It is July 16. A company has a portfolio of stocks worth $100 million. The beta of the portfolio is 1.2. The company would like to use the CME December futures contract on the S&P 500 to change the beta of the portfolio to 0.5 during the period July 16 to November 16. The index futures price is 2,000 and each contract is on $250 times the index.
A) What position should the company take?
B) Suppose that the company changes its mind and decides to increase the beta of the portfolio from 1.2 to 1.5. What position in futures contracts should it take?

You own a nonunion company with 93 nonexempt employees. all of these employ- ees pack books into boxes for shipment to customers throughout the united states. because of wide differences in performance, you have decided to try performance appraisal, something never done before. until now, you have given every worker the same size increase. now you want to measure performance and reward the best performers with bigger increases. without any further information, which of the five types of appraisal formats do you think would be most appropriate? justify your answer. do you anticipate any complaints, or other comments, from employees after you implement your new system?