Search Our Essay Database

Essay Instructions: Statistical Analysis for Mutual Funds Returns
This summer you take an internship with Russell Investments, a financial firm headquartered in
Seattle. They are considering offering a new type of mutual fund and need benchmarking for
what return they should aim for to be competitive. Stew Ellis, your supervisor in the Mutual
Funds Division, asks you to perform a statistical analysis to examine what determines the five year average return on competing mutual funds of different types in the market. Mr. Ellis does
not really care if the data supports offering the new mutual fund or not, he just wants to know
make sure the board will be well informed before deciding. Mr. Ellis needs to be able to make
accurate statements regarding the results of your analysis.

Data (will send/upload this later)
Data is provided in the Excel spreadsheet “Fund Data” on Angel for Name, name of the fund,
Type, the type of fund, either DE (Domestic Equity), IT (International Equity), or FI (Fixed
Income), NAV, net asset value, which is the closing price per share on December 31, 2010,
Return, the average annual return for the fund over the past 5 years in percent, ER, expense
ratio, the percentage of assets deducted each fiscal year for fund expenses, and MR, Morningstar
Rank, the risk adjusted rating for each fund; Morningstar ranks go from a low of 1-Star to a high
of 5-Stars.

Memorandum
Write a brief (500 words or less) summary of your findings in standard memorandum format for
Mr. Ellis based on your analysis. Based on prior products offered, Russell Investments has good
sense of how their expense ratio will behave, but it is unknown what the Morningstar Rank will
be on the new product. Mr. Ellis is not interested in the statistical analysis; he just wants to
know about the results and what they say about what explains the average return. You will need
to decide what variables to select for the empirical analyses, and interpret and write up the results
in a form that will make sense to him; he is not a statistician. The memorandum should NOT
contain technical jargon. You should include a clearly labeled and explained table or graph to
highlight relevant points about the data and statistical analysis.

Statistical Analysis (Appendix)
Because of the slow approval process at the SEC, a final decision will likely not take be made for
another 7 months. Because you are only on a summer internship you will be gone by then. The
product managers from Russell Investments will not be able to ask you what and why you did in
the analysis. As such, it is imperative that your statistical analyses be clearly and completely
documented. You must describe each step you take and why. Methods, hypotheses and results
of the analysis should be clearly explained and labeled in the appendix. Stew Ellis would prefer
you write the appendix in Word and importing the Excel printouts into Word to make formatting
easier. Do NOT include the raw data, just explanations, graphs and tables

Essay Instructions: Explore the analysis of quantitative data.
Explore a critical issue pertaining to corrections, law enforcement, or courts.
Assignment Overview

This practice exercise explores the analysis of quantitative data and a critical law enforcement issue by having students read a study of police arrest decisions and then analyze the use of statistics within that study.
Deliverables

1- to 2-page paper (12-point font) written in a word processor, such as MS Word
Activity Details

Perform the following tasks:

Step 1: Read Smith and Visher’s article “Street-Level Justice: Situational Determinants of Police Arrest Decisions”.


Step 2: Complete the practice questions.
Create a document using a word processor such as MS Word, and answer each of the following questions:
What are the central variables that Smith and Visher studied?
How did Smith and Visher use and present their descriptive statistics?
How did the authors use statistical analysis to present their findings about police arrest decisions?
How did the authors use the idea of “statistical significance” in their study?

Essay Instructions: Enter the following data into SPSS for completition of a Statistical Analysis. Then answer the following 12 questions.

You will enter two variable for each restaurant patron: 1. Experimental Group: 1.=no happy face (NHF) and 2.= happy face (HF) You are to perform an analysis fo the data answering each of the 12 questions. For short answer questions, be concise; however give enough detail to justify answers. Single sentence responses will suffice,but do not exceed a paragraph for each answer.

Data: to enter in SPSS:

NHF(tip percentages for the control group)45%,39%,36%,34%,33%,31%,31%,30%,30%,28%,28%,28%,27%,27%,25%,23%,22%,21%,21%,20%,18%,8%

HF(tip percentages for experimental group) 72%,65%,47%,44%,41%,40%,34%,33%,33%,30%,29%,28%,27%,27%,25%,24%,24%,23%,22%,21%,21%,17%

Descriptive Analysis Questions:

1. What type of research question(ie: descriptive, comparative, relationship) is being asked by the researchers?

2. What were the independent and dependent variables in the study?

3. What is the level of measurement for the independent and dependent variable?

4. Before performing data analysis, make predicitions about the pattern of results you expect to see and why. That is, which condition do you think will result in the highest percentage of tips, on average? Why? Note: do not base your prediction on the data itself, rather on the expectations going into the study. That is, before you collect any data, what you you expect to see?

5. Calculate the mean, median, and mode and the standard deviation for the experimental group using SPSS.

6 Explain in a sentence or two, the standard deviation value in the previous question.

7. Compare the means for the two groups. Does the pattern of the mean differences match your prediction from question #4?

Inferential Statistics Questions:

8. Write null and alternate hypothesis.

9. One of the assumptions of the independent T test is homogeneity of variance. Explain the assumptions, explain the use of the Levene's test in the T test.

10. Obtain the appropriate test statistics, From the SPSS menus choose Analyse and Compare Means, followed by the appropriate test. What is the value of the t statistic and probability value on the SPSS printout?

11. What is your decision concerning the null hyptohesis? Did you reject or retain? Provide a rationale.

12. What are some variables unaccounted for that may have impact on the results? Write this paragraph in terms of potential limitaions of your results.

Essay Instructions: Resource: Business Research Methods, Part II
Prepare a 1,050- to 1,400-word report according to the following instructions:

? Discuss the statistical analysis of your data from the Business Research Methods, Part II assignment. (Please Complete)



? Discuss potential challenges to validity and reliability of your research question, data, and analysis. (NA)
? Outline steps needed to minimize these challenges. (NA)
? Present your data in one of the appropriate general response types. (NA)
? Classify your findings in order of power. (NA)

Create a 7- to 10-slide Microsoft? PowerPoint? presentation accompanying your report and include detailed speaker?s notes.

Format your paper and presentation consistent with APA guidelines.