Suppose you have recently accepted a new job and are setting up your retirement allocations within the firms 401k plan. The plan options contain two risky mutual funds, A and B. You may assume that all fees are the same across the two funds. Fund A has an expected return of 9% and the standard deviation of returns is 12%. Fund B has an expected return of 7% and the standard deviation of returns is 15%. The correlation between returns on the two funds is 0. The plan also contains a Treasury fund which provides a risk-free return of 3%.

1. Suppose you can only invest in one of the two risky mutual funds (A or B), but can combine it with the Treasury fund in any proportions you wish. Which of the two mutual funds would you choose and why? (Answers without explanation will not receive credit.)

2. Maintaining the restrictions on your investment choices from the last question (i.e., you can only invest in one of the two risky assets and combine it with the Treasury fund in any proportions you wish), what is the lowest risk (or return volatility) that you must accept if you want to set up a complete portfolio with expected returns equal to 10%? (Please express your answer in percentage form, rounded to the nearest hundredth. For example, 12.34 for 12.34%.)

3. Would you prefer to be able to form a risky portfolio of funds A and B before combining the resulting portfolio with the Treasury fund to achieve your target expected return of 10%? Clearly explain why or why not. (No additional computations are required, but make your explanation as specific as possible.)