Bubble-up, inc., is a small manufacturer of educational toys for children under age 10. it has co-existed with three other competitors in the educational toy industry for over 20 years, each of them maintaining a stable market share. there is a wide-spread rumor that mega-toy, inc., the market leader in the broad children's toy market, has decided to target educational toys. which of these statements is most likely true? a. the owners of bubble-up are unconcerned about mega-toy's entry to the market because of the resource dissimilarity between the firms. b. bubble-up's greater organizational slack will allow it to aggressively attack mega-toy. c. bubble-up's smaller size may make it more flexible in introducing innovations than mega-toy. d. competitive rivalry will not increase for bubble-up because mega-toy is not dependent on the educational toy market.

Suppose you hold a portfolio consisting of a $10,000 investment in each of 8 different common stocks. the portfolio's beta is 1.25. now suppose you decided to sell one of your stocks that has a beta of 1.00 and to use the proceeds to buy a replacement stock with a beta of 1.55. what would the portfolio's new beta be? do not round your intermediate calculations.

Adisadvantage of corporations is that shareholders have to pay on profits.

Blue computers, a major pc manufacturer in the united states, currently has plants in kentucky and pennsylvania. the kentucky plant has a capacity of 1 million units a year and the pennsylvania plant has a capacity of 1.5 million units a year. the firm divides the united states into five markets: northeast, southeast, midwest, south, and west. each pc sells for $1,000. the firm anticipates a 50 perc~nt growth in demand (in each region) this year (after which demand will stabilize) and wants to build a plant with a capacity of 1.5 million units per year to accommodate the growth. potential sites being considered are in north carolina and california. currently the firm pays federal, state, and local taxes on the income from each plant. federal taxes are 20 percent of income, and all state and local taxes are 7 percent of income in each state. north carolina has offered to reduce taxes for the next 10 years from 7 percent to 2 percent. blue computers would like to take the tax break into consideration when planning its network. consider income over the next 10 years in your analysis. assume that all costs remain unchanged over the 10 years. use a discount factor of 0.1 for your analysis. annual fixed costs, production and shipping costs per unit, and current regional demand (before the 50 percent growth) are shown in table 5-13. (a) if blue computers sets an objective of minimizing total fixed and variable costs, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? (b) if blue computers sets an objective of maximizing after-tax profits, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? variable production and shipping cost ($/unit) annual fixed cost northeast southeast midwest south west (million$) kentucky 185 180 175 175 200 150 pennsylvania 170 190 180 200 220 200 n. carolina 180 180 185 185 215 150 california 220 220 195 195 175 150 demand ('000 units/month) 700 400 400 300 600