KOLEJ UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN

FACULTY OF ACCOUNTANCY, FINANCE AND BUSINESS

BACHELOR OF FINANCE AND INVESTMENT (HONOURS)
ACADEMIC YEAR 2020/2021
YEAR 3 – SEMESTER 3

BBMF3113 CASE STUDY OF FINANCE IN INVESTMENT

GROUP ASSIGNMENT - CASE STUDY 1

NAME STUDENT ID
CHAN JIA FEI 19WBR12204
LAKSHMAN A/L PARAMNATHAN 18WBR13006
NG YEW SHENG 18WBR13068
THAM MING KE 18WBR12689
YEAP YEE SHEN 19WBR12012

TUTORIAL GROUP : RFI GROUP 2

DATE OF SUBMISSION : 19 JULY 2021

TUTOR’S NAME : MISS CHOW YEE PENG

BBMF3113 Case Study in Finance and Investment
Assessment Criteria for Written Report (Case Study 1)
Word Count: _2541__
Grading (Point)
Criteria Maximum Points Marks Allocated
Marks Allocated AxB %
(A)% (B) 4

Excellent Good Satisfactory Poor

(4) (3) (2) (1)
1. Question 1 15 High level of Strength shown Some analysis Descriptive
critical thought in some areas but a tendency and lacking
shown in the of critical towards in analysis or
analysis and a assessment of description critical
rigorous the information rather than evaluation
approach to the analysis and
evaluation of evaluation
information

2. Question 2 20 High level of Strength shown Some analysis Descriptive

critical thought in some areas but a tendency and lacking
shown in the of critical towards in analysis or
analysis and a assessment of description critical
rigorous the information rather than evaluation
approach to the analysis and
evaluation of evaluation
information

3. Question 3 15 High level of Strength shown Some analysis Descriptive

critical thought in some areas but a tendency and lacking
shown in the of critical towards in analysis or
analysis and a assessment of description critical
rigorous the information rather than evaluation
approach to the analysis and
evaluation of evaluation
information
3. Question 4 20 Display well- Display Limited and/or Very limited
grounded reasonable lack of clarity and/or lack of
reflection of reflection upon and clarity and
key issues and key issues but practicality practicality
addressing with limited
them with clarity and
clarity, practicality
conciseness and
practicality

4. Proper referencing to 5 Excellent Good Average Poor

source of information.
5. Overall presentation 5 Overall very Logical Reasonably Serious
and quality of work good structure structure and clear structure weakness in
and good quality of with periodic structure with
presentation presentation errors in inconsistent
with with minimal grammar, grammar,
consistently errors in spelling and spelling and
proper grammar, paragraphing paragraphing
grammar, spelling and
spelling and paragraphing
paragraphing

TOTAL MARKS 80
AWARDED
 BBMF3113 CASE STUDY IN FINANCE & INVESTMENT

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA – ORAL PRESENTATION (CASE STUDY 1)

Criteria Marks Marks Awarded

Alloca
ted
Introduction 10
Contents 20
Conclusion 10
Effective use of media 10
Group cohesion 10
Ability to generate interest 10
in topic presented
Presentation skills 1.CHAN JIA 2. NG YEW 3.THAM 4.YAP YEE 5. LAKSHMAN
FEI SHENG MING KE SHEN A/L
PARAMNATHA
N

- Speech 10
- Body language 10
-Ability to answer questions 10
Total marks (100%) (C)% 100
Total marks (20%) 20
(C x 0.20)%

Semester:3 Course Code & Title: BBMF3113 CASE STUDY IN FINANCE AND INVESTMENT
 Faculty of Accountancy, Finance & Business

Declaration

We confirm that we have read and shall comply with all the terms and condition of Tunku Abdul Rahman University College’s plagiarism policy.

We declare that this assignment is free from all forms of plagiarism and for all intents and purposes is our own properly derived work.

We further confirm that the same work, where appropriate, has been verified by anti-plagiarism software TURNITIN (please insert).

Name (Block Capitals) Regn. No. Signature

1. ……CHAN JIA FEI ……… ……19WBR12204.……… CHAN

2. LAKSHMAN A/L PARAMNATHAN ……18WBR13006.……… LAKS

3. …NG YEW SHENG……… ……18WBR13068.……… NG

4. …THAM MING KE………… ……18WBR12689.……… THAM

5. …YEAP YEE SHEN………… ……19WBR12012.……… YEAP

Programme ……BACHELOR OF FINANCE AND INVESTMENT……

Tutorial Group ………GROUP 2………………………………

Date ………19 JULY 2021………………………….

APPENDIX 3 (Rev. 3)
FACULTY OF ACCOUNTANCY, FINANCE AND BUSINESS
COURSEWORK FEEDBACK FORM FOR WRITTEN REPORT
COURSE CODE/ COURSE TITLE:
NAME OF STUDENT(s): ID No:
1) CHAN JIA FEI 19WBR12204
2)LAKSHMAN A/L PARAMNATHAN 18WBR13006
3)NG YEW SHENG 18WBR13068
4) THAM MING KE 18WBR12689
5)YEAP YEE SHEN 19WBR12012
6)
PROGRAMME: BACHELOR OF FINANCE AND INVESTMENT
YEAR OF STUDY: 3 ACADEMIC YEAR: 2020/2021
SEMESTER: 3
GROUP NO: 1
COURSEWORK NO: 1/2/3 NATURE OF COURSEWORK: MARKS ALLOCATED:
(e.g. presentation, Q& A,
individual/group /100
 assignment etc)

COMMENTS:

Student’s Date: Lecturer/Tutor’s Date:

Acknowledgement: 19 July 2021 Signature:
NG

Note: This form must be submitted together with the assessment grid/grading criteria and Turnitin report for the coursework.
 Group Member Appraisal Form

The bases of this evaluation are your group member’s contribution and involvement in this assignment.

Group members should be appraised using the following bases:

100% ● Group member attended all group meetings or, if unable to attend, contacted the
group in advance and came to an alternative arrangement with which the majority
of group members was happy.
● Group member contributed to group discussion.
● Group member always offered to help or volunteered for tasks.
● Group member had assigned tasks completed on time.
50% ● Group member missed group meetings without making alternative arrangements
with other group members.
● Group member’s assigned tasks were poorly or only partly completed.
● Group member did not contribute to the group effort or volunteer for tasks.
0% ● Group member attended few, if any, meetings and made no contribution to the
assignment.

Name of student: CHAN JIA FEI

Instructions:

Place the name of each member of your group in the space provided below. Appraise each person named by circling one of the totals shown below
(i.e. 100%, 50% or 0%)
 Group Member
1. LAKSHMAN A/L 100% 50% 0%
PARAMNATHAN
2. NG YEW SHENG 100% 50% 0%
3. THAM MING KE 100% 50% 0%
4. YEAP YEE SHEN 100% 50% 0%
5. 100% 50% 0%

Note:

Failure to submit a Group Member Appraisal Form will result in a zero appraisal being recorded against your name.
 Group Member Appraisal Form

The bases of this evaluation are your group member’s contribution and involvement in this assignment.

Group members should be appraised using the following bases:

100% ● Group member attended all group meetings or, if unable to attend, contacted the
group in advance and came to an alternative arrangement with which the majority
of group members was happy.
● Group member contributed to group discussion.
● Group member always offered to help or volunteered for tasks.
● Group member had assigned tasks completed on time.
50% ● Group member missed group meetings without making alternative arrangements
with other group members.
● Group member’s assigned tasks were poorly or only partly completed.
● Group member did not contribute to the group effort or volunteer for tasks.
0% ● Group member attended few, if any, meetings and made no contribution to the
assignment.

Name of student: LAKSHMAN A/L PARAMNATHAN

Instructions:

Place the name of each member of your group in the space provided below. Appraise each person named by circling one of the totals shown below
(i.e. 100%, 50% or 0%)

Group Member
1. CHAN JIA FEI 100% 50% 0%
2. NG YEW SHENG 100% 50% 0%
3. THAM MING KE 100% 50% 0%
 4. YEAP YEE SHEN 100% 50% 0%
5. 100% 50% 0%

Note:

Failure to submit a Group Member Appraisal Form will result in a zero appraisal being recorded against your name.
 Group Member Appraisal Form

The bases of this evaluation are your group member’s contribution and involvement in this assignment.

Group members should be appraised using the following bases:

100% ● Group member attended all group meetings or, if unable to attend, contacted the
group in advance and came to an alternative arrangement with which the majority
of group members was happy.
● Group member contributed to group discussion.
● Group member always offered to help or volunteered for tasks.
● Group member had assigned tasks completed on time.
50% ● Group member missed group meetings without making alternative arrangements
with other group members.
● Group member’s assigned tasks were poorly or only partly completed.
● Group member did not contribute to the group effort or volunteer for tasks.
0% ● Group member attended few, if any, meetings and made no contribution to the
assignment.

Name of student: NG YEW SHENG

Instructions:

Place the name of each member of your group in the space provided below. Appraise each person named by circling one of the totals shown below
(i.e. 100%, 50% or 0%)

Group Member
1. CHAN JIA FEI 100% 50% 0%
2. LAKSHMAN A/L 100% 50% 0%
PARAMNATHAN
 3. THAM MING KE 100% 50% 0%
4. YEAP YEE SHEN 100% 50% 0%
5. 100% 50% 0%

Note:

Failure to submit a Group Member Appraisal Form will result in a zero appraisal being recorded against your name.
 Group Member Appraisal Form

The bases of this evaluation are your group member’s contribution and involvement in this assignment.

Group members should be appraised using the following bases:

100% ● Group member attended all group meetings or, if unable to attend, contacted the
group in advance and came to an alternative arrangement with which the majority
of group members was happy.
● Group member contributed to group discussion.
● Group member always offered to help or volunteered for tasks.
● Group member had assigned tasks completed on time.
50% ● Group member missed group meetings without making alternative arrangements
with other group members.
● Group member’s assigned tasks were poorly or only partly completed.
● Group member did not contribute to the group effort or volunteer for tasks.
0% ● Group member attended few, if any, meetings and made no contribution to the
assignment.

Name of student: THAM MING KE

Instructions:

Place the name of each member of your group in the space provided below. Appraise each person named by circling one of the totals shown below
(i.e. 100%, 50% or 0%)

Group Member
1. CHAN JIA FEI 100% 50% 0%
2. LAKSHMAN A/L 100% 50% 0%
PARAMNATHAN
 3. NG YEW SHENG 100% 50% 0%
4. YEAP YEE SHEN 100% 50% 0%
5. 100% 50% 0%

Note:

Failure to submit a Group Member Appraisal Form will result in a zero appraisal being recorded against your name.
 Group Member Appraisal Form

The bases of this evaluation are your group member’s contribution and involvement in this assignment.

Group members should be appraised using the following bases:

100% ● Group member attended all group meetings or, if unable to attend, contacted the
group in advance and came to an alternative arrangement with which the majority
of group members was happy.
● Group member contributed to group discussion.
● Group member always offered to help or volunteered for tasks.
● Group member had assigned tasks completed on time.
50% ● Group member missed group meetings without making alternative arrangements
with other group members.
● Group member’s assigned tasks were poorly or only partly completed.
● Group member did not contribute to the group effort or volunteer for tasks.
0% ● Group member attended few, if any, meetings and made no contribution to the
assignment.

Name of student: YEAP YEE SHEN

Instructions:

Place the name of each member of your group in the space provided below. Appraise each person named by circling one of the totals shown below
(i.e. 100%, 50% or 0%)

Group Member
1. CHAN JIA FEI 100% 50% 0%
2. LAKSHMAN A/L 100% 50% 0%
PARAMNATHAN
 3. NG YEW SHENG 100% 50% 0%
4. THAM MING KE 100% 50% 0%
5. 100% 50% 0%

Note:

Failure to submit a Group Member Appraisal Form will result in a zero appraisal being recorded against your name.

Table of Content

No. Content Page Number

1.0 Introduction 1

2.0 Question 1

2.1 What is the efficient market hypothesis? 1

2.2 What does it imply for the performance of mutual funds? 1-2

3.0 Question 2
3.1 Blue Chip Growth Fund performance in recent years 3-4

3.2 Benchmark Performance Used for an Assessment 4

3.3 Measurement of Investment performance 4-5

4.0 Question 3

4.1 Response to the claim that his success is luck 5-6

4.2 Investment Style 6

5.0 Question 4

5.1 Recommendation 7-8

5.2 Reason to Invest 8

6.0 Conclusion 9

7.0 Reference 10

8.0 Appendices 11-12

Introduction

Larry J. Puglia joined T.Rowe as a financial services analyst in 1990. He has been the fund
manager from the company's founding in mid-1993, making him one of the category's longest-
serving executives (Reichart, K 2019). In 2016, He was an outstanding fund manager who had
managed a total amount of $33billion fund of T Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund (TRBCX)
for 23 years. Puglia has generally performed open-ended mutual funds since 1997, achieving
higher average returns for his investors. The fund generated an average yearly return of 10.12
percent.

2.0 What is the efficient market hypothesis? What does it imply for the performance of
mutual funds?

2.1 What is the efficient market hypothesis?

Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) is a theory that signals that it is impossible for investors to
gain profit in the stock market by using fundamental analysis or technical analysis. This is
because they believe the price of the stock in the market has been fully reflected by the
information that can be obtained by the public or even private information. EMH argues that
fundamental analysis is useless because it is based on the past performance of the company, and
it will have no effect on the company current stock price. In the efficient market, it is the market
where there are large numbers of rational, profit ‘maximisers’ that are actively competing with
each other (Open Learn 2021). They are trying to predict future market values of individual
securities, and all of the important current information will be available for the most participants
in the market. Thus, all of the market value of the securities will truly reflect the intrinsic value
of the securities.

The efficient market hypothesis can be further classified into three forms, which are weak form
efficient market hypothesis, semi-strong form efficient market hypothesis and strong form
efficient market hypothesis. For the weak form efficient market hypothesis, current market price
reflect all security-market historical information, including the historical sequence of prices,
rates of return, trading volume data, and other market-generated information, so in this form
technical analysis is useless due to the technical analysis is believe that stock market will repeat
its history means no matter what happen the price pattern will repeat from the past. Weak form

1
EMH means that there is no correlation between successive prices, so studying the past price
movement will not enable the investor to gain profit. For the semi-strong form EMH, current
market price will reflect all the available public information thus the use of fundamental analysis
also will not enable the investor to earn excessive return. While for strong-form EMH, it stated
that the current market price reflects all the price information no matter publicly or privately
available information. This implies that no group of investors should be able to consistently
derive above-average, risk-adjusted rates of return. This assumes perfect markets in which all
information is cost-free and available to everyone at the same time.

2.2 What does it imply for the performance of mutual funds?

The efficient market hypothesis states that the market participant will not earn the rate of return
that is abnormal because the information available in the market reflects the stock price. But the
mutual fund can make use of the diversification strategy and hold different securities in order to
diversify the risk in one security. From the return of T.Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund
TRBCX, we can see that the return percentage would not be very high but it is also slightly
outperforming the market (Refer to Appendix 1). This means that the market is not in weak form
EMH, because if the market is in weak form EMH, the mutual fund manager can easily make use
of the technical analysis to predict the stock price and profit from the market. If the market is in
semi-strong form EMH, the fund manager can make use of the fundamental analysis and the
publicly available information to find out the intrinsic value. The market is in strong form EMH,
and the mutual fund holds more securities and diversifies the risk, therefore it can fit the efficient
market hypothesis and move consistently with the efficient market. This is the reason why Puglia
can be outperforming every year since it has huge capital and he diversifies the risk as much as
he can.

2
3.0 How well has the Blue Chip Growth Fund performed in recent years? In making the
assessment, what benchmark(s) are you using? How do you measure investment
performance?

Growth rate per year(%)

Performance 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

TRBCX 1.50 18.41 41.57 9.28 11.15

S&P 500 2.11 16.00 32.39 13.69 1.38

Table 1: Growth Rate from 2011 to 2015 for TRBCX and S&P 500 (refer to appendix 2)

3.1 Blue Chip Growth Fund performance in recent years

From both a historical and statistical perspective, the Blue Chip Growth Fund has performed
extraordinarily results in recent years. As we can see table 1 shows the recent years from 2011 to
2013, the performance of T.Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund (TRBCX) has increased
significantly from 1.5% to 41.75 %. It can be said that their performance was outstanding
compared to the common benchmark, Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500). However in
2014, there was a sharp decline of 32.29% which led to 9.28% of total returns in the year but it
went back to track in 2015 which rose to 11.15% of total returns. Other than that, the annual
average return for TRBCX was 14.45% which indicated that if investors invest a capital of
10,000 USD on 6 June 2011, it will compound to a total return which amounts to 9,639 USD
after 5 years (refer to appendix 3). Overall, the average of total returns in recent years for
TRBCX was higher than the S&P 500 which was around 1.64% (refer to appendix 4). In short,
TRBCX has performed a higher-than-average return compared to the S&P 500.

Furthermore, due to his impressive results, Larry J. Puglia has ranked 20th among 558 United
States equity mutual funds with a single portfolio manager. Not only that, MorningStar has also
given the fund a five-star rating for its extraordinary five-year performance. It was among the top
ten performing funds out of 1,285 mutual funds that invest in large capitalization equities. The
fund has been awarded one of Investor's Business Daily's (IBD) Best Mutual Funds for 2016.

3
Money Magazine has constantly nominated the fund as the best fund of the year, and Kiplinger's
Personal Finance Magazine has rated it one of the top 25 funds to invest in.

3.2 Benchmark Performance Used for an Assessment

The fund's historical performance is the primary benchmark which is considered to evaluate its
performance. Referring to appendix 3, The Blue Chip Growth Fund has increased significantly
from 1 year duration to 10 years duration of growth. It indicated that TRCBX was improving
their growth rate over the years. Also, it shows a USD 10,000 investment in the Blue Chip
Growth Fund on June 6, 2006 would have grown to USD 24,154 on June 6, 2016.

Morningstar, a financial services firm in the United States, acts as a benchmark for evaluating
the fund's performance. Blue Chip Growth Fund received a four-star rating from Morningstar for
its overall performance, placing it in the top 32.5 percent of 1,482 funds in the same category. A
high rating could imply that the fund has low risk or generating higher-than-average returns, or
maybe both.

The Blue Chip Growth Fund's historical total returns are compared to the S&P 500 to assess the
fund's performance. The Blue Chip Growth Fund in the 3-year to 10-year total return 14.29
percent and 9.22 percent, and S&P 500 is 11.46 percent to 7.56 percent as shown in appendix 4.
Therefore, a comparison can be made between TRCBX and S&P 500.

3.3 Measurement of Investment performance

The net asset value of a firm is calculated by dividing its assets minus its liabilities by the
number of outstanding units (Investor gov n.d.). It is closely related to mutual funds, as it assists
investors in determining whether the fund is undervalued or overpriced. NAV can be used to
compare the performance of various funds or market benchmarks for instance, S&P 500 Index .

Annual total return is a measurement that evaluates a fund's performance over time and can be
used to compare it to the performance of other funds. Within a particular time, all returns,
including dividends, capital gains, interest, and distributions, will be considered into the
calculation.

4
A short-term investment typically lasts 3 to 12 months, while a long-term investment lasts longer
than a year. Total return would be used to analyse both long-term and short-term performance,
whereas 5-year average return or 10-year average return of the investment will be used to
evaluate only long-term performance.

4.0 What would Puglia say in response to the claim that his success is luck? What is his
investment style?

4.1 Response to the claim that his success is luck

Puglia did not claim that his success in the mutual fund was due to luck. From the mutual fund
performance, we can see that de had managed to achieve the average annual total return of
10.12% which is higher than the S&P 500 return of 9.12%. He has managed to outperform the
competitor in both the bear and bull market. The success is not easy, Puglia uses his unique
analysing and filtering skill to find out the company that has an opportunity to have capital
growth in the long term and invest in that particular company. He will select the stock and
include it in the portfolio and the stock selected must have leading market position, efficient
management and have high return on the invested capital.

The first criteria of the stock selected is the company must have a leading market position. Puglia
will look for the company that has good opportunities in the growth of market share and size. In
order for the company to increase their market share, the company must have cost advantage.
Cost advantage means that the company can produce the goods or services with a relatively
lower cost compared to the competitor and will enable the company to lower the selling price
and be more competitive in the market. At the same time, Puglia will also ensure that the
industry of the company still has room for growth and thus the industry selected must not be a
deteriorating industry. Besides, the fundamentals of the company must also be strong. Strong
fundamentals will enable the company to withstand all the issues and will not face any liquidity
or credit problems. This will help the company to achieve above average earning growth,
increasing margin, strong free cash flow and increasing return on equity.

5
Furthermore, the management of the company must show a good track record. This is to ensure
that management will manage the capital efficiently and allocate the company capital to the
business activities that will bring the highest return. Only with efficient management, the
company can generate superior returns.

The selection of the securities inside the portfolio is not only the key to success, but Puglia’s
success also results from the use of a highly skilled global research team that included more than
250 industry analysts and portfolio managers in charge of other funds to assist him in the
analysis process. The use of an analyst team allows him to speed up the screening process and
allow him to analyse more than 2,300 public listed companies around the world. They will
provide Puglia with the most professional advice.

4.2 Investment Style

Puglia's investment style is passive investing. He uses a buy and hold investing strategies. Unlike
other investors, Puglia does not invest by following the current trend of the market to make short
term capital gains. Puglia will choose the well-established large and medium size company to
invest in. It is a type of strategy that looks for the companies that have potential to grow above
the average earnings. This type of investing strategy is able to reduce transaction costs and tax
because the buy and sell of security will not occur frequently.

5.0 Suppose that you are an advisor to wealthy individuals in the area of equity
investments. In 2016, would you recommend investing in Puglia’s Blue Chip Growth Fund
and why?

5.1 Recommendation

Based on my opinion, I strongly encourage Puglia's Blue Chip Growth Fund would be a good
investment choice for affluent investors. Larry J. Puglia, the fund's manager, did an excellent job
managing the fund from 1993 to 2016, with a return of 10.12% a year outperforming the
benchmark of 9.12% in the S & P 500 index (Kenneth M. & Dorothy C. 2017). With this
effectiveness of Larry J. Puglia stock management over the years, I would recommend investors
to invest in year 2016, as he been honoured with IBD Best Mutual Funds 2016 Award winner,

6
according to Investor's Business Daily which has established a high degree of investor
confidence as well as providing an example and benchmark for competitor funds in both bull and
bear markets (NASDAQ 2016). Therefore, the fund's long-term viability and market-beating
record, as well as Puglia's investment experience, may enable the Blue-Chip Growth Fund to
weather the future market storms and maximise investors' wealth.

5.2 Reason to invest

The main reason the Blue-Chip Growth Fund has been a solid foundation is because of Larry J.
Puglia strategy. He prefers firms with above-average long-term growth potential, significant free
cash flow, and capital allocation expertise. While the fund has a well-balanced portfolio, it
focuses on businesses with significant growth potential. Aside from that, Blue Chip Growth
Fund served as a platform for investors to diversify their portfolios by investing in a variety of
securities from various industries. Puglia's management allows investors to benefit from higher-
than-average returns on occasion, as well as skill in securities analysis since the Blue-Chip
Growth Fund's high rating might imply that it is a low-risk investment with above-average
returns compared to S&P 500 and Large Growth Fund performance (T. Rowe Price 2021).

Besides that, Puglia had the support of a well-known worldwide team of over 250 industry
experts and portfolio managers which contributed towards his successful investment decisions.
With the help of his research team, he was able to handle the accounts for over two-thirds of the
worldwide market based on market value that examined over 2,300 publicly traded businesses
throughout the world (T. Rowe Price 2021). In addition, Larry Puglia has worked with a variety
of analysts over the course of his 24-year career, and he has always put research findings and
recommendations of the research team to good stock selection process.

He was able to focus on finding firms with sustained free cash flow growth with the help of the
research team and strong corporate resources. Therefore, Puglia was able to invest in many well-
established medium and large-sized companies with leading market positions, competent
seasoned management, and significant investment income because the Blue-Chip Growth Fund's
purpose was long-term capital appreciation. This could significantly boost investor confidence
while also establishing trust in the investing organisation (Debbie Carlson 2021).

7
Finally, I recommend that investors can invest in the Puglia’s Blue Chip Growth Fund in 2016
and continue to do so for the long term since the Blue Chip Growth Fund has had some
remarkable performances over the past decade, according to their previous performance together
with Puglia’s management style. Larry Puglia's competence, thinking, and leadership were
evident during his stint as a fund manager, and long-term investments should be considered by
investors if they are seeking higher returns. Despite the fact that Puglia's investment approach
may not always align with the markets, and the fund's returns may differ from the S&P 500, it is
recommended that affluent individuals should participate in the fund in 2016 due to the fund's
long-term viability and market-beating history.

8
6.0 Conclusion

What defines real blue chips? They are stocks that produce "durable, sustainable earnings-per-
share growth," according to him (William R 1998). From the statement above, we know that
Larry J. Puglia spent most of the time on blue chip stocks and analysing them through his
professional and experience. His investment results include defying academic theories,
outperforming the S&P 500, and staying in the large cap growth group throughout time. As a
result, investors and other observers questioned if Puglia's outperformance could be sustained,
especially with $30 billion in assets to invest.

9
7.0 References

Open Learn 2021, The Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH), viewed 17 July 2021,
<https://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-management/money/accounting-and-finance/the-
financial-markets-context/content-section-3>.

Kenneth M., Dorothy C. 2017, Larry Puglia and the T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund,
viewed on 14 July 2021, <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2997712>
NASDAQ 2016, Long-Term Focus Helps Top Large-, Mid-, Small-Cap Funds Excel, viewed on
14 July 2021., < https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/long-term-focus-helps-top-large-mid-small-
cap-funds-excel-2016-03-18>

T. Rowe Price 2021, Blue Chip Growth Fund (TRBCX), viewed on 15th July 2021,
<https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/tools/fund-research/TRBCX?
src=USIFundRedirect&adobe_mc_sdid=SDID%3D7D41B5FAB417AEB7-34981C7524194F9F
%7CMCORGID%3DD15D15F354F647770A4C98A4%40AdobeOrg%7CTS
%3D1626603008&adobe_mc_ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F>

Debbie, C 2021, How T. Rowe’s Larry Puglia Beat the S&P Over 28 Years, viewed on 16 July
2021, <https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-t-rowes-larry-puglia-beat-the-s-p-over-28-years-
51620386100>

William, R 1998, INVESTING IT: INVESTING WITH LARRY PUGLIA; T. Rowe Price Blue
Chip Growth Fund, viewed 15 July 2021,
<https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/12/business/investing-it-investing-with-larry-puglia-t-rowe-
price-blue-chip-growth-fund.html>.

Reichart, K 2019, Why T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Is Among the Best, viewed 15 July 2021,
<https://www.morningstar.com/articles/940929/why-t-rowe-price-blue-chip-is-among-the-best>.

Investor gov n.d., Net Asset Value, viewed 15 July 2021,

<https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/net-asset-value>.

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8.0 Appendix

Appendix 1: Average return of T.Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund

Appendix 2: Growth performance from 2006 to 2015 of TRBCX

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Appendix 3: Performance of growth of $10,000

Appendix 4: total return of TRBCX in 5 Years duration+

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