prepare a short (1 page single-sided) executive summary that summarizes your analysis and addresses the questions that are given. You must also prepare an Excel file with the solution.

Portfolio Optimization with six (6) stocks trading on the NYQ (New York Stock Exchange)

Simon Property Group, Inc. (SPG)

Equity Residential (EQR)

Apple Inc. (AAPL)

Chevron Corporation (CVX)

Waste Management (WM)

Oracle Corporation (ORCL)

Go to finance.yahoo.com and download the monthly stock prices for the stocks above for the last 5 years. TIME PERIOD: December 01, 2018 November 01, 2023). Use the adjusted closing price, which adjust for dividend payments and stock splits.

Data: Go to finance.yahoo.com and search for the companies using their ticker symbols (e.g., SPG, EQR, AAPL, CVX, WM, and ORCL) and then click on the Historical Data on the menu. Set Time Period as defined above, choose Monthly for frequency and use Adj Close prices.

Questions

1. Calculate monthly returns for six stocks for this period.

2. Calculate the average return and standard deviation of returns for each firm. (Use Excels AVERAGE and STDEV functions.) Which stock is the riskiest one?

3.Assume that you held an equally weighted portfolio of six stocks. Using monthly rate of

returns

a. Compute the portfolios rate of return.

b. Compute the portfolio variance (first calculate the variance-covariance

matrix)

c. Compute the portfolio standard deviation.

4.Calculate the optimal weights for your minimum variance portfolio. What will be the new portfolios return, variance, and standard deviation?