You manage a $16.5 million portfolio, currently all invested in equities, and believe that the market is on the verge of a big but short-lived downturn. You would move your portfolio temporarily into T-bills, but you do not want to incur the transaction costs of liquidating and reestablishing your equity position. Instead, you decide to temporarily hedge your equity holdings with S&P 500 index futures contracts. a. Should you be long or short the contracts? Why?
b. If your equity holdings are invested in a market-index fund, into how many contracts should you enter? The S&P 500 index is now at 1,650 and the contract multiplier is $250.
c. How does your answer to (b) change if the beta of your portfolio is .6?

For many years, kellogg's frosted flakes, a ready-to-eat breakfast cereal, was perceived as a cereal for children. tony the tiger, a cartoon character, extolled frosted flakes, and advertisements depicted children enjoying the product with tony in competitive situations. recently, in response to declining sales of frosted flakes, the cereal maker has adopted a new series of advertisements that show adults admitting that they enjoy frosted flakes, too. kellogg's is attempting to

Paid-in-capital in excess of par represents the amount of proceeds a. from the original sale of common stock b. in excess of the par value from the original sale of common stock c. at the current market value of the common stock d. at the curent book value of the common stock

Costco wholesale corporation operates membership warehouses selling food, appliances, consumer electronics, apparel and other household goods at 471 locations across the u.s. as well as in canada, mexico and puerto rico. as of its fiscal year-end 2005, costco had approximately 21.2 million members. selected fiscal-year information from the company's balance sheets follows. ($ millions). selected balance sheet data 2005 2004 merchandise inventories $4,015 $3,644 deferred membership income (liability) 501 454 (a) during fiscal 2005, costco collected $1,120 cash for membership fees. use the financial statement effectstemplate to record the cash collected for membership fees. (b) in 2005, costco recorded $46,347 million in merchandise costs (that is, cost of goods sold). record thistransaction in the financial statement effects template. (c) determine the value of merchandise that costco purchased during fiscal-year 2005. use the financial statementeffects template to record these merchandise purchases. assume all of costco's purchases are on credit.