Finance: Evalulate Jane's three possible investments in stock

Jane is considering investing in three different stocks or creating three distinct two-stock portfolios. Jane considers herself to be a rather conservative investor. She is able to obtain forecasted returns for the three securities for the years 2010 through 2016. The data are as follows:

Earning before depreciation, interest and tax.

Year Stock A Stock B Stock C 2010 10% 10% 10% 2011 13 10 14 202 15 8 10 2013 14 12 11 2014 16 12 9 20145 14 15 9 2016 12 15 10

In any of the possible two- stock portfolios, the weight of each stock in the portfolio will be 50%. The three possible portfolio combinations are AB, AC, and BC.

To Do Create a spreadsheet similar to Tables 5.7 and 5.8 ( which can be viewed at www . prenhall. com/ gitman) to answer the following:

a. Calculate the expected return for each individual stock. b. Calculate the standard deviation for each individual stock. c. Calculate the expected returns for portfolio AB, AC, and BC. d. Calculate the standard deviations for portfolios AB, AC, and BC. e. Would you recommend that Jane invest in the single stock A or the portfolio con-sisting of stocks A and B? Explain your answer from a risk return viewpoint. f. Would you recommend that Jane invest in the single stock B or the portfolio con-sisting of stocks B and C? Explain your answer from a risk return viewpoint.