Download monthly stock return data covering the period January 2012 through to December 2021 on a company of your choice and monthly return data on an appropriate market index, covering the same period, to serve as the market portfolio. This data will form the basis of the assignment.

In commenting on your results, you should use your knowledge of Finance that you have learned in Foundations of Finance and Corporate Finance where appropriate.

1. Construct separate time series plots of the return on the stock you have chosen and the market return, and a time series plot with both variables on the same graph. Discuss the purpose of time series plots of the data and comment on any features of the return variables that you notice from your time series plots.

2. Explain and calculate descriptive statistics and frequency distributions for both return variables and comment on these descriptive statistics and frequency distributions.