You manage a $15 2 million portfolio, currently all invested in equities, and believe that the market is on the verge of a big but short- lived downturn. You would move your portfolio temporarily into T bills, but you do not want to incur the transaction costs of liquidating and reestablishing your equity position. Instead, you decide to temporarily hedge your equity holdings with E-mini S&P 500 index futures contracts a. Should you be long or short the contracts? Long Short b. If your equity holdings are invested in a market index fund, into how many contracts should you enter? The S&P 500 index is now at 126 and the contract multiplier is $250 (Round your answer to 1 decimal place) Number of contracts 600 c. How does your answer to part (b) change if the beta of your portfolio is 047 (Round your intermediate calculations and final answer to 1 decimal place.) Number of contracts 270