The market value of Charter Cruise Company's equity is $15 million and the market value of its debt is $5 million. If the required rate of return on the equity is 20 percent and that on its debt is 8 percent, calculate the company's cost of capital. (Assume no taxes.)

Abc computer company has a $20 million factory in silicon valley in which in builds computer components. during the current year, abc's costs are labor (wages) of $1.01.0 million; interest on debt of $0.20.2 million; and taxes of $0.20.2 million. abc sells all its output to xyz supercomputer for $2.62.6 million. using abc's components, xyz builds four supercomputers at a cost of $0.8500.850 million each, which comes from $0.6500.650 million worth of components, $0.10.1 million in labor costs, and $0.10.1 million in taxes per computer. xyz has a $30 million factory. xyz sells three of the supercomputers to other businesses for $1.81.8 million each. at year's end, it had not sold the fourth. the unsold computer is carried on xyz's books as a $0.8500.850 million increase in inventory.

Wallis company manufactures only one product and uses a standard cost system. the company uses a predetermined plantwide overhead rate that relies on direct labor-hours as the allocation base. all of the company's manufacturing overhead costs are fixed—it does not incur any variable manufacturing overhead costs. the predetermined overhead rate is based on a cost formula that estimated $2,886,000 of fixed manufacturing overhead for an estimated allocation base of 288,600 direct labor-hours. wallis does not maintain any beginning or ending work in process inventory.

Happy foods and general grains both produce similar puffed rice breakfast cereals. for both companies, thecost of producing a box of cereal is 45 cents, and it is not possible for either company to lower their productioncosts any further. how can one company achieve a competitive advantage over the other?