Friday, September 4, 2020

TC Boyles Style Essay Example for Free

TC Boyles Style Essay Style is a colossal piece of why creators sell their work. Their method of composing, the tone they set, and the state of mind make characterizes their style. TC Boyle has an extremely one of a kind style that attracts perusers and spots them into his reality. Albeit dull, frightening and somewhat bleak is his style, he has an immense fan-base. In a meeting he expressed that â€Å"It’s my universe, and by god they will suffer† (Grant A real existence recorded as a hard copy: TC Boyle). This uncovers how he has that clouded side to him, additionally his attitude when composing. This builds characterizing what his style is. He for the most part uncovers his exceptionally unique method of composing however the disposition and circumstances he causes his characters to experience. To begin, an extraordinary model that shows this horrible and evil style is in his short anecdote about an awful football crew that lost 56 to 0. In this story, he delineates how broken and battered this group is. They are a joke, but then he gives the figment they are going to change when he places his fundamental character into a minister like circumstance, where he convinces his rumpled colleagues to play another game and urging them to win. He has this character say, â€Å"What would you say you are a lot of pussies? Hesitant to get your garbs filthy? Scared of a little contact? What do you need †to live with fifty-six-to-nothing for a mind-blowing remainder? Huh? I don’t hear you!† He puts this character into an inspirational mentality, just to tear it somewhere around having the group free the following game, which he simply urged the whole group to partake in. This inspirational standpoint was removed when â€Å"†¦and Ray Arthur Larry-Pete Fontenot propelled himself at the kicker like the space transport coming in for an arrival, and abruptly †marvel of supernatural occurrences! †He felt the hard chilly pellet of the ball looking off the gauzed stubs of his fingers.† And they lost the game and bombed their last exertion to not look so woeful. It is delightfully composed and empowers such a demeanor of home however yet still has that dismal completion and as the statement stated, he caused them to endure. Truly it is very engaging, yet at the same time rather dismal. Which carries me to the following model, which is given in his story called Sinking House. An anecdote about an old widow, whose late spouse was injurious and a ppalling, who chooses to suffocate her home. Boyle in this shows his style so well since then whole air and state of mind of the story is very solemn and dark. Simply imagining a house with an old woman isolated with water stricken floors and dividers is incredibly unpleasant. This story is an extraordinary model in clarifying his style not just on account of the whole circumstance and mind-set he sets, however putsâ images into the perusers mind about this lady and how her life was, it gives the peruser something to associate with, and furthermore takes the psycho idea of this lady away. One section she ventures out of her home, away from the running water, and the flooding, into reality â€Å"In that pit of that dry quietness she could hear him, Monty, stepping the clasped floor, presenting himself with another vodka, reviling her in a voice like sandpaper.† This frees the peruser up to entire degree of what she endured that peacefully, she could in any case hear her significant other obnoxiously manhandling her. The main arrangement was to have water running continually, flooding her home, a feeling of opportunity. That symbolism in my eyes is totally staggering. Making TC Boyle’s style considerably progressively splendid. His little dece ives and smart associations add to his inventiveness and one of a kind style. Ultimately, going on about associations, in the TC Boyles story, Chicxulu. This story is about guardians who are told their little girl is a fender bender and she is dead, simultaneously attracting a corresponding to a meteor that will take out the entire world in a second. He composed this story so legit, as in the responses and activities of the characters are perfect, precisely how you would picture it. There is a scene when the dad and mother initially show up in the ER, and the dad starts to intellectually condemn everybody in the room who are carrying out their responsibility, since he in alarm. This is such an ordinary and nearly expected response that individuals under pressure experience, as much as they might not have any desire to let it out, it is rebelliously human instinct. This part of his style makes it so natural to interface with and that association, advertisements an entire additional l evel to his works. At long last, when they go in for ID, and see that it isn't their little girl, they are so eased, despite the fact that somebody they know is dead lying before them, they have such help. Another human response, likewise the way that it isn't their little girl plays off what he said in the meeting. He caused these needy individuals to endure so much reasoning that their girl was dead, yet the peruser is so captivated and attracted. We may feel somewhat irate towards Boyle since he did this to these caring individuals, however that curve makes the story engaging. There are such huge numbers of viewpoints to his style, levels and things that play off one another that weave so well together creation it genuinely exceptional. He is an amazing essayist whose style is exceptional. Truly dives into how individuals consider the world and hits a great many people in territories they don’t typically consider or need to consider. Albeit most, if not all areâ on the clouded side, that trademark adds to his style. His composing makes individuals think, and it gives new points of view on circumstances since they are not the run of the mill out-look or the most widely recognized circumstances one would experience. By and large he is simply splendid and his particular style makes composing energizing and quite engaging.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Trader Joe’s No average Joe Essay

Dealer Joe’s is an American secretly held chain of supermarkets established by Joe Coulombe. Merchant Joe’s have been fruitful business for long time with their one of a kind inventive procedure of selling common and natural food items with just one brand of a thing for low cost. Their one of a kind culture of loosened up sea shore condition and accommodating proficient representatives makes their client to remain faithful to the brand. 80% of Trader Joe’s has in-house items that separate them from contenders and difficult to mimic. Merchant Joe’s target youthful taught individuals who need to eat well at low costs. They can truly extend their business by putting resources into showcasing, internet based life, unwaveringness card program and building parking structures and increase greater more extensive market section in food industry. This likewise will help them upper hand over their rivals as they will have strong brand picture and be effective over th e long haul. SWOT Analysis The qualities of Trader Joe’s are selling natural and new basic food item at low costs, acquainting new items with their stores as often as possible and offering well disposed client assistance. Merchant Joe’s sell regular and natural food at less expensive cost than its rivals. They purchase in mass one thing as opposed to purchasing parcel of comparative things, which gives them upper hand over different general stores. Dealer Joe’s present 10-15 new items consistently and had uncommon season things and; hence clients loved difficult new things and were getting best item for as much time as stores had the items for. Merchant Joe’s workers were educated, useful and cheerful, which caused them to discuss much better with clients and manufacture a durable relationship. This helped in Trader Joe’s clients getting faithful to the organization. The shortcomings of Trader Joe’s are need web based life, low promotion, and focusing on little market section. Right off the bat, Trader Joe’s didn’t have any cooperation with media about the organization. Moreover, they were not using the free internet based life apparatus and were not communicatingâ with their fans on Facebook or Twitter. They didn’t much promote about the organization which is a shortcoming since this would hurt the business they can get by publicizing since they were selling common and natural items at low costs. In conclusion they focused on just littler group which would likewise influence that income as opposed to focusing on more extensive portion of individuals. Since more individuals are graduating and getting taught, Trader Joe’s can target them to get higher piece of the overall industry and by showcasing they can pass on their objective to these informed individuals. Also, they have chance to offer infant related items as parcel of individuals purchase child items when they are at basic food item shops. Danger to Trader Joe’s are that their clandestine private mark products can be distinguished by contenders and can mirror. Other treat is that the organization can free it’s fascinate when they develop in light of the fact that they are not any more uncommon to clients. Porter’s Five Forces The danger of new passage is medium since Trader Joe’s isn't a store organization, so capital necessity is reasonable. Getting great quality nourishment for less expensive cost is difficult to convey yet it isn't unimaginable. Nonetheless, brand name is hard to constructed that Trader Joe’s has done after such a significant number of years. The dealing intensity of providers is low as Trader Joe’s buy exceptionally huge amounts of every thing in their store, which make the providers to give them most reduced cost. In addition, providers needed mystery from Trader Joe’s not uncovering the low cost as the to other contender store providers were selling at significant expenses. On the off chance that the cost of a thing increments for providers, they can pass that on retailers in food industry. The dealing intensity of Buyers is high as clients have parcel of other supermarkets alternative to goto in the event that they thought costs at Trader Joe’s were high. Be that as it may, in Trader Joe’s case they were offering normal, solid and natural food things far less expensive than their rivals. So clients wereâ loyal to Trader Joe’s. The danger of substitute in food industry is medium since individuals can eat outside more frequently as opposed to cooking at home. In addition, other brand of a thing may be progressively amiable by the clients over Trader Joe’s brand. The force of rivalry is high as Whole Food and Kroger are attempting mirror what Trader Joe’s are doing, and since they as of now have brand name accomplished, it isn't difficult to get their costs somewhere around haggling with providers and making their own image name natural food. Taking everything into account, the food and basic food item industry is alluring since more organizations are going towards common and natural food. With right advertising methods , great client assistance and quality items, it would be wise interest in this industry. Natural Scan Broker Joe’s socioeconomics are undergrads, wellbeing cognizant, jobless teachers, and most significant instructed clients. Socio-Cultural condition shows that society is equipping towards progressively characteristic and natural food and turning out to be wellbeing cognizant. More individuals are having hand crafted food from investment funds point of view. World of politics show that FTC has fix guideline to keep serious condition. Additionally, due to Obama Care there is a few reserve funds for individuals that makes basic food item items increasingly moderate. Innovative condition shows that there is more Point of Sales frameworks accessible with electronic rack names and scanner. Also, self-checkout registers and publicizing through portable applications are getting increasingly normal. Monetary condition factor shows that during financial downturn, in which I individuals will in general shop more at markets. The gas costs has been low which gives discretionary cashflow to attempt new things at supermarkets. Taking everything into account, condition investigation recommend that individuals in the currentâ economy are getting additional pay that they can spend on food that are normal, natural and sound for them. With serious market, the pattern is moving towards sound and low value alternatives. From the SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces and Environment Analysis, I prescribe Trader Joe’s to build promoting and publicizing their image significantly more, make all the more parking spot or overhauling outside of current stores, and giving clients motivating forces to keep them coming back to Trader Joe’s. Dealer Joe’s should begin utilizing online networking instruments and utilize versatile applications to connect with their fans and show they care about them. This requires less capital speculation and offer incredible approach to arrive at fans and building new clients. Merchant Joe’s should make extraordinary shopping experience by making their parking garage greater. They can fabricated parking structures or decks to suit part of clients expanding income of the organization. Dealer Joe’s should give clients motivators through devotion card program, and offer coupons on their site and versatile applications that can be added to clients unwaveringness cards to be effortlessly recovered. This will spur clients to return to their stores and purchase more items, hence expanding the organization deals and benefit.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Cat in the Rain’

Moya, Jon Enc1102 February 27, 2013 Midterm Essay The story I will break down is ‘Cat in The Rain’ By Earnest Hemingway. The story recounts to an account of an American couple remaining at an inn, apparently in Italy as a result of the referencing of Italians and the exchange once in a while having the Italian language. Hemingway utilizes great symbolism to portray the room the couple remained in. He composed that it confronted the ocean, an open nursery, and a war landmark. He proceeds to depict the magnificence of the nursery and how if there was a decent climate, there would consistently be a craftsman appreciating it and painting it.He then notices that Italians â€Å"come from far off† to visit the war landmark. He does this likely to show that Italians truly regard the landmark and a big motivator for it. It at that point starts to rain and all the vehicles were circumvented the landmark which implies that everybody was presumably inside. At that point story at that point presents the American Wife and how she sees a feline attempting to remain dry in the downpour by shielding itself under a table. She says that she needs to get the â€Å"kitty†. After her better half proposals to do it for her, she decays the offer and proceeds to do it without anyone else's help while her significant other returns to reading.She goes first floor and as she passes the front work area she has casual chitchat in Italian with the inn proprietor about the climate. I assume Hemingway made it in Italian to affirm that the setting was to be sure in Italy. In this time Hemingway expounds on the wife’s sentiments towards the proprietor, saying this â€Å"The spouse preferred him. She preferred the dangerous genuine way he got any grumblings. She enjoyed his respect. She enjoyed how he would have preferred to serve her. She loved the manner in which he felt about being a lodging manager. She preferred his old, substantial face and enormous handsà ¢â‚¬ .Hemingway utilized numerous likes to differentiate the lodging manager to the Husband. Hemingway makes it a point to have such huge numbers of â€Å"likes† in that segment to show that the spouse is no doubt discontent with her significant other in light of the fact that she’s giving close consideration to what she loves in a man. After the discussion, she goes out into the patio to search for the feline. A house cleaner that was sent from the inn manager at that point offers her an umbrella. They proceed to have a discussion on how the spouse was searching for a feline and that it was no longer there and that she truly needed â€Å"kitty†. The story starts to address the hero as â€Å"American Girl† now. Well on the way to stress her expanding untainted conduct expressed by her utilization of the word â€Å"kitty† now instead of feline. The young lady at that point comes back to her room passing by the workplace and feeling unique and signi ficant when the proprietor bows to her. Hemingway doubtlessly composed that to stress that she truly doesn’t get a lot of consideration if a straightforward bow would cause her to feel exceptional. Back in the room, the spouse has a discussion with her significant other on how she needs to develop out her hair.The husband reveals to her she looks fine however she proceeds to state that she needs to brush her hair, and she needs a kitty, and her own flatware and candles and some new garments. In the wake of saying this, George just advises her to quiet down and get something to peruse. This response that George has to his significant other is additionally appearing differently in relation to what the spouse loved from the proprietor. She preferred the manner in which the proprietor tuned in to her protests and needed to serve her, this case further differentiations what she has in a marriage and what she wants.The rundown of things needed by the spouse shows that she is discon tent with the marriage and that she needs things that are normal in each marriage. She at that point says regardless of whether she doesn’t get those things, she despite everything needs a feline. The story at that point unexpectedly finishes with the servant thumping on the entryway holding a feline saying it was sent by the proprietor to the spouse. This completion differentiates the activities of the spouse and the proprietor considerably more than previously. There has been a lot of hypothesis with respect to what the feline speaks to in the story.One hypothesis that researchers and educators have is that her need for a feline gives her longing for a youngster. [1] In the story there is likewise notice of a man in a â€Å"rubber cape† passing by the square. Researchers know it isn’t Hemingway’s style to include inconsequential intervals in a story so they guess that it could speak to an elastic condom keeping the spouse from getting pregnant. [2] In t he life story â€Å"Hemingway’s Cats†, the writer composes that â€Å"Cat in The Rain† was a tribute to Hemingway’s spouse Hadley.According to biographer Gioia Diliberto, Hemingway put together this story with respect to an occurrence with his better half when she was two months pregnant and saw a feline under a table and revealed to Hemingway that she needed a feline. [3] Cat in The Rain is an incredibly equivocal story and truly exhibits Hemingway’s ability of utilizing straightforward things to depict substantially more intricate thoughts. Sources [1]  Hemingway, Ernest (1925, 2006). In Our Time. New York: Scribner. [2]  Hamad, Ahmad S.. Post-Structuralist Literary Criticism and the Resisting Text. [3]  Brennen, Carlene (2006). Hemingway’s Cats. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press.

Strong evidence Essays

Solid proof Essays Solid proof Paper Solid proof Paper One meaning of information is genuine conviction dependent on solid proof. What makes proof sufficient and in what manner would this be able to constrain be built up? The Oxford Dictionary states proof as Anything that gives individuals motivation to put stock in something . This is anyway off base, as one can give solid proof and not change people groups convictions, if their conviction depends on something different. Similarly, one can have faith in something without generous proof (for instance God). In this paper be that as it may, we are focussing on quality of proof. Focusing on religion, arithmetic, science and history, we will attempt to see how we can gauge quality of proof for each situation, and afterward finish up upon whether there is a widespread proportion of solidarity of proof, or whether quality relies on the territory to which it is applicable.Religion is by definition genuine confidence in something. From a nonbelievers perspective, a great part of the proof that demonstrates the presence of higher creatures has joins that are dubious, best case scenario. For instance, the Bible talks about the ten sicknesses. These have all the earmarks of being puzzling with the exception of the acknowledgment of some type of celestial force. In any case, current science is presently indicating that these occasions may have been brought about by some different option from the nearness of a divine being, and can be clarified as demonstrations of nature the emission of close by Mount Santorini would clarify all the ten maladies, and furthermore how Moses crossed the ocean, which was not in reality the Red Sea, yet the Reed Sea the aftereffect of a mistranslation from Hebrew . It is issues like this that many would state discredit religion. The difficult we face is that religion is insignificant, consequently there is nothing to test, and researchers are just ready to test things with the goal that they may invalidate them. Does this imply religion can't be information, as there is no testable proof? Is it not a simply logical view to state that all proof must be testable by logical methods? Numerous strict individuals accept there is proof of the presence of higher creatures in occasions that are viewed as phenomenal, for example, the unexpected mending of an evil individual idea to be past expectation, which clinical science can't clarify. Others would contend anyway that there are numerous characteristic marvels which present day science can't clarify yet we have proof of, for example, unconstrained human ignition the procedure by which individuals burst into flames without wellspring of start, and consume at temperatures sufficiently high to consume bones, yet don't harm their environmental factors. Along these lines however current innovation will be unable to pinpoint the motivation behind why wonders occur, future information might have the option to. Surely, a few people have demonstrated the revival of Jesus through the standards of law the six supporters who were observer to his restoration all vouched for it, with no motivation to lie. Maths is the thing that many would call total information, in that it can't be refuted once demonstrated. Nonetheless, this is on the grounds that maths is a theoretical idea 2+2 equivalents 4 since this is one of the fundamental endless supply of which math is based, you can't along these lines refute it. Scientific ideal models are built up through evidences, which are a progression of sensible contentions. While proof can be utilized to show presence of standards, it can't demonstrate them they should be appeared as obvious utilizing effectively settled guidelines and deductive rationale (the way toward taking previously settled thoughts and expanding upon them). On account of Fermats last hypothesis, numerical proof was given to show it was most likely obvious, as even with PC help, no numbers could be found to discredit the hypothesis. This anyway didn't comprise a proof, and it took more than 300 years from the development of the hypothesis to its last evidence. In this way in science, information did not depend on proof, it depends on evidence. This doesn't mean we can't take a gander at quality of proof in science. Proof is utilized to show hypotheses which may be valid, and for this situation, quality of proof is absolutely founded on sum the more models you can give where the hypothesis works, the more grounded the evidence.Science is fundamentally a progression of thoughts and disproofs one has a thought, one shows it fits certain examples, and that thought remains constant until it is discredited. It is in this way dissimilar to science in that demonstrated speculations can later be invalidated. It is likewise critical to take note of that speculations might be utilized which are known to be off base, however work for some models. This is because of an absence of a superior hypothesis to clarify conduct. For instance, the model of the particle with its circling electrons can't work, as a moving charge would deliver an attractive field, removing the electrons vitality and in the long run halting it. This doesn't occur, anyway we adhere to this model as proof shows it works with most cases.

Friday, August 21, 2020

Elwira Bauers Nazi Propagandist Childrens Book Trust No Fox on Green

Elwira Bauer's Nazi Propagandist Children's Book Trust No Fox on Green Meadow and no Jew upon his Oath Because of the factional society of the Weimar Republic, Nazism attempted to make another, progressively brought together society; a perfect national network, populated by an ethnically and socially homogenous populace unyieldingly submissive to the hypotheses, laws, and strategies of the focal overseeing mechanical assembly (the Nazi Hierarchy and at last Hitler). To achieve its points, Nazism utilized an assortment of strategies: laws were ordered to ethnically filter the populace (e.g., the 1935 Nuremberg Laws), feelings were proliferated with the expectation of joining the populace behind its authority (i.e., the Fã ¼hrer Principle), and approaches were established to guarantee absolute social, political, and monetary solidarity (e.g., the 1933 usage of â€Å"Gleichschaltung†). Moreover, Nazism used tremendous measures of composed and oral promulgation to strengthen its standards and go with its measures, rendering them progressively agreeable to the general population an d subsequently expanding their prosperity, â€Å"Local participation and initiative were basic to the accomplishment of Coordination. So was a siege of purposeful publicity from party papers and publicists†¦[e.g., Dr. Goebbels, der Angriff, etc.]† (Bergen 65). The portion entitled â€Å"The Fã ¼hrer’s Youth† from Elwira Bauer’s 1936 Nazi proselytizer children’s book Trust no Fox on Green Meadow and no Jew upon his Oath, exemplified the new perfect society imagined by Nazism and strengthened Nazi hypotheses and procedures. The title of the book itself, â€Å"Trust †¦ no Jew upon his Oath,† strengthened Nazism’s rule that â€Å"non-Aryans† were mediocre compared to â€Å"Aryans† and, thus, bolstered Nazism’s position that an ethnically homogen... ...bably showed up in children’s stories composed preceding the twentieth century and still available for use today isn't unexpected considering the way that Hitler’s, and thusly Nazism’s, convictions were predictable, â€Å"Adolf Hitler was not a splendid, unique mastermind. There was nothing surprising about his perspectives nor even in the manner he consolidated them†¦.What was various was the force with which he held his views†¦his capacity to enthrall enormous crowds [and] the colossal force he accomplished after he became chancellor of Germany†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Bergen 40). Works Cited Bauer, Elwira. â€Å"The Fã ¼hrer’s Youth.† Nuremberg: Stã ¼rmer Verlag, 1936. Bergen, Doris. War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2003. Gay, Peter. Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Organization, 2001.

Thursday, August 6, 2020

What is Magna Cum Laude

What is Magna Cum Laude Magna cum laude is one of the 3 popular Latin honors given to college students as a result of their academic achievements.The 3 honors are:Cum laudeMagna cum laudeSumma cum laudeThese honors can be loosely translated to English with cum laude meaning “with honor.” Magna cum laude means “with high honor” while summa cum laude means “with highest honor.”In some cases, maxima cum laude may be used.This honor is awarded to students who have grade point averages between magna cum laude and summa cum laude.Its usually common in schools that have only reserved the summa cum laude honor for students with perfect grades.Magna cum laude, and other Latin honors are mostly used in the United States, countries in Europe, and Southeastern Asian countries like Indonesia and the Philippines.It needs to be said that many countries in the world use different academic classifications apart from the Latin honor system.Many countries use the British Undergraduate degree classification with th eir various modifications. Some of these countries are Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Brazil, Australia, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, South Africa, etc.HOW TO ATTAIN MAGNA CUM LAUDE You may be wondering how you can qualify to graduate with magna cum laude. The simple answer is that: it depends on your school.In fact, some schools dont even use the Latin honor system.For instance, if youre a Stanford student, then you should forget about the Latin honor system.Likewise, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology doesnt provide Latin honors to its students.Even though they use similar scores to grade their students, they dont use the exact terminology. And in schools where they use Latin honor system, it depends on your school.Different schools have different grade-point averages (GPA) they use to make students qualified for an honor. In some schools, you may have to submit an honor thesis to make you qualified for a Latin honor.REQUIREMENTS FOR DIFFERENT AMERICAN COLLEGESWith the differ ence in how various schools set their qualification requirements for magna cum laude and other Latin honors, its possible to bag two different honors compared to a student in another school.Even if you have a similar academic performance to that student.For instance, a GPA of 3.8 will qualify you for magna cum laude in some American colleges. Whereas the same GPA is enough for the summa cum laude in another school.This inconsistent system of acquiring Latin honor in different schools is one of its major disadvantages.The most popular requirements for Latin honors are having a GPA of 3.50 to 3.69 for cum laude, 3.70 to 3.89 for magna cum laude, and 3.90 to 4.00 for summa cum laude. Different schools have variations of these to award Latin honors to their students.Some schools, however, dont use GPA strictly and rather consider a percentage of the top students for the honors.For instance, a school could have their top 5% of students as summa cum laude, the next 8% as magna cum laude, and the next 12% as cum laude.And in some cases, individual schools within the same university could have different requirements for the Latin honor system.Its best to check the requirement for the university youve enrolled to be sure of what you need to do.Harvard UniversityThe first university to use the honor system is Harvard University in 1869. Initially, between 1872 and 1879, the cum laude and summa cum laude were the two Latin honors awarded to graduating students.However, in 1880, magna cum laude was included among the honors.Harvard offers two types of honors which are the departmental honors, also called the English honors, and the College honors, also called the Latin honors.Latin honors are awarded based on the entire student records. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences make recommendations for Latin honors to the Governing board of the University.First of all, a student has to be awarded departmental honors before they can be recommended for the Latin honors. Harvard Univ ersity presents the following awards to students:Regular degreeCum laude in a fieldMagna cum laude in a fieldMagna cum laude with Highest Honors in a fieldSumma cum laude in a fieldFor the Latin honors to be awarded, theres no fixed GPA. From the students recommended for Latin honors, the Faculty will consider their records to determine those who should be awarded summa cum laude in their field.The summa cum laude is awarded to the top 5 percent of the graduating class. After this, students who have the highest honors in their concentration but failed to make summa cum laude will be awarded the magna cum laude with Highest Honors in a field.The remaining students who have met the minimum GPA allocated for magna cum laude for that year will be awarded the honor.The combination of the students awarded summa cum laude and magna cum laude will not be more than 20% of all the degree candidates that May.Students who achieve the minimum GPA for the cum laude are awarded the cum laude Latin honor.The combination of the students who are awarded summa cum laude, magna cum laude, and cum laude cannot exceed 50% of the total degree candidates. The GPAs set for the 3 honors are used until the next May when another set of GPAs will be set.For 2018, the cutoff for magna cum laude in field was 3.844 out of a possible 4. The cutoff for summa cum laude was 3.947 while the cutoff for cum laude was 3.620.Yale UniversityFor Yale University too, theres no specific GPA for Latin honors and GPAs are determined on a yearly basis.Yale University awards Latin honors to no more than 30 percent of the graduating class. This is lower than Harvard University at 50 percent.Yale University awards the summa cum laude honor to no more than 5 percent of the graduating students.Magna cum laude honor is awarded to no more than the next 10 percent of the class while cum laude is awarded to no more than the next 15 percent of the class.For the year 2018, the GPA set for the summa cum laude honor was 3.95. For the magna cum laude honor, a student has to achieve a GPA of 3.90 while cum laude required a GPA of 3.82.When compared to other schools, ivy league schools like Harvard and Yale University tend to have higher GPA requirements to attain the magna cum laude honor.New York UniversityThis college doesnt use fixed GPAs for its Latin honor system.The school offers the summa cum laude to the top 5% of its students, magna cum laude to the next 10% of its students, and cum laude to the next 15%.Therefore, not more than 30% of the graduating students from New York University will have a Latin honor.However, it should be noted that the GPA required for Latin honors in NYU will depend on each school in the university.For instance, between September 2018 and May 2019, the GPA required for magna cum laude in the NYU School of Nursing is 3.872.For the summa cum laude honor, a student will need a GPA of 3.97 while cum laude honor requires 3.77 GPA.In the school of Liberal studies, a GPA of 3.868 is enough for the magna cum laude. However, a graduating student will need a GPA of 3.97 for summa cum laude while 3.813 is enough for a cum laude honor.University of California BerkeleyThe University of California Berkeley doesnt have an official Latin honor system. But it awards distinctions to students which is similar to the Latin honor system.It awards distinction, high distinction, and highest distinction, which can be compared to cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude respectively. The GPAs for these awards will depend on each particular school in the university.The university awards these distinctions to no more than 20 percent of the graduating class. The top 3 percent of the graduating class in a school in terms of grade point averages are awarded the highest distinctions. The next 7% are awarded high distinctions while the next 10% are awarded distinctions.For instance, in the college of letters and science, the GPA for general distinction, high distinct ion, and highest distinction are 3.747, 3.860, and 3.953 respectively.University of PennsylvaniaFor UPenn, summa cum laude honor goes to students who get a grade point average of 3.8 or higher out of a possible 4.The magna cum laude goes for students who get a GPA of 3.6 or higher while cum laude goes to students who get a GPA of 3.4 or higher.American UniversityTheres a fixed GPA for Latin honors in the American University. For a student to be awarded the magna cum laude honor, theyll need a GPA of 3.81 to 3.90.For other honors, a student will need a GPA of 3.67 to 3.80 for cum laude while theyll need a GPA of 3.91 or higher for summa cum laude.LATIN HONOR SYSTEM IN COUNTRIESThere are different Latin honor systems depending on the country.BelgiumThis European country offers 4 honors to students graduating from its schools. These honors are:SatisfactionCum laudeMagna cum laudeSumma cum laudeBrazilIn Brazil, some schools use the Latin honor system to award their graduating students. For instance, the Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica (ITA Aeronautical Institute of Technology) offers its Latin honor system.Graduates are able to claim the magna cum laude honor when they have an average grade above 8.5 out of 10 and have 50% of their individual grades above 9.5. In comparison, a graduate is awarded cum laude when the student has all their individual grades higher than 8.5.For the summa cum laude honor, a student will have to graduate with an average grade of 9.5. This is so difficult to achieve that only 22 graduates of this school have achieved the summa cum laude honor as of 2009.Another school that uses the Latin honor system in Brazil is the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. This school awards the magna cum laude honor to students who have an average grade of 9.0 to 9.4 out of 10.For other honors, a student with an average grade of 8.0 to 8.9 will have the cum laude honor while a student with an average grade of 9.5 to 10 will be awarded the summa cum laude honor.Another university that uses the Latin honor system is the Federal University of Ceara which awards the magna cum laude honor to graduates who achieved an average grade of 8.5 out of 10 and never failed a course.Added to that, the graduate would have received a fellowship of both Teaching Initiation and Academic Extension.GermanyThere are 4 ranges of honors available to graduates in Germany. These are:Rite which is “duly” conferred and means the student has fulfilled all the requirements.Cum laudeMagna cum laudeSumma cum laudeAlthough it has to be noted that these honors are only given when a student has attained a doctorate degree. For lower degrees like diplomas, bachelors, or masters degrees, numerical grades between 1 (very good) and 5 (fail) are usually given.MaltaIn Malta, the Latin honor system is equivalent to the British grading system. For instance, magna cum laude refers to second class honors (upper division).For other Latin honors, cum laude refers to se cond class honors (lower division) while summa cum laude refers to first class honors.The last is the Bene Probatus which refers to third class honors. Degrees like bachelor of pharmacy which takes longer than the standard 3 years to complete also has the Egregia cum laude.PhilippinesIn the Philippines, the junior high school and senior high school students use an honor system for their new K-12 curriculums. These honors are translated to the Filipino language.Students are awarded the magna cum laude honor (May Mataas na Karangalan in Filipino) and a silver medal with the seal when they achieve an average grade of 95 to 97 out of a possible 100.In comparison, the cum laude honor (May Karangalan) is awarded when a student gets a final grade average of 90 to 94.Students who achieve a final grade average of 98 to 100 are awarded the summa cum laude honor (May Pinakamataas na Karangalan).SingaporeIn Singapore, the Singapore Management University uses the Latin honor system. For a gradua te to be awarded the magna cum laude honor, they need to attain a grade point average of 3.6 out of a possible 4.For the cum laude honor, a student will have to achieve a GPA of 3.4 while a student needs a GPA of 3.8 for the summa cum laude honor.CRITICISM OF THE LATIN HONOR SYSTEMSome people have leveled criticisms at the Latin honor system. There were criticisms of Harvard University as critics claimed the Latin honor system may do more harm than good to students’ academic performance.They claimed students would take classes as a means to bump up their grades rather than to pursue true academic excellence. The school is yet to eliminate its honor system. Another argument against the criticisms is that: how do you reward excellent students?Theres no perfect grading system. But some companies prefer to pick students at the top of their classes. In many cases, excellent students also want to work in these influential companies.Research by Pauline Khoo and Ben Ost of the University of Illinois at Chicago found that Latin honors actually provides benefits for graduates 2 years after graduation.The 2017 paper titled “The Effect of Latin Honors on Earnings” revealed that graduates have benefits for their first 2 years after graduation. It further reveals that there appears to be no benefit in the third year or beyond.But when you look at it, the benefits in the first 2 years could make all the difference. Because this is when new graduates are looking for jobs.“We find that obtaining honors provides an economic return in the labor market, but this benefit only persists for two years,” they wrote in the paper.“By the third year after college, we see no effect of having received honors on wages, suggesting that firms may use the signal for new graduates, but they do not rely on the signal for determining the pay of more experienced workers.”Their study also revealed that graduates of some schools get these benefits more than graduates of other schools.M agna cum laude may be second to summa cum laude but its an incredible achievement especially in some tough courses.CONCLUSIONReceiving the magna cum laude honor is no mean feat. Students who receive this honor are among the top students in their classes.However, the magna cum laude honor is also subjective to many factors.Whether you attain this honor could depend on the university you attend, the particular school of the university, and your graduating year.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Investment Essay - 2200 Words

Investment (Essay Sample) Content: InvestmentsName:Institution: Introduction The report herewith details the investment of the start capital of AED 400,000. The aim of investment is in the garnering of the maximum amount of profit with minimal probability of risk and this is what one delves to accomplish as espoused in the report. The commencement of investment was on September 2013 and involved a diverse portfolio. The calculations are based on standard recognized practices and give the correct figures and estimates on the investment patterns and expected patterns.The onset involves the understanding of investment. This is the use of seed asset to acquire possible returns. These profits can be in the form of revenues, interests and dividends. One purchases a diversified range of material based on the level of risk and returns involved. The arrayed list of ones investments is oft referred to as ones investment portfolio. This report espouses the various steps in investment, their relevance and the inv estments chosen based on these steps. The calculations and decision premises are expounded on in this report ( Ramaswamy, 2012)Step 1: Having Investments Financial Foundation and Expected Conditions. Having the amount of AED 400,000, it can be assumed that one has the financial background set for a dip into the investment world. One needs to ascertain that there are no pre-existing high interest debts that would suck upon the said investment and serve to dwindle the profits or the rates of return on the investment (Hagin, 2013). One tries to regulate the expenditure. The expenditure should strive to be lower than the investments returns as to ensure continuity in the profits and revenues from the said investment. Before investment, one should have built strategies in the case of a fail in the investment too. The fail safe should be in way of having some emergency funds that can be used to get one-self back up. The money would mainly be for ones upkeep in the form of living expenses that are easily accessible for use and not tied up with the investment portfolio.Step 2: Setting and Analysis of Investment Targets and Goals. The reasons behind my investment are espoused here with the aim of explaining the aim of the investment at hand. The duration and the expected amount of returns are the key focus here. My goal is to have recouped on a third of the investment within a trimester. This would be a third of AED 400,000. This is to the tune of AED 133333.33. Another aim in the long term would be to have coupled enough returns to be a comfortable retiree in the next 23 years whilst having a college fund for the expected offspring ( Ramaswamy, 2012). The goal is not to become a business mogul or billionaire, but have the ability to afford the finer items in life on a controlled level without too much strain to ones finances. Step 3: Investment Plan Adoption The adoption of an investment plan is based on the investment goals and the budget at hand. In this case the budget is the amount AED 400,000. The objectives were the recoupment of a third of the investment within a three month period and the long run plan of retirement in twenty three years to a comfortable suburban life. The investment plan adoption relies heavily on the volatility of the investment option. This is its shifts in performance in the business cycle as compared to the benchmarks. There is also the matter of its alignment to the investment objectives and the expenses and fees associated with the investments. All this is in comparison with the other available investment options. The investments available are stocks, bonds and alternatives. These are the main options. The alternatives include derivatives, real estate and precious metals. Step 4: Analysis of Investment Options/Vehicles The choice of investment vehicles is based on the returns on investment and the risk entailed in the investment. One should invest in what one has a full understanding of its workings (Hagin, 2013 ). The risk is the lack of certainty on the returns by the investment. The main types of vehicles as per the objectives are common stock, short term investment vehicles and speculative investment tools. Short term investment vehicles have a life-span of one year whence they mature. They offer the lowest risks and include certificates of deposit, treasury bills, bankers acceptances and commercial paper. The certificate of deposit acts as debt instrument that has a specific date of maturity and interest rate. It is issued by a bank and indicates the deposition f a specific amount of money. The risks involved are the penalties in early withdrawal and their non-tradability. They can only be traded when in bulk from large money market investors. Treasury bills are other securities issued by the government showing obligation. They also have a one year or less of maturity. They incur interest which is accrued. The other form of revenue incurred is from the discount in the issuing of the t-bill. There is thus a difference in the nominal value and the discounted price which is paid on maturity. The best part of this is that they are free of risk as their yield is fixed. The challenge faced would be in that they are auctioned on a highest bidder basis and thus might be expensive. Their high liquidity is part of the snare of the treasury bills as they are never out of demand. They are thus tradable but prices vary according to the interest rates on the market. There are also non-competitive bills which are issued at an average of the competitive bills. Commercial paper represents a promissory note issued by a corporation. It is the private sector version of the Treasury bill. It is however unsecured and short term. It is a way for the corporation to borrow from the investors in a much cheaper way than bank loans. It is issued at a discount either directly or through an intermediary to the investor. It most often has a maturity of 30 to 60 days and offers more risk co mpared to the t-bill. The risk lies wherein the corporation can default and it also offers hardship in tradability. There exists market illiquidity in this case and thus their resale is a problem. Another vehicle would be the repurchase agreement. This is a form of short-term loan whence a security exists as collateral. The repo has a short maturity having one for even a single day. The overnight is referred to as an overnight repo and if for longer, term repo. There are also fixed income securities named thus because of a fixed return up to a certain date. They are further split into preferred stocks and long term debt securities. The long term debt securities have the characteristic of having a maturity longer than one year. They also have interest rates. They are relatively riskless and considered safe assets. Bonds are the most popular of this form. This is a loan taken by an entity which is obligated to pay an interest on the refund. The generated income is constant whatever the market conditions. To determine the returns, one calculates from the par value, maturity rate and coupon rate. Another vehicle is the preferred stocks. They are also called equity security as they have the benefit of paying dividends and having unrestricted life. The dividend is fore known and fixed. It is therefore more of the risk free options in investment. It differs from bonds in the infinity of its flows unless the stock is callable. The common stock would be another vehicle in long term investments. It is but a share ownership in the interests of the firm. It is stock equity in the company. They give one voting rights in the company general meetings. They are also entitled to dividends and in the event of bankruptcy, they garner the residual assets. They are a mode for the company to raise money to divest in other ventures or build on the existing ones. This vehicle should be chosen with precision and care with emphasis on the long term prospects of the company. Specul ative investment vehicles are also on hand. They offer high returns with high risks too. The aim is to purchase whence the prices are lowest and sell them when the prices are highest thus garnering maximum profit. This is the only avenue of revenue generation in these securities. They are categorized as options, futures and commodities like precious metals, coffee and grains. These are what are usually categorized as the alternatives in the portfolio. Options are contracts that endow the owner with the right of sale or purchase of the asset at a given date to or from a given entity not specified or specified. It is thus not completely risk free as it depends on the supply and demand in the options market. Futures define mutual agreement to trade on a particular day and price in a particular financial asset. They both define who the seller is and who the buyer is. In summary, the portfolio can include savings accounts, money market accounts, certificates of deposit, bonds, stocks, real estate, mutual funds and precious metals such as gold and silver. The savings accounts have the advantage of low minimum balance and liquidity. They however have limited access and a very low interest rate. The money market accounts are similar but with higher minimum balances and higher interest rates. Real estate is illiquid and capital intensive making it a hard option unlike precious metals which are untaxed, not affected by inflation and very liquid.Step 5: Choice of Suitable InvestmentsThe choice of the budgeted AED 400,000 is for a portfolio not keen on risk but wealth creation. The portfolio in a pie chat would thus be: This representation is whence stocks have a 55% stake, bonds a 32% stake, the alternatives have a 5% stake and finally a cash stake of 8%. This translates to 220000, 128000, 20000 and 32000 dirhams respectively. 1 dirham is equivalent to 0.27 USD. This therefo...

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Technical Production in Film and Television - 1039 Words

Technical Production in Film Television Technical production in film and television is a broad category that is best discussed by breaking it down into the major elements: Composition mise en scÃÆ' ¨ne; editing; sound effects music, camera work, lighting color, and props locations. Most of these categorical elements have been more extensively developed in film than in television, primarily because television has tended to be filmed on sets and because films tend to have larger budgets and more flexible production. As a result of the natural constrictions imposed by television production, popular techniques have been slower to make their way to television. Sound effects and music have played an important part in television production because they enhance the realism of filming on a set and are relatively inexpensive to employ. The association between a particular television show and certain melodies is very strong most people who watch television regularly can reproduce the theme song of their favorite television shows. Props and locations (albeit, typically simulated on a set) have also been well-used supports to television production. The mise en scÃÆ' ¨ne of a television show is generally of a smaller scale than a film, such that composition of the scenes and the use of props to help tell the story achieve a relatively high degree of importance. Early and classic films, such as the vehicles in Harold and Maude, employed props to convey significance to viewers.Show MoreRelatedUniversal Studios Distribution of Despicable Me 2 Essay examples752 Words   |  4 PagesDespicable Me 2, an animated film distributed by Universal Studios and Illumination Entertainment in July of 2013 grossed $970,065,385 world-wide (BoxOffice, 2014). 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Our presentation, Catching up with the Cottingworths focuses on these elements through a parodic portrayal ofRead More Generation View Of Reality Essay1285 Words   |  6 Pages Generation’s View of Reality Ben Stiller’s 1994 film, Reality Bites, portrays the broad based struggles of America’s twentysomethings through a lighthearted glimpse into the lives of the movie’s main characters. Four friends, recently graduated from college, find themselves over-educated and under-employed, a theme reiterated in the lives of many Generation Xers according to critic Marilyn Gardner. She states, â€Å"unemployment is higher for those under 25 then it is for the Read MoreThe Importance Of The Georgia Film Academy1107 Words   |  5 PagesGeorgia is rising to the top for number of produced films, being fifth in the world only behind New York and Hollywood. To get in the industry is not easy. You need specific sets of skills reached to industry standards. 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They also have one-on-one and hands-on trainingRead MoreDominick10 Tb Ch09942 Words   |  4 Pages  Though  designed  to  decrease  competition  in  the  film  industry,  the  MMPC  actually   encouraged  competition.   Ans:  T            4.  Block  booking  means  that  theater  owners  must  agree  to  show  certain  films  in  all  the   theaters  they  own.   Ans:  F            5.  The  inventors  of  the  Kinetoscope  predicted  the  real  money  in  motion  pictures  would  be   based  on  showing  films  to  large  audiences.   Ans:  F            6.  In  the  late  1940s,  the  courts  upheld  studios   rights  to  control  production,  distribution,   and  exhibition.   Ans:  F            7.  Although  the  film  indusRead MoreThe Western as a Film Genre1449 Words   |  6 PagesThe Western as a Genre John Ford’s Stagecoach (United Artists) has been hailed as the official Western Classic. 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Monday, May 18, 2020

Improving The Risk Return Performance Of Portfolios Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 22 Words: 6548 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Essay any type Did you like this example? With the development of the Chinese capital market, more and more investors start to look for a more rational way to invest. To increase the investment return and decrease the risk, investors must learn to allocate their funds in order to diversify risk. However, due to the limited assets that can be invested in, the convenience and effectiveness of portfolio diversification must be studied. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Improving The Risk Return Performance Of Portfolios Finance Essay" essay for you Create order This paper mainly explores the function of futures in the ordinary stock portfolio through the study of risk-return performance. By comparing the efficient frontiers of different portfolios, the risk-return performance of the futures portfolio and mixed stock-futures portfolio is better than the stock only portfolio. Futures play an important role in upgrading the integrated portfolio of stock and futures. The results of this study provide investors with a feasible way to diversify their funds in multi-type investment portfolios, which is of great theoretical and practical significance. I. An introduction to Chinese capital market Ever since December 19, 1990, when Shanghai stock exchange opened, people become more and more interested in investing in the security market to make money. After twenty years, investing in stocks is a quite popular and important way for ordinary Chinese people to manage their money. However, stock market itself can not meet investorsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ needs of diversifying risk and increase capital return, and investment diversification becomes a natural solution and guiding concept. Although twenty years have passed since Shanghai stock exchange came in existence, development of Chinese capital market is quite slow, with limited kinds of investment products. Lack of varieties of trading tools and incomplete structure of capital market products make it difficult to diversify in Chinese capital market. In developed capital markets such as Hong Kong, over 80% of financial derivative instruments in international financial market have been introduced. In stock market, the trading o f index futures, options and warrants is quite active with a trending of exceeding the trading of spot market. Hong Kong bond market is even more diversified. Based on three basic kinds which are bond, note and certificate of deposits of fund-raising tools, many more complicated derivatives such as floating rate bonds, variable rate bonds, convertible bonds, credit card receivables, and the current debt instruments traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing has been increased to 129.(2009) On the contrary, despite of stocks, there are few more than five years investment instruments in mainland China capital markets. The trading of 1-5 year instruments is also confined so that the available trading instruments are quite limited. As an emerging market the risk of stock market is higher than normal, both systematic risk and market risk. The systematic flaws in Chinese stock market such as no trades of state owned and corporation owned stocks and lack of index futures  [1]  o r other kinds of hedging instruments make the whole stock exchange system more uncertain. The strong influence of state policy changing is also a reason for high uncertainty. As for the market risk, stock market is in sharp adjustment since the end of 2007. On the one hand, the overall risk has lowered a little; it is still too high compared with the mature capital markets. On the other hand, the low self-control ability of the participants involved in stock market makes the unsystematic risk higher than average. Investing only in stock market can not successfully diversify risk. Considering the incompleteness of Chinese warrant market, futures have been chosen to diversify risk. Chinese future market also started in 1990. After six years of cleaning up and reconstruction (1995-2000), future market is in good development. In 2002, stock market turned down, which made part of the stock market capital switch to future market and made it a hot deal. This situation is quite similar t o what happened in 2007-2008. Chinese future market developed from first pilot reform to rectification and now has entered a new stage of stable development. The legal operation and market discipline have been significantly improved. These features make futures possible as a component of portfolio. At present, research of the role of futures in the portfolio is focused on index futures and its hedging properties, while the research of commodity futures is focused on its function of price discovering. Adding futures into ordinary stock portfolio has not been well discussed so that this article will research on the performance of portfolio with commodity futures to see whether futures can effectively diversify risk and raise the return. How to optimize investment portfolio becomes the first and most important question that investors need to consider. Thus, modern portfolio theory becomes quite widely applied in practice. Portfolio means investors allocate certain amount of money to different kinds of assets in order to gain as much as possible return or to get the lowest possible risk. II. Past literature review in portfolio selection theories In 1959, Markowitz published his paper named Portfolio Selection: Eficient Diversification of Investments, which conducted a pioneering study of optimizing portfolio in the security market. Ever since then, modern finance and investment decision making comes into a quantitative stage. Portfolio theory is a set of theories and methods to help investors choose certain types and allocate their money from varieties of instruments to form efficient portfolio. In Markowitz theory, mean-variance model can be applied to any class of financial assets, as long as its expected return and the correlation of each asset can be accurately estimated (Markowitz, 1959). In his model, mean represents the expected return of an asset and its risk is represented by the variance. In order to use the Markowitz mean-variance method, we need to find the expected rate of return and risk. However, considering the ineffectiveness of Chinese stock market, the simple mean-variance is not applicable. Thus, more a ppropriate method of evaluating return and risk needs to be found. Among these different evaluating methods, people tend to agree using expected return as a representative of future earnings. The return of a financial asset is consisted of two parts: intertemporal cash flows and capital premium (asset price changes during the holding period). The return that this article is going to use is the daily logarithmic rate of return, so the intertemporal cash flows can be ignored. The yield can be expressed as: Because logarithmic rate of return can be simply added which facilitate the data processing by software and its value can be any real numbers, this article will use logarithmic rate of return as the evaluation of asset yields. The simplest way to get the expected rate of return is calculating its average. Its flaws are also quite obvious: the result is far from accurate. In order to find more accurate estimation, we need to fit time series data to appropriate model and find the unconditional expectation of asset return. In 1980s and 1990s, lots of literatures have discussed the predictability of stock market and suitable model of predicting asset returns. M.Hashem Pesaran and Allan Timmermann (1995) found that the predictable components of stock returns are highly correlated with business cycle and the magnitude of shocks influences the model more than expected. But because what they studied is a long term relationship in the stock market, the results can only be a consultation. As for the daily stock return, many researches suggest that it shows significant dependence on former returns. Vedat Akgiray found in his paper about the conditional heteroscedasticity in stock returns that the probability distribution of return lag of s days is dependent on return today for several values of s (1989). He used daily returns on the CRSP (Center for Research in Security Prices) value-weighted and equal-weighted index from January 1963 to December 1986 to find th at GARCH (1,1) shows the best fit and forecast ability among the econometric models. Noticing that the return he used is also logarithmic rate, the features of logarithmic rate in this article can be expected to be just like that in his study. Similar results can be obtained from other literatures. There is a positive relation between the expected risk premium and the predictable level of volatility and a negative relation between unpredictable component of stock market risk and excess holding period return (K. R. French et al, 1987). Although they can not determine a certain model to describe the exact relation (difficult to choose between ARIMA and GARCH-M), the relation between return and risk is quite significant. Studies about Chinese stock market also show evidence of fitting stock return data in ARMA or GARCH models. The daily returns of Shanghai and Shenzhen index indicates significant ARCH effect and the data fit in GARCH-M model well (Hua Tian and Jiahe Cao, 2003). I t is reasonable to choose ARMA or GARCH model to simulate the actual stock movement. But as for the measurement of risk there are comparably various methods. Markowitz explained the mean-variance theory in his 1959 portfolio selection paper which introduced the statistical concept of expectation and variance into the study of investment portfolio. Under a certain probability distribution of returns, he used the average deviation from the average return of all the random returns. Thus, risk can be quantified with the expectation of return as return expected and standard deviation as the measurement of risk. Although variance has some easy to use features such as simple calculating and easy understanding, it is only an approximate measurement of risk. Using variance needs the distribution to be systematic and does not take the investors different feeling about capital gain and loss into consideration. Given the same amount of gain and loss, the pain of loss is usually larger tha n the happiness of the capital earnings. Variance ignores this asymmetry while LPM (lower partial moments) would be a better measurement. Harlow proposed this new indicator as a more accurate way to describe risk (1991). LPM is an abbreviation of lower partial moment, which P (partial) stands for its measuring only one side of the returns compared with the fundamental rate and L (lower) stands for less than fundamental rate (downside risk). LPM is a risk measurement which meets the requirements of Von Neumann à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Morgenstern utility function and can cover almost all peopleà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s risk preference. It shows a new way to describe risk apart from the traditional utility measurement which is the function of variance or the standard deviation. The expression of LPM is: , where n is called the order of LPM indicators, representing the risk aversion of investors, and z is called fundamental rate of return which is the minimum return that investors would accept. Different values of n would change LPM into different measurements of risk and therefore meet different investorsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ risk preference, from risk preference to risk neutral, then risk aversion. One advantage of LPM is that it can show only the pain or loss possibility when the return is lower than the expected. The other is it can show what investorsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ different risk preference can affect the feelings to the same asset by simply changing the order n. LPM is less popular in evaluating volatility than variance as the calculation of LPM is more complicated. Another reason is that LPM must be calculated separately for each variable while variance can be added or processed under certain assumptions. This means people need to program it in order to use LPM with comput er data processing programs. On the contrary, all the data processing programs have a default function of calculating variance. The way to evaluating the performance of asset portfolios is its efficient frontier. Every combination of risky assets can be plotted in a risk-return space, and those combinations with the highest return under the same risk or with the lowest risk under same return are called efficient portfolios. Usually, the upper part of the curve which describes risk-return features of efficient portfolios is called efficient frontier. Ordinary efficient frontier of investment portfolio is calculated by Markowitzà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s mean-variance method. This article will use LPM to substitute variance to calculate efficient frontier which makes it more like investorsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ thoughts of risk. Merriken suggested that variance and LPM are suitable for the study of short-term investment (1994), which is quite popular in Chinese capital market. Based on the review of the related literatures, this article will use econometric models to get expectation daily return of stock and futures and both variance and LPM to calculate efficient frontiers to see whether adding futures into stocks would improve the performance of portfolios. III. Theoretical study and empirical data results i. Theories of econometric models and multi-type asset portfolio The econometric models used to estimating the expected return and risk are ARMA and GARCH models depending on the features of different stock and futures time series. ARMA is an abbreviation of autoregressive and moving average model, which is typically used in estimating autocorrelated time series. As what is mentioned in the literature, auto-correlation in daily logarithmic return is shown by theoretical study, and the empirical study of the realistic data also suggests this result. Typical ARMA model is consisted of two parts: AR (auto-regressive) part and MA (moving average) part. It is normally notified as ARMA (p, q) where p is the order of autoregressive part and q is the order of moving average part. AR part is written as: , where are the parameters and is the error term (usually white noise). The value of p suggests how many lags of are regressed on and therefore is a measurement of autocorrelation. For the need of stays stationary, usually we need the absolute value of is less than unit. MA part is written as: , where are the parameters, is the expectation of , and is still the error term (usually white noise). The value of q suggests how many error terms are included in the smoothing process of average and MA process is always a stationary time series. Thus, ARMA model is written as: , which is a combination of autoregressive part and moving average part. The value of parameters is generally determined by the least square method which minimized the residual error term. The value of p and q is chosen to better fit the model without too much lags or smoothing terms. The method used in this article is through the value of ACF (autocorrelation function, which is used to determine the order of moving average) and PACF (partial autocorrelation function, which is used to determine the order of autoregressive part). In spite of autocorrelation, there are other special features of financial time series data such as fat tails, extreme values and volatility clustering. Simple ARMA models assume that the error term is independently and identically distributed which does not meet the fact. Thus, Engle (1982) posed ARCH (Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity) model to analyze this volatility feature of financial data. Four years later, T.Bollerslev improved this mod el and made it GARCH which is a generalized ARCH model. GARCH model is developed specially for financial data and is widely used in the study of volatility. In addition to the normal econometric model, people use GARCH to better analyze and forecast volatility. GARCH model can be written as: where the first equation is a simple ARMA model, but this time is not an independently and identically distributed normal error term. is an independently and identically distributed error term and is called conditional variance which is estimated by the third equation (also an ARMA model). and are independent of each other and the distribution of is not restricted as normal but can be changed to satisfy actual situation. This makes GARCH a more accurate model in estimating the expected rate of return and risk. Hiroshi Konno and Katsunari Kobayashi (1997) made an attempt to add bonds into ordinary stock portfolio to find a new way of allocating investment. Their purpose is to extend the mean-variance model normally used in optimizing stock portfolios to integrated bond-stock portfolios. At that time, big scale mean-variance models were restricted in stock portfolios although the computer technology and mathematical methods in financial engineering developed fast. Although bonds seem always to be considered separately when people intend to invest in financial market, Hiroshi and Katsunari still want to add bonds into portfolios. The reason is that before 1980s, the return of bond was far less risky than that of stock due to the stable interest rate. However, after 1980s, interest rate became much more volatile and investors bore heavily loss and huge risks. Actually, the volatility of bonds at that time was even higher than that of stocks. Considering this, combining bonds and stocks into the same portfolio is of great realistic meanings. The method they used is mean-variance and mean-absolute deviation models where variance and absolute deviation are as the diff erent measurement of risk. The results are also quite satisfied as adding bonds into stock portfolios can increase the expected return under the same risk level. Never the less, Raimond Maurer and Frank Reiner in 2001 also used this idea of multi-type asset portfolio to discuss the possible outcomes of adding real estate securities into international asset portfolios under a shortfall risk frame. They noticed the fact that financial time series data had its own features and the tradition way of evaluating risk using variance can not reflect what investors think in the reality. Therefore, LPM was introduced as the way of measuring risk to reflect the asymmetry in the rate of return of asset. They compared the situation in Germany and in US by calculating the efficient frontiers of common portfolios, then calculating the efficient frontiers of adding real estate securities into portfolios. Because they studied between different countries, Raimond Maurer and Frank Reiner also cal culated the effects of hedging. The results are also quite satisfied as the efficient frontiers move to the left, especially for those high risk-averse investors in Germany. Also, hedging could improve the performance of portfolios, especially for the US investors. With hedging they can build investment portfolios with higher rate of return under a relatively low risk level. But as mentioned above in the introduction part, there are few commercial bonds besides the government bonds; the only possible type of asset besides stocks that can be added into investment portfolios is futures. This article will also calculate the efficient frontiers of stocks, futures and combined portfolios separately, using both variance and LPM as the measurement of risk. As to the number of assets that should be held in one portfolio, investors have different opinions. Most mutual funds in the US market hold more than 100 stocks. Although these over-sized investment portfolios may well diversified risks, the expected return can be just acceptable as higher operational fee are needed to maintain such a huge portfolio and these stocks usually contains some low return ones. Xianyi Lu (2006) discussed this question that how many stocks are suitable for Chinese investors to hold in a single portfolio. He constructed portfolios with different number of stocks to compare their risk-return performance. The measurement of risk he used is variance. He came to the conclusion that 20 stocks would be enough to diversify most of the risk. The close-up price of stock is quite easily obtained while to find suitable closing price of futures is somewhat tricky. Futures are contracts which specify certain quantity and quality of fundamental assets between two parties to trade at a specified date in the future with a price agreed today. Thus there can be various contracts with the same kind of fundamental asset in different delivery date. Considering the trading characteristics of Chinese fut ure market, Chengjie Ge and Yong Liang from a Chinese fund called Guotai Junan tried to construct a continuous future contract to get the daily closing price in 2008. When a contract first comes into market, the transactions are quite few. One contract is traded most actively just three or four months before delivery date, as the coming of specified date the trading volume begins to fall quickly. Those investors, especially the speculators would only trade those contracts that so-called à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“dominant contractà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬?. Thus, each future contract is in good liquidity only for a short time period. A continuous future contract is selecting the most actively traded contract of same fundamental asset at the same time to form a new, artificial contract to get the continuous price time series of one asset. ii. Data collection and analysis This article uses daily closing price of stock and futures from the time period 04/01/2007 to 31/12/2008. The data is obtained from RESSET database  [4] Futures chosen are copper, aluminum, rubber and fuel oil from Shanghai Future Exchange, corn and soybean meal from Dalian Future Exchange and cotton and wheat gluten from Zhengzhou Future Exchange. In order to get daily return we need to construct continuous future contracts by selecting the most active contracts. As to the 8 futures used in this article, the most active contracts of wheat gluten, soybean meal, cotton, fuel oil and corn are those contracts with delivery date four months before the current month (not accounting current month); the most transacted contracts of rubber, aluminum and copper are those with delivery date two months before the current month (still not accounting current month). For example, current time is 19970201, so the contract which should be selected for cotton is the 199705 contract whose de livery month is May 1997. When it comes to 19970301, the contract selected for cotton should be 199703, and so on, so forth. After constructing eight continuous future contracts, we can get the time series of close-up price. The calculation of logarithmic rate of return, variance and LPM is just like the stock data. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of futures like the mean, the standard deviation, and some others. As the bond market is not mature in China, the risk free rate that used in this article is the three-month central bank bill rate which is also from the RESSET database, same database as the closing price of stocks and futures. From the statistics in the table we can find that the logarithmic daily return of futures shows asymmetry and fat tails, far from the assumption of mean-variance model that the distribution of returns should be normal distribution, or at least a symmetric bell-shaped distribution. Thus, using variance or standard deviation or any other ki nd of symmetric statistics would be less accurate. Fitting data into econometric models should provide a better estimation of expected rate of return and risk. Table 2.1-2.4 and Table 3.1-3.3 show the estimation of coefficients using ARMA and GARCH models. The models of stock returns are mostly ARMA models, but of futures are half GARCH models and half ARMA models. Table 2 is the results of future data and table 3 is the results of stock data. From the table we can see that there are four futures which are better fit in GARCH models and for the other four, ARMA is enough as the residual series after ARMA does not show significant heteroscedasticity in error terms. As for stocks, none of the 19 stock time series show significant heteroscedasticity which means ARMA could describe the features of stock price series. One interesting finding is that only 11 stock price time series show the correlation effect while the other 8 stock price series seem to be random walk. Table 2.1 and Table 2.2 are the GARCH results of future returns. Cotton, soybean meal, aluminum and copper show significant auto correlated heteroscedasticity. The basic model that used to estimate the return is ARMA model, and the first two lags show the most correlation with current logarithmic rate of return. The null hypothesis for all the coefficient in the model is the coefficient equals zero. The constant terms in the models are not significant despite that of soybean meal whose p-value is 0.0202, which means we can reject the null hypothesis under a 5% confidence level. The reason for not able to reject the null hypothesis of constant terms equaling zero may be the absolute value of daily logarithmic rate of return is too small, usually under 0.01. In such a low level the normal test to calculating p-value may become not suitable. So the value of constant terms is still used in the ultimate model to calculate the estimation of expected return although we can not reject the possibility th at it actually equals zero. Table 2.3 and Table 2.4 show the ARMA results of future returns. Wheat gluten, corn, fuel oil and rubber daily logarithmic rate of return are estimated by ARMA model. The null hypothesis is also that any coefficient equals zero with p-value stands for the probability of making mistakes when rejecting the null hypothesis. The problem is the same with that of GARCH models as the p-values are too large to reject. But still we accept this result and make forecast using the present model. In spite of the not-so-satisfying results in the constant term, the coefficients of AR term and MA term are quite significantly different from zero which can be tell from the p-values. This is also true in futures GARCH model and stocks ARMA models. The significance of correlations in logarithmic rate of return series matches the features of financial time series and is what we would like to expect when estimating these coefficients. There are 19 stock return series to be modeled, but only 11 of them shows autocorrelation with their lags. None of these shows significant heteroscedasticity in the error terms so the model chosen is ARMA model. The constant terms of each stock return model is smaller than that of future return model, and the p-value is bigger than 0.05 as expected. The current return of four stocks out of this eleven shows significant correlation with the six and seven lags, showing the existence of cycle effects in the stock market. For these four stocks, what happened in the week before affects the price of this week more compared with other time. Other seven stocks show the ordinary one or two lags correlation. The coefficients of AR and MA part are also of great significance and the null hypothesis can be rejected. For those 8 stocks which do not show the existence of autocorrelation, the processing method is to calculate the basic descriptive statistics such as mean and variance. This method may ignore the asymmetry and fat t ails of the data, but as there is no good econometric model to estimate random walk series, this simple way has its own advantage and also of quite high accuracy in estimating the expected rate of return and risk. This article use the forecast value of each model as the expected rate of return, and the variance of the sample as the expected risk for the mean-variance model of investment portfolios. For those 4 GARCH future models, the expected risk is the forecast value of the error part model. As for those eight stocks whose logarithmic daily return series are random walk, simply use the mean as the expected rate of return and the variance as the expected rate of risk. LPM1 is using the three-month central bank bill rate as fundamental rate of return because of its risk-free characteristic. The mean-LPM model also uses the results of expected rate of return from the forecast of GARCH and ARMA models as the only change in this new model is the risk measurement from variance to LP M. Someone may argue that different econometric models could cause different estimation of expected rate of return, thus the results of efficient frontiers become not so convincing. The purpose of this article is to compare the efficient frontiers of different asset portfolios, trying to find the possible improvement of adding futures into the ordinary stock portfolios. The econometric estimation is used to construct Markowitzà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s mean-variance model. What can be seen from Table 2 and Table 3 is that most of the assets can be fitted into ARMA model. As a matter of fact, because the absolute value of daily logarithmic rate of return is too small, the difference of constant terms between GARCH and ARMA model for the same asset is very small that can be ignored. The calculation of efficient frontiers is using MATLAB financial tool box, and the original data is what has been done above. After calculating the correlation coefficient matrix of 19 stocks and 8 futures, there is not much correlation of each asset. In fact, most of the correlations coefficients are between 0.1 to 0.3, with some of them even to be negative correlated. It suggests that the risk diversify of investment portfolios should successful using these 27 assets according to the statement of Markowitz. Table 1: Descriptive statistics of futures Soybean meal Aluminum Copper Cotton Wheat gluten Fuel oil Rubber Corn mean 0.0275 0.1074 -0.164 0.0527 0.00117 -0.0207 0.1434 0.00632 Standard deviation 1.82 1.29 2.073 1.007 0.0105 2.0109 2.11 0.928 LPM1 0.667 0.476 0.875 0.353 0.365 0.751 0.821 0.315 Skewness -0.496 -0.577 -0.326 0.237 1.19 -0.742 -0.672 0.385 kurtosis 4.45 7.445 3.31 9.12 12.57 4.63 5.60 8.515 J/B 62.15 405 10.08 746 1936 93.6 164 624 (the mean, standard deviation and LPM1 are all in percentage. LPM1 is order 1 lower partial moment with the fundamental rate is the risk free interest rate.) Table 2.1: the estimated coefficients of each model Cotton Soybean meal ARMA equation: r=c+ar(1)*r(-1)+ma(1)*e(-1) ARMA equation: r=c+ar(2)*r(-2)+ma(2)* e(-2) coefficient p-value coefficient p-value c -0.000269 0.4884 c 0.000752 0.0202 AR(1) 0.813401 0.0007 AR(2) 0.965705 0 MA(1) -0.851776 0.0001 MA(2) -0.96641 0 Variance equation: e= C(4) + C(5)*RESID(-1)^2 + C(6)*e(-1) Variance equation: e = C(4) + C(5)*RESID(-1)^2 + C(6)*e(-1) C(4) 4.83E-06 0.002 C(4) 1.18E-06 0 C(5) 0.063917 0.0002 C(5) -0.01277 0 C(6) 0.887646 0 C(6) 1.013578 0 Table 2.2: the estimated coefficients of each model (continued) Aluminum Copper ARMA equation: r=c+ar(1)*r(-1)+ar(4)*r(-4)+ma(1)*e(-1)+ma(4)*e(-4) ARMA equation: r=c+ar(1)*r(-1)+ar(2)*r( -2)+ma(1)*e(-1)+ma(2)*e(-2) coefficient p-value coefficient p-value c 0.000757 0.3249 c -0.00091 0.2975 ar(1) -0.12668 0.4223 ar(1) 0.675058 0 ar(4) 0.822443 0 ar(2) -0.48379 0.0007 ma(1) 0.117813 0.3959 ma(1) -0.7834 0 ma(4) -0.85309 0 ma(2) 0.64634 0 Variance equation: e= C(4) + C(5)*RESID(-1)^2 + C(6)*e(-1) Variance equation: e= C(4) + C(5)*RESID(-1)^2 + C(6)*e(-1) C(4) 5.20E-06 0.0208 C(4) 6.77E-06 0.0336 C(5) 0.046297 0.0048 C(5) 0.128242 0.0009 C(6) 0.942352 0 C(6) 0.860077 0 Table 2.3: the estimated coefficients of each model (continued) Wheat gluten Fuel oil ARMA equation: r=c+ar(3)*r(-3)+ma(3)*e(-3) ARMA equation: r=c+ar(2)*r(-2)+ar(3)*r(-3)+ma(2)*e(-2)+ma(3)*e(-3) coefficient p-value coefficient p-value c -2.68E-05 0.9622 c -0.00057 0.787 AR(3) 0.772531 0 AR (2) 0.421234 0.0041 AR(3) 0.514736 0.0005 MA(3) -0.747211 0 MA(2) -0.3081 0.0378 MA(3) -0.55602 0.0002 Table 2.4: the estimated coefficients of each model (continued) Rubber Corn ARMA equation: r=c+ar(2)*r(-2)+ma(2)* e(-2) ARMA equation: r=c+ar(1)*r(-1)+ma(1)*e(-1) coefficient p-value coefficient p-value c -0.00161 0.2191 c -7.88E-05 0.8534 AR(2) 0.665529 0 AR(1) -0.821529 0 MA(2) -0.556 0.0002 MA(1) 0.768263 0 Table 3.1: the estimated coefficients of each model stock 01 stock 07 ARMA model: r=c+ar(6)*r(-6)+ma(6)* e(-6) ARMA model: r=c+ar(6)*r(-6)+ma(6)* e(-6) à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value C -0.00125 0.0022 C -0.004621 0.0697 AR(6) 0.892999 0 AR(6) 0.972813 0 MA(6) -0.975019 0 MA(6) -0.980419 0 à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ stock 02 stock 09 ARMA model: r=c+ar(6)*r(-6)+ar(7)*r(-7)+ma(6)*e(-6)+ma(7)*e(-7) ARMA model: r=c+ar(2)*r(-2)+ma(2)* e(-2) coefficient p-value coefficient C -0.00057 0.5591 C -0.000835 0.3755 AR(7) -0.580883 0 AR(2) -0.832358 0 AR(6) 0.306957 0.0093 MA(2) 0.768651 0 MA(7) 0.594833 0 MA(6) -0.388734 0.0007 Table 3.2: the estimated coefficients of each model (continued) stock 03 stock 11 ARMA model: r=c+ar(2)*r(-2)+ma(2)* e(-2) ARMA model: r=c+ar(2)*r(-2)+ma(2)* e(-2) à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value C -3.32E-05 0.9565 C 0.000128 0.8024 AR(2) 4.55E-01 0.0777 AR(2) 0.699258 0 MA(2) -0.567395 0.0176 MA(2) -0.763239 0 stock 04 stock 13 ARMA model: r=c+ar(1)*r(-1)+ar(2)*r(-2)+ma(1)*e(-1)+ma(2)*e(-2) ARMA model: r=c+ar(1)*r(-1)+ar(2)*r(-2)+ma(1)*e(-1)+ma(2)*e(-2) à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value C 4.12E-05 0.9448 C -0.000181 0.8822 AR(1) -1.010713 0 AR(2) 0.51781 0.0152 AR(2) -0.813403 0 AR(1) 0.214893 0.5356 MA(1) 1.080601 0 MA(2) -0.538276 0.0054 MA(2) 0.880392 0 MA(1) -0.099508 0.772 stock06 stock 15 ARMA model: r=c+ar(3)*r(-3)+ar(4)*r(-4)+ma(3)*e(-3)+ma(4)*e(-4) ARMA model: r=c+ar(1)*r(-1)+ar(2)*r(-2)+ma(1)*e(-1)+ma(2)*e(-2) à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value C -0.000439 0.6981 C -0.001621 0.5432 AR(4) -0.525641 0.0006 AR(1) 0.895432 0 AR(3) 0.273493 0.0475 AR(2) 0.097598 0.5815 MA(4) 0.611753 0 MA(1) -0.787578 0 MA(3) -0.145839 0.2854 MA(2) -0.226713 0.2128 Table 3.3: the estimated coefficients of each model (continued) stock 18 ARMA model: r=c+ar(6)*r(-6)+ar(7)*r(-7)+ma(6)*e(-6)+ma(7)*e(-7) à £Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬ coefficient p-value C -0.00026 0.7174 AR(6) -0.35917 0.002 AR(7) -0.45655 0.0006 MA(6) 0.261067 0.0289 MA(7) 0.505517 0.0003 Figure 1: the efficient frontiers of stock, future and mixed portfolios using mean-variance model 19 stocks portfolio 8 futures portfolio Stock and future portfolio (The green line is the efficient frontiers of 19 stocks portfolio, the purple line (in the middle) is of 8 futures portfolio and the blue line is of the mixed stock and future portfolio.) Compared these three efficient frontiers, we can find that adding futures into the ordinary stock portfolio can greatly improve the performance of portfolios, which is even greater under lower risk level. Single future portfolio also performs well compared with single stock portfolio as it can offer higher rate of return under the same risk level. From Figure 1 we can find with the same expected return of 0.4ÃÆ'—10-3, the mixed stock and future portfolio can reduce the risk from 0.012 of single stock portfolio to less than 0.006. This more than fifty percent of risk reduction shows great practical meaning of multi-type asset investment portfolios. Figure 2: the efficient frontiers of stock, future and mixed portfolios using mean-LPM model Figure 2 shows the same results as the Fig ure 1. The mixed stock and future investment portfolio can improve the risk-return performance of portfolios. Similarly, future portfolio performs much better than stock portfolio, and it can greatly raise the expected return under higher risk level. The mixed portfolioà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s improvement is mainly under low risk level, as the risk becomes bigger, the performing difference between future portfolio and mixed portfolio are not so significant, for the efficient frontiers overlap each other. The efficient frontiers are straight lines in Figure 2 while they are curves in Figure 1. The different risk measurement may result in this. Because LPM only calculates the downside risk, the risks of the portfolios which provide same return are not the same. Every single LPM must be calculated separately. So the shape of the new efficient frontiers may look different from the traditional hyperbola-shaped curves in mean-variance models. Both the mean-variance model and the mean-LPM model show that only investing in stock market can not get as much return as investing only in future market under the same risk level because the efficient frontier of stock portfolio is to the right of that of future portfolio and the distance between the two efficient frontiers is quite large. It reveals a fact that investing only in stock market can not guarantee ideal revenue. Although twenty years has passed since the establishment of Chinese stock market, there still exist some system flaws which raise the systematic risk of stocks. Thus, 19 biggest market value stocks from the market can not efficiently diversify the risk. Chinese future market resumes development since 2001, but the return of future portfolio is quite high. The efficient frontier is to the left which suggests low risk under the same rate of return. Moreover, margin trade system is implemented in future exchange, and the average leverage ratio can reach as much as fifteen. Both of them can insure a very impressive return when investing in the future market. An argument for this result is that whether it is consistent with other stocks and futures. These two figures are based on the most representative stocks and futures of Chinese capital market. Other stocks and futures may not provide such a high return but as long as they are not correlated much with each other, this improvement can also be expected as the results come from the traditional risk diversification theory of Markowitz. Although Chinese capital market is not so mature, the results of multi-type asset investing portfolios shows the similar results as that in the US and German market. Adding different types of assets into the original single-type asset investing portfolio can extremely improve the risk-return performance, with a much obvious improvement under relatively low risk level. The difference in the methods of measuring risk does not affect this conclusion. In order to get higher return, investors should r easonably allocate their fund into stock and future market to construct a multi-type asset investing portfolios instead of investing only in stock or future market. IV. Conclusion The aim of this dissertation is to find whether adding futures into a stock portfolio can improve its risk-return performance. This article uses Chinese capital market data to construct three investment portfolios: only stock portfolio, only future portfolio and the mixed stock and futures portfolio. The way to evaluate their performance is to calculate their own efficient frontiers. The main problems that exist in Chinese capital market include as follows: the behavior of market players is not standard and their corporate structure is imperfect; market structure is irrational and dysfunctional; investorsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ expectation violates greatly because of some history issues such as policy-controlled market; the regulatory functions and approaches can not meet the needs of fast developing market. These problems reduce the efficiency of capital market and make the actual distribution of returns far from the assumption of using ordinary mean-variance model. Considering the immaturity of the Chinese capital market, the simple statistical mean and variance can not reflect the true value. Under this circumstances, this article use econometric model to fit the data of security and future returns, trying to find the best estimation of expected rate of return and risk. Thus ARMA and GARCH models are introduced to better estimate the expectation. Also, the traditional way of using variance as the measurement of risk has been challenged in recent years, so this article uses the LPM (lower partial moment) to measure risk, which is more reasonable in meeting the utility function of investors. The results of sample asset portfolio analysis using mean-variance model and mean-LPM model suggest that diversifying investment into different types of assets can efficiently reduce risks. Through comparing three efficient frontiers we can find that adding futures into stock portfolio can significantly increase the expected return under same risk level. Although the ri sk measurement is not the same in mean-variance model and mean-LPM model, the conclusion of multi-type asset investment portfolio reducing risk remains the same. With this conclusion, we can find that investing in any single market can not get the expected rate of return under acceptable risk level. Especially after the huge volatility of Chinese stock market during 2007-2008, investors who only built stock portfolios suffered huge losses. One possible solution is to allocate fund into different markets to construct multi-type asset investment portfolios, which ensures a higher rate of return under a relatively low risk. Considering the reality of Chinese capital market, the best choice is to invest both in stock and future market. Investors need to find suitable stocks and futures to build up portfolios according to their own preference of risk and return. Generally speaking, higher return is companied by higher risk. As to the choosing of specific stocks and futures, investors should pay attention to the less correlated ones in order to better diversify the non-systematic risk. Because of the time and knowledge restriction, this article only discusses the general performance of stock and future portfolios. The best proportion of fund allocating to each stock and future under the sample data is not calculated, and the sample studied are only stock and future market data. As the development in Chinese capital market, more and more investment tools will appear, and the investment policy would also change with the maturing of market. The new stock index future is a very useful tool in hedging portfolios. The accurate proportion of fund allocation and adding more types of asset into portfolios are the next topics to be studied.