City Rentals has 44,000 shares of common stock outstanding at a market price of $32 a share. The common stock just paid a $1.50 annual dividend and has a dividend growth rate of 2.5 percent. There are 7,500 shares of $9 preferred stock outstanding at a market price of $72 a share. The outstanding bonds mature in 11 years, have a total face value of $825,000, a face value per bond of $1,000, and a market price of $989 each, and a pretax yield to maturity of 8.3 percent. The tax rate is 35 percent. What is the firm's weighted average cost of capital?

Rate of return douglas keel, a financial analyst for orange industries, wishes to estimate the rate of return for two similar-risk investments, x and y. douglas's research indicates that the immediate past returns will serve as reasonable estimates of future returns. a year earlier, investment x had a market value of $27 comma 000; and investment y had a market value of $46 comma 000. during the year, investment x generated cash flow of $2 comma 025 and investment y generated cash flow of $ 6 comma 770. the current market values of investments x and y are $28 comma 582 and $46 comma 000, respectively. a. calculate the expected rate of return on investments x and y using the most recent year's data. b. assuming that the two investments are equally risky, which one should douglas recommend? why?