Q1) A company has a $15 million stock portfolio with a beta of 1.4. It wants to use futures contracts on a stock index to hedge its risk in the market. The market stock index futures price is currently 2545, and each index futures contract is for delivery of $250 times the index. What is the hedge that would minimize the portfolio risk? Should the company take a long or short position in the index futures contracts? What can the company do if it wants to reduce the portfolio beta to 0.8