Suppose that there are many stocks in the security market and that the characteristics of stocks A and B are given as follows:
Stock Expected Return Standard Deviation
A 14% 5%
B 15% 13%
Correlation = –1
(a) Suppose that it is possible to borrow at the risk-free rate, rf. What must be the value of the risk-free rate? (Hint: Think about constructing a risk-free portfolio from stocks A and B.)

The wall street journal reported that walmart stores inc. is planning to lay off 2,300 employees at its sam's club warehouse unit. approximately half of the layoffs will be hourly employees (the wall street journal, january 25-26, 2014). suppose the following data represent the percentage of hourly employees laid off for 15 sam's club stores. 55 56 44 43 44 56 60 62 57 45 36 38 50 69 65 (a) compute the mean and median percentage of hourly employees being laid off at these stores. (b) compute the first and third quartiles. (c) compute the range and interquartile range. (d) compute the variance and standard deviation. (e) do the data contain any outliers? (f) based on the sample data, does it appear that walmart is meeting its goal for reducing the number of hourly employees?

Advertisers are usually very conscious of their audience. choose an issue of a popular magazine such as time, sports illustrated, vanity fair, rolling stone, or the like. from that issue select three advertisements to analyze. try to determine the audience being appealed to in each advertisement and analyze the appeals used to persuade buyers. how might the appeals differ is the ads were designed to persuade a different audience.

Problem page a medical equipment industry manufactures x-ray machines. the unit cost c (the cost in dollars to make each x-ray machine) depends on the number of machines made. if x machines are made, then the unit cost is given by the function =cx+−0.3x2126x31,935 . how many machines must be made to minimize the unit cost?