9. Such layoffs generally occur in the context of corporate restructurings. To the extent that the market
10. Earnings contain information about recent sales and costs. This information is useful for projecting
future growth rates and cash flows. Thus, unexpectedly low earnings often lead market participants to
true for unexpectedly high earnings.
11. The covariance is a more appropriate measure of a security’s risk in a well-diversified portfolio
because the covariance reflects the effect of the security on the variance of the portfolio. Investors are
12. If we assume that the market has not stayed constant during the past three years, then the lack in
movement of Mid-South Electric’s stock price only indicates that the stock either has a standard
deviation or a beta that is very near to zero. The large amount of movement in Tech Flyer’s stock price
does not imply that the firm’s beta is high. Total volatility (the price fluctuation) is a function of both
Flyer is high.
13. The wide fluctuations in the price of oil stocks do not indicate that these stocks are a poor investment.
If an oil stock is purchased as part of a well-diversified portfolio, only its contribution to the risk of
the entire portfolio matters. This contribution is measured by systematic risk or beta. Since price
to a portfolio.
14. The statement is false. If a security has a negative beta, investors would want to hold the asset to reduce
the variability of their portfolios. Those assets will have expected returns that are lower than the risk-
free rate. To see this, examine the Capital Asset Pricing Model:
Solutions to Questions and Problems
NOTE: All end-of-chapter problems were solved using a spreadsheet. Many problems require multiple
steps. Due to space and readability constraints, when these intermediate steps are included in this solutions
without rounding during any step in the problem.
Basic