You will need to collect the stock price data for any 2 companies (Apple Inc and PepsiCo Inc) of your choice and the S&P 400 or S&P 500 index. Choose companies that are in different industries. Collect the end-of-month prices for the last 21 months of your chosen stocks and the S&P 400/500 and set them on the spreadsheet. Taking this raw data, compute the monthly returns for all (there should be 20 returns). Make sure that I am able to see the cell formulas for each computation.

Next, compute the mean rate of return and the standard deviation of returns for both your stocks and the stock market. Compute the beta value for each stock and plot the characteristic lines of the 2 companies on 2 graphs. Compute the correlation coefficient for the 2 stocks. Plot the returns of your stocks against each other on a graph within the spreadsheet.

Next, assume that you construct a portfolio where you put equal money in each of your 2 stocks. Compute the 20 monthly rates of return for the portfolio and the standard deviation of returns of the portfolio and its beta value. Finally, within the spreadsheet discuss in DETAIL your findings regarding risk/return of your portfolio as compared to the risk/return characteristics of the 2 individual stocks. These comments must be detailed with a complete analysis.