The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average indices are proxies for the broader US stock market. You notice one day that the S&P 500 closed UP by 0.20%, while the DJIA closed DOWN by 0.20%.  

Explain how it is possible for one proxy (S&P 500) to have a positive return while the other (DJIA) has a negative return on any given day. Include in your explanation some names that could have caused this discrepancy. Which return (S&P 500 or DJIA) is more indicative of the 'true market return'?

To facilitate your analysis, please refer to the link below that shows the components of the S&P 500 and DJIA.  Hint: Recall the S&P 500 contains the largest 500 US companies where the weight of each name is proportional to its market value. The DJIA is a price-weighted index comprised of select 30 names representing certain industries.

The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average indices are proxies for the broader US stock market. You notice one day that the S&P 500 closed UP by 0.20%, while the DJIA closed DOWN by 0.20%.

Explain how it is possible for one proxy (S&P 500) to have a positive return while the other (DJIA) has a negative return on any given day. Include in your explanation some names that could have caused this discrepancy. Which return (S&P 500 or DJIA) is more indicative of the 'true market return'?

To facilitate your analysis, please refer to the link below that shows the components of the S&P 500 and DJIA.  Hint: Recall the S&P 500 contains the largest 500 US companies where the weight of each name is proportional to its market value. The DJIA is a price-weighted index comprised of select 30 names representing certain industries.

ROSETTA STONE INC.: CHANGING THE WAY PEOPLE LEARN LANGUAGES

Rosetta Stone Inc. is a leading provider of technology-based language learning solutions. Acclaimed for the speed, power and effectiveness of its Dynamic Immersion® method, Rosetta Stone has revolutionized language learning.

Rosetta Stone Inc. is changing the way the world learns languages. Rosetta Stone provides interactive solutions that are acclaimed for the lower speed and power to unlock the natural language-learning ability in everyone. Available in more than 30 languages, Rosetta Stone language learning solutions are used by schools, organizations, and millions of individuals in over 150 countries throughout the world.

            Rosetta Stone’s mission was to change the way people learn languages. The company blended language learning with technology at a time when globalization connected more and more individuals and institutions to each other.

The potential for profit in the language learning industry encouraged management to become more proactive and aggressive about Rosetta Stone’s growth. In 2007, an industry analysis commissioned from The Nielsen Company, a market research firm, found that the language learning industry produced over $83 billion in consumer spending. Of this amount, $32 billion, or 39 percent of the total, was spent on self-study options. In the United States, the industry generated $5 billion in consumer spending in 2007, of which $2 billion was for self-study. Over 90 percent of the $83 billion was spent outside the United States.

The company’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange brought capital and resources that placed Rosetta Stone in an exciting and promising position. Tom Adams, President and Chief Executive Officer, said “We are excited about hardware trends and the potential of educational technology in general. We are working in new ways with online socialization. We see our primary opportunity as growing through our own innovation… With added financial resources we can entertain mergers and acquisitions down the line.” To effectively compete, Rosetta Stone will have to push product and service development as well as attract and retain talented personnel.

Case Study Questions (25 marks each):

1. How should the company move forward in order to sustain its momentum? Discuss.

2. How can Rosetta Stone grow internationally? Elaborate.

3. Under which strategic type, can Rosetta Stone Inc. fall? Elaborate.

4. Choose any two variables from the societal environment and discuss whether they can be considered as opportunities or threats for Rosetta Stone Inc.

1. Identify a most suitable goods/services business in which innovation can be done on the basis of the customer need in the GCC countries and the kind of eco-systems in the region, and where is such eco-system located. (You need to identify goods/services plus its required eco-system and the location of the eco-system.

2. What steps could be used to scale up the business concept. Mention any five steps.

3. What could be most probably innovation in that business and what effects might appear in the society because of your innovation? Mention any three effects

. 4. Identify your current career plans. Also indicate what kind of innovation could have a major impact in your planned career field, and what would be that impact.

List the exact references as footnotes on the respective pages, for the

Exercise 2

An article in Business Harvard Review argues that the size of a company greatly affects the amount of innovation you see, not only in total but also when measured as innovation per employee. To illustrate the point, it discusses research on the relationship between the size of various cities and the total amount of innovation that occurs. Data illustrating the relationship is contained in the file innovation.xls(Table Below). How would you describe the relationship and what implications does it have?

Innovation

Write a function average_steps(step_records) that takes a list of records, ie, tuples in the form (date_str, step_count), and returns the average number of steps made across all the records as an unrounded floating point number.

If step_records is an empty list then None should be returned.

Note: You should include and use your total_steps function.

step_records = [('2010-01-01',1),
                ('2010-01-02',2),
                ('2010-01-03',3)]
avg = average_steps(step_records)
print(avg)

2.0

step_records = []
avg = average_steps(step_records)
print(avg)

None

step_records = [('2010-01-01',3),
                ('2010-01-02',3),
                ('2010-01-03',3),
                ('2010-01-04',3),
                ('2010-01-05',3)]
avg = average_steps(step_records)
print(avg)

3.0

Please answer these questions and write a paragragh. (250+words)

1) Is the UN effective/necessary?

2) Would a form of military for enforcement aid the effectiveness of the UN?

3) How else can collective actions be solved without international institutions?

In your own words, describe the "traditional" and "labor union as a collective voice" views of how labor unions impact labor productivity. Be sure to describe the justification that each viewpoint uses to support their argument.

(In your own words plagarism check)

University of Waterloo is predicting an at least a 15% reduction in its revenues in the Fall 2020 semester due to a reduced demand for university education caused by the current pandemic. Assume a decreasing returns to scale technology and a competitive market. Also, assume that the market was in the long run equilibrium prior to the outbreak of covid-19. Discuss the short run and long run implications of this reduction for:

1. the choice of output by the university

2. capital and labour choices by the university