CS 238 –
E-commerce critique– Assignment #2 Due 5/8/2008
(Professor Arnold Toffler Office: 4250, (973) 618-3459, Atoffler@caldwell.edu)
Paper #2:
Now that you have
read most of the very voluminous text book and have given your serious thought
to the new way we will have to conduct business or personal transactions, use
your crystal ball and tell me whether I should invest in any of these
e-commerce companies.
- Select
an e-commerce company that is publicly traded on one of the US
stock exchanges (see list of suggestions below). Use the internet to find
information about this company. It helps to know the stock symbol used on
the exchange. If you have trouble, send me an email and I will direct you
to some sites that will help.
- Who
are the customers of this company?
- Who
are the suppliers? Does this company have or need a supply chain? Briefly
describe the supply chain. Briefly describe their “value chain”.
- Do
you think that this company is well-positioned in their market? Briefly
explain your opinion.
- How
stable is their supplier network?
- What
is the company’s (common) stock price? Is it high, low or around the
middle (mean) of the stock’s prices for the last one, three or five years?
- What
is the stock’s p/e ratio (price/earnings)? What
is a p/e ratio? Is it a good way to evaluate a
stock’s price?
- If
you had money to invest, would you buy stock in this company? Explain your
opinion.
I am expecting about 8 pages
(or more) discussing these issues. Your discussion should be based upon the textbook
reading, supplemental materials, internet research and
cited examples.
Suggested List of E-commerce companies traded on US
Stock Exchanges
(Some of the companies may use a “.com”
ending (e.g Amazon.com)
Netflix
Blue Nile
Google
Yahoo
Amazon
Red Hat
Cisco
Sun Microsystems
Dell
Hewlett Packard (HP)
Oracle
Avaya