Varto company has 7,000 units of its sole product in inventory that it produced last year at a cost of $22 each. this year’s model is superior to last year’s, and the 7,000 units cannot be sold at last year’s regular selling price of $35 each. varto has two alternatives for these items: (1) they can be sold to a wholesaler for $8 each or (2) they can be reworked at a cost of $125,000 and then sold for $25 each. prepare an analysis to determine whether varto should sell the products as is or rework them and then sell them.

Carlton industries is considering a new project that they plan to price at $74.00 per unit. the variable costs are estimated at $39.22 per unit and total fixed costs are estimated at $12,085. the initial investment required is $8,000 and the project has an estimated life of 4 years. the firm requires a return of 8 percent. ignore the effect of taxes. what is the degree of operating leverage at the financial break-even level of output?

Sabrina gupta, an investment advisor with a major brokerage firm, was examining wal-mart stores, inc. (wal-mart) stock and its valuation. gupta wondered whether to recommend the stock to any of her new clients or to existing clients who did not currently have wal-mart in their portfolios.her key task was to use an intrinsic value approach to price the shares and to then compare the resulting price with the price at which the stock was traded in the market. gupta wanted to use alternative valuation methods and assumptions to produce intrinsic value estimates for wal-mart stock.she was interested in seeing if the alternative methods would point to a consensus regarding the valuation of the stock and to see if the valuations suggested an investment opportunity given the current market price. methods she contemplated to use were: multi-stage growth modelprice earnings multiplemost valuation methods gupta considered required a common set of inputs: future cash flows to wal-mart investorsgrowth rate of future cash flowsdiscount factor or required rate of return by wal-mart investorsgupta gathered data to determine each of the above.gupta thought that dividends to wal-mart shareholders would adequately capture the cash flows to wal-mart shareholders; she also thought that this approach would simplify her task and she would revisit more complex valuation models if she felt the need.gupta thought that capm would provide her a relatively reliable estimate of the required rate of return. capm based required rate of return can be estimated by using a risk free rate, systematic risk of the firm and equity market risk premium. gupta thought that in a valuation exercise that involve long term cash flows, 10-year government bond yield would be an appropriate risk free rate of return estimate. she checked the 10 year note rate and found out that it was about 3.68%. gupta searched for wal-mart beta in bloomberg. bloomberg estimates betas by regressing the s& p 500 returns on the firm returns over the past two years and arrives at a “raw” beta estimate. bloomberg makes an adjustment in raw beta based on some academic research. gupta is confident that bloomberg adjustment is justified and she uses wal-mart beta estimate of 0.66 in her analysis.while gupta is aware of the importance of emrp assumption, she thinks that bloomberg’s historical estimate of 5.05% is a safe assumption. she is aware of the fact that some studies suggest a larger risk premium of approximately six per cent, while others suggest a much lower forward-looking premium of less than four per cent. she is mindful of the arbitrariness of her assumption, and she takes a note to revisit this issue if her valuations produce unreasonable estimates.anticipated dividend growth (g) is often estimated in a variety of ways.first, observed historical dividend growth can be assumed to continue in a perpetual fashion.second, future dividend growth can be estimated on the basis of recent estimates of analysts.gupta noted that the consensus annual wal-mart dividend for fiscal year 2011 was $1.21, and one respected analyst had estimated the expected constant dividend growth (in perpetuity) at approximately 3%.as the chart suggests, both earnings and dividend growth rates are declining but they seem to be higher than the “respected analyst’s” estimates. gupta decides to use several alternative perpetual growth assumptions to see the impact on price. since gupta decided to use variants of dividend discount model (ddm), she checked the anticipated earnings for 2011. analyst’s estimates suggested $4.10 earnings per share. gupta decided to use 10% growth rate from 2011 to 2012 and assumed a steady decline to 3% in 13 years (until 2024) where the perpetual growth rate of 3% resumes. she also assumed that walmart will increase its dividend payout ratio from 30% to 55% from years 2012 to 2024. you are asked to reproduce gupta’s analysis of multi-stage growth model and double check her valuation by using an earnings multiple. you have all the data you need to conduct the multi stage discounted growth model analysis, but you will need to do some research about the multiples valuation.

Rate of return, standard deviation, coefficient of variation personal finance problem mike is searching for a stock to include in his current stock portfolio. he is interested in hi-tech inc.; he has been impressed with the company's computer products and believes hi-tech is an innovative market player. however, mike realizes that any time you consider a technology stock, risk is a major concern. the rule he follows is to include only securities with a coefficient of variation of returns below 1.07. mike has obtained the following price information for the period 2015 through 2018:hi-tech stock, being growth-oriented, did not pay any dividends during these 4 years. a. calculate the rate of return for each year, 2015 through 2018, for hi-tech stock. b. assume that each year's return is equally probable and calculate the average return over this time period. c. calculate the standard deviation of returns over the past 4 years. (hint: treat this data as a sample.) d. based on b and c determine the coefficient of variation of returns for the security. e. given the calculation in d what should be mike's decision regarding the inclusion of hi-tech stock in his portfolio?