TABLE 6-4 According to Investment Digest, the Arithmetic Mean of the Annual

question 124

Short Answer

TABLE 6-4
According to Investment Digest, the arithmetic mean of the annual return for common stocks from 1926-2010 was 9.5% but the value of the variance was not mentioned. Also 25% of the annual returns were below 8% while 65% of the annual returns were between 8% and 11.5%. The article claimed that the distribution of annual return for common stocks was bell-shaped and approximately symmetric. Assume that this distribution is normal with the mean given above. Answer the following questions without the help of a calculator, statistical software, or statistical table.
-Referring to Table 6-4, 75% of the annual returns will be lower than what value?

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Definitions:

Interest Charges

The costs incurred for borrowing money, calculated as a percentage of the total amount borrowed.

Management Reserves

Budgetary allocations set aside for unforeseen changes in the scope and cost of a project.

Contingency Reserves

Allocated budget within a project to address unforeseen costs or risks that may arise.

Budget Baseline

A reference point in the project budgeting process that represents the approved plan for project expenditure, against which actual costs are measured.