1. Starting with the first letter of your last name(Vincent), find a U.S. publicly traded firm with a ticker symbol starting with that same letter. Next, go 5 letters further into the alphabet and choose again. If you reach the end of the alphabet, continue counting from the start. Stop when you have 5 firms.
For example, I would start with ‘K’ for Kozberg and I might pick Coca Cola because it has the symbol KO. Since K is the 11th letter in the alphabet, I would next go to the 16th, then 21st, 26th, and finally 5th. So I would also choose firms with a P, U, Z and E.
2. Give the names, ticker symbols, and betas for each firm. You can find all this information on Yahoo! Finance. The betas can be found under the key statistics link of any stock page.
3. Calculate the beta of an equally weighted portfolio of the 5 stocks you have chosen.
4. If the risk-free rate were 4% and the risk premium 8%, what would your expected return on equity be to the nearest .01%?
5. Choose two other student’s portfolios. Compare and contrast the risk and returns of their portfolios to yours. Which would you prefer as an investor and why?