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 firms various operating units, but this week he was assigned to one of the firms traders as an analyst. On his first day Jims 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 January 2, 2015 through December 31, 2015: