Download to a spreadsheet the last five years of monthly adjusted stock prices for each of the companies in Table 7.5 and for the Standard & Poor’s Composite Index (S&P 500).

a. Calculate the monthly returns.

b. Calculate beta for each stock using the Excel function SLOPE, where the “y” range refers to the stock return (the dependent variable) and the “x” range is the market return (the independent variable).

c. How have the betas changed from those reported in Table 7.5?