8. If we assume that the market has not stayed constant during the past three years, then the lack in
movement of Southern Co.’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 Texas Instruments’ (TIs’) stock
9. 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
10. 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
manual, rounding may appear to have occurred. However, the final answer for each problem is found
without rounding during any step in the problem.
Basic
1. The portfolio weight of an asset is total investment in that asset divided by the total portfolio value.
First, we will find the portfolio value, which is:
Total value = 145($47) + 130($86)