10 days. This was due
to the fall in the price of the HIIQ stock, which plummeted $2.07 per share on November 11th
and continued to fall from there on out. Had HIIQ been relatively more consistent and finished
with an ending value of $9 per share, our portfolio would have finished with an ending value of

4. about $300 more than the ending value of $9653.32, only resulting in a total portfolio loss of
about $50. Based on the restrictions of this project, we could not sell HIIQ and were forced to
hold onto it. Had this not been the case, I believe our portfolio over the long run would have
netted a positive gain after some time because we would be allowed to dump HIIQ and reinvest
in another company.
What We Learned
This project helped teach our group a few lessons about stocks. For starters, it made us
realize how important it is to research a company extensively before investing in it. As we stated
before, had we done more diligent research on HIIQ, we might not have invested in the stock and
avoided a major loss to our portfolio. Secondly, it exemplified how up and down the stock
market can be. We always hear how the market can be volatile at times, but watching it on a day-
by-day basis really showed how much the market can fluctuate. Lastly, we learned how to
prepare a portfolio. This is beneficial because at some point in our life, we should look to invest
so we have money later down the road when we are looking to retire. Overall, we are happy we
did this project because it was enjoyable and very beneficial in teaching us lessons on how to
invest properly.