A company has developed a new smart clock. If the clock is successful, the present value of the payoff (at the time the product is brought to market) is $17 million. If the clock fails, the present value of the payoff is $5 million. If the clock goes directly to market, there is a 50 percent chance of success. Alternatively, the company can delay the launch by one year and spend $900,000 to test-market the clock. Test-marketing would allow the company to improve the clock and increase the probability of success to 75%. The appropriate discount rate is 10%. Should the company conduct test-marketing? a. No, because NPV is lower by $748,643
b. No, because NPV is lower by $559,164
c. Yes, because NPV is higher by $827,273
d. Yes, because NPV is higher by $674,350
e. Yes, because NPV is higher by $754,281

For 2018, rahal's auto parts estimates bad debt expense at 1% of credit sales. the company reported accounts receivable and an allowance for uncollectible accounts of $86,500 and $2,100, respectively, at december 31, 2017. during 2018, rahal's credit sales and collections were $404,000 and $408,000, respectively, and $2,340 in accounts receivable were written off. rahal's accounts receivable at december 31, 2018, are:

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

Upon completion of the northwest-corner rule, which source-destination cell is guaranteed to be occupied? a. top-leftb. the cell with the lowest shipping costc. bottom-leftd. top-righte. bottom-right