Simone is interested in three ASX-listed healthcare companies, Cochlear Ltd. (COH.AX), Ramsay Health Care Ltd. (RHC.AX) and Ansell Ltd. (ANN.AX). Her stock broker collected their year-end adjusted closing prices between 2003 and 2018 (see ?Stock Prices.xlsx? in CloudDeakin ?Assessment Resources - Group Assignment? folder), and Simone asks you to conduct some preliminary analysis.

a. Use EXCEL to calculate the expected return and standard deviation (risk) for these three common shares. b. Rank them in terms of their risk-return profile, where 1 represents the best and 3 represents the worst, and present a summary table in WORD file. Hint: if additional indicator is needed for comparison, please compute and demonstrate it to support your conclusion. COH.AX RHC.AX Rank Expected Return E(R) Standard Deviation (o) c. Use EXCEL to produce a correlation coefficient (p) matrix and present it in WORD file. RHC.AX ANN.AX COH.AX 1 COH.AX RHC.AX ANN.AX 1 d. Which two shares have the highest p? Use their business background to explain these p Portfolio I readings. e. Consider three portfolios with weights allocated to each stock as shown in the table below. II ANN.AX COH.AX 35% 0% Rank Expected Return E(R) Standard Deviation (o) 1 RHC.AX ANN.AX 0% 65% 30% 70% III 60% 0% Which portfolio is expected to demonstrate WORST risk-return profile? Why? Hint: calculation is not necessary. f. Use EXCEL to compute risk and return of portfolio I, II & III. Rank these investments with the same criteria and present it in WORD file. COH.AX RHC.AX ANN.AX 40% III