After graduating from college last spring with a major in accounting and finance, Jim Hale took a job as an analyst trainee for an investment company in Chicago. His first few weeks were filled with a series of rotations throughout the firm’s various operating units, but this week he was assigned to one of the firm’s traders as an analyst. On his first day, Jim’s boss called him in and told him that he wanted to do some rudimentary analysis of the investment returns of a semiconductor manufacturer called Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD). Specifically, Jim was given the following month-end closing prices for the company spanning the period of November 1, 2011, through November 1, 2012: Date Closing Price Date Closing Price 1-Nov-11 $5.69  1-Jun-12 $5.73 1-Dec-11   5.4  2-Jul-12  4.06  3-Jan-12  6.71 1-Aug-12  3.72 1-Feb-12  7.35 4-Sep-12  3.37 1-Mar-12  8.02  1-Oct-12  2.05 2-Apr-12  7.36 1-Nov-12  1.88 1-May-12  6.08 He was then instructed by his boss to complete the following tasks using the AMD price data (note that AMD paid no dividend during the period being analyzed). Questions 1. Compute AMD’s monthly realized rates of return for the entire year. 2. Calculate the average monthly rate of return for AMD using both the arithmetic and the geometric averages. 3. Calculate the year-end price for AMD, computing the compound value of the beginning-of-year price of $5.69 per share for 12 months at the monthly geometric average rate of return calculated earlier: End-of-YearStockPrice=Beginning-of-YearStockPrice(1+GeometricAverageMonthlyRateofReturn)12End-of-Year  Stock Price=Beginning-of-Year         Stock  Price(1+Geometric  AverageMonthly  Rate of Return)12 4. Compute the annual rate of return for AMD using the beginning and ending stock prices for the period (i.e., $5.69 and $1.88). 5. Now calculate the compound annual rate of return using the geometric average monthly rate of return: CompoundAnnualRateofReturn=(1+GeometricAverageMonthlyRateofReturn)12−1Compound Annual   Rate  of Return=(1+Geometric AverageMonthly Rate of Return)12−1 6. If you were given annual rate of return data for AMD’s or any other company’s stock and you were asked to estimate the average annual rate of return an investor would have earned over the sample period by holding the stock, would you use an arithmetic or a geometric average of the historical rates of return? Explain your response as if you were talking to a client who has had no formal training in finance or investments.

In order to meet the rising demand from an increasing global population, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization had estimated that food production would have to increase by 70 percent to cope with demand. Given the finite supply of arable land and water, producing higher yields through increased farm productivity was seen by many as the only viable option. Biotechnology (Biotech) crops offered one means to increase productivity by offering greater yields while potentially using fewer natural resources such as land, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and water. Driven by these opportunities, in 1996, two different biotech seeds- soybean and cotton- were farmed commercially for the first time. Both were developed by Monsanto, a leading global producer of biotech seeds.
Consider the market for cotton seeds in India. Cotton is a neccessary item having few substitutes especially in the Indian weather. With the increasing denmand for cotton, the cotton farmers were keen to buy the biotech seeds. Monsanto , the biotech seed producing company was a pioneer in cotton seed production. It has been doing business in India since 1949. In 2002, Monsanto, through a joint venture, introduced the first in-the-seed cotton trait biotechnology. This trait served to protect cotton crops against potentially devastating pests, thereby reducing the need for pesticides and improving yields. By 2010, over 40 Indian seed companies had begun to offer similar biotechnology cotton seeds, thereby improving the yield of cotton and making the market competitive. Biotech seeds became very popular and became necessary for cotton production. Suppliers of biotech seeds also became sensitive to changes in price of biotech seeds. By April 2010, the governments of three Indian provinces, collectively accounting for 70 percent of cotton production in the country had established a ceiling price that seed companies could charge farmers for biotech cotton seeds. This was a dramatic departure from the free market mechanisms put in place by the central government since the economic reforms launched in 1991. Companies producing biotech seeds were upset with this decision of the government. They did not understand why the government has to step in and bring down prices in such a competitive market.

1. Consider the market for cotton in India. Draw the demand and supply of cotton production in India and comment on the elasticity.

2. What would be the impact on equilibrium price and quantity of cotton due to the introduction of biotech cotton seeds?

3. Why do you think the biotech cotton seeds producing companies are unhappy with the government's decision of price ceiling on biotech cotton seeds? Explain (with the help of a well-labelled diagram, drawn by hand) how a price ceiling impacts production of a commodity.

4. Suppose, instead of price ceiling, the government announced a subsidy on biotech cotton seeds, to help the farmers producing cotton. Explain (with the help of a well-labelled diagram, drawn by hand) how this would impact the market equilibrium price and quantity?

ANSWER ASAP

In order to meet the rising demand from an increasing global population, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization had estimated that food production would have to increase by 70 percent to cope with demand. Given the finite supply of arable land and water, producing higher yields through increased farm productivity was seen by many as the only viable option. Biotechnology (Biotech) crops offered one means to increase productivity by offering greater yields while potentially using fewer natural resources such as land, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and water. Driven by these opportunities, in 1996, two different biotech seeds- soybean and cotton- were farmed commercially for the first time. Both were developed by Monsanto, a leading global producer of biotech seeds.

Consider the market for cotton seeds in India. Cotton is a necessary item having few substitutes especially in the Indian weather. With the increasing demand for cotton, the cotton farmers were keen to buy the biotech seeds. Monsanto , the biotech seed producing company was a pioneer in cotton seed production. It has been doing business in India since 1949. In 2002, Monsanto, through a joint venture, introduced the first in-the-seed cotton trait biotechnology. This trait served to protect cotton crops against potentially devastating pests, thereby reducing the need for pesticides and improving yields. By 2010, over 40 Indian seed companies had begun to offer similar biotechnology cotton seeds, thereby improving the yield of cotton and making the market competitive. Biotech seeds became very popular and became necessary for cotton production. Suppliers of biotech seeds also became sensitive to changes in price of biotech seeds. By April 2010, the governments of three Indian provinces, collectively accounting for 70 percent of cotton production in the country had established a ceiling price that seed companies could charge farmers for biotech cotton seeds. This was a dramatic departure from the free market mechanisms put in place by the central government since the economic reforms launched in 1991. Companies producing biotech seeds were upset with this decision of the government. They did not understand why the government has to step in and bring down prices in such a competitive market. (15marks)

1. Consider the market for cotton in India. Draw the demand and supply of cotton production in India and comment on the elasticity.

2. What would be the impact on equilibrium price and quantity of cotton due to the introduction of biotech cotton seeds?

3. Why do you think the biotech cotton seeds producing companies are unhappy with the government's decision of price ceiling on biotech cotton seeds? Explain (with the help of a well-labelled diagram, drawn by hand) how a price ceiling impacts production of a commodity.

4. Suppose, instead of price ceiling, the government announced a subsidy on biotech cotton seeds, to help the farmers producing cotton. Explain (with the help of a well-labelled diagram, drawn by hand) how this would impact the market equilibrium price and quantity?

Valuation: Stock Valuation

Before Regional Bank was bought by Bank of America, Tina Brown was considering the purchase of Regional Bank's common stock. Given Regional Bank's recent merger with the Southeastern powerhouse, Bank South, and talks of penetration into the Florida market via a takeover of Barnett Bank, Tina felt Regional Bank would be a solid "buy and hold" as it continued to increase its market share through aggressive growth by acquisition.

While Tina was convinced she wanted to own Regional Bank, with all the price volatility surrounding the recent speculations, she was not sure if the price was above or below the stock's intrinsic value. She decided to derive the price of Regional Bank's common stock by using the Gordon Growth Model (Constant Growth Model).

To use the Gordon Growth Model, Tina had to first calculate Regional Bank's required rate of return on their common stock. The risk free rate, as proxied by the yield on a three month Treasury Bill, was 6%. The return on the market, as proxied by the return on the Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500), was 10%. Nations Bank had a beta of 1.75.

Past dividend payments also had to be known. Tina was not sure how far back into the future she should go to retrieve the dividend payment information, so she arbitrarily stopped in 1987. Between 1987 and 1990, Regional Bank seemed to have very different payout amounts. Not fully understanding the reasons behind these differences, Tina decided to consider two periods for analysis: from 1987-1995 and from 1990-1995. The dividend information that Tina recovered is shown below in Table 1.

Table 1

Questions

1. Consider the first time period from 1987-1995. Use the Gordon Growth Model to determine the price of Nations Bank's common stock.
2. Consider the second time period from 1990-1995. Use the Gordon Growth Model to determine the price of Nations Bank's common stock.
3. The answers for questions 2 and 3 are very different. What does this indicate, in general, about the Gordon Growth Model? (Hint–The observed market price of Nations Bank's common stock is $70.25.)
4. What effect does the stock's required rate of return have on the calculation of its stock price when using the Gordon Growth Model?
5. If you felt that Nations Bank's last year dividend of $2.00 was going to be paid in that constant amount throughout the remainder of the company's life (i.e. zero growth), what would be the value of the stock today?
6. Based on your response to question 6, what is the relationship between the present value of a dividend paid one year from now, a dividend paid ten years from now and a dividend paid one hundred years from now?

You need to create a Java class library to support a program to simulate a Point- of-Sale (POS) system.

General Requirements:

• You should create your programs with good programming style and form using proper blank spaces, indentation and braces to make your code easy to read and understand;

• You should create identifiers with sensible names;

• You should make comments to describe your code segments where they are necessary for

  readers to understand what your code intends to achieve.

• Logical structures and statements are properly used for specific purposes.

• Program Requirements

0. You create three classes: ProductPrices, ShoppingCart and CashRegister in the filePOSLib.java to support a POS system implemented in the program POSmain.java, which is provided.

   The POSmain program takes three file names from command line arguments. The first file contains a list of products and their prices; the second and third files are lists of items in two shopping carts of two customers. The POSmain program should first read the price file, then read each of the cart files to load a list of items in a shopping cart and store them in a ShoppingCartobjects. The price file may contain a variable number of products and the cart files may contain a variable number of items.

   POSmain then will create a CashRegister object by passing the price list to it. The POSmainprogram then will use the CashRegister object to scan items in a cart and print a receipt for each shopping cart one by one. At last, POSmain will use the CashRegister object to print a report for the day.

   The three classes you will create are described in the following UML design class diagrams. You must implement all specified fields and methods in the classes. You are free to add private fields and methods to CashRegister class if appropriate.

ProductPrices

-products: ArrayList<String>
-prices: ArrayList<Double>

+put(String product, double price)
+get(String product): double

• The put method will store the price for the product in the products and prices fields, respectively;

• The get method will return the price for the product.

ShoppingCart

-items: ArrayList<String>

+addItem(String): void
+getAllItems(): ArrayList<String>

• The addItem method will add the product to the shopping cart;

• The getAllItems method will return all items in the shopping cart.

CashRegister

-productPrices: ProductPrices
......

+CashRegister(ProductPrices)
+scanAllItemsInCart(ShoppingCart): void
+printReceipt(): void
+printReportForTheDay(): void
......

• The constructor will initialise the CashRegister object with the product prices;

• The scanAllItemsInCart will examine all items in the shopping cart and prepare to

  print the receipt for the shopping cart and report for the day;

• The printReceipt method will print the product name, price, quantity, subtotal, and

  total purchase for a shopping cart in the alphabetical order of the product names. Refer to the Testing section for the receipt format;

• • The printReportForTheDay method will print a report for the day in the alphabetical order of the product names for the cash register. Refer to the Testing section for the report format.

• You need to understand the POSmain program and observe the sample output in the Testing section to understand more how the program will work with the classes.

With 3-digit rounding after each operation find the value of:

a. 0.4 + 0.4 + … + 0.4 + 100 (where the 0.4 is repeated 100 times)

b. 100+0.4 + 0.4 + … + 0.4 (where the 0.4 is repeated 100 times)

c. Find the absolute and relative error in parts a and b.

Jackie notices everyone wearing Converse sneakers on the first day of school. Ever the fashionista, this will likely affect:

Multiple Choice

• Jackie's income, as she now needs to buy Converse and will have less to spend on other goods.

• Jackie's preferences for shoes, since she feels as though she needs them now.

• Jackie's expectations of future prices, since the price of Converse will likely go up because they're getting so popular.

• the prices of related goods, since other shoes will be less popular and cost less now.

Assume that Techtron is a constant growth company with a required rate of return of 13 percent whose last dividend (D0, which was paid yesterday) was $2.00, and whose dividend is expected to grow indefinitely at a 5 percent rate.

a. What is the firm’s expected dividend stream over the next 3 years?                         
b. What is the firm’s current stock price?
c. What is the stock's expected value 1 year from now?            
d. What are the expected dividend yield, the capital gains yield, and the total return for Techtron during the first year.