How to increase cardiovascular health in the US population with Essay

How to increase cardiovascular health in the US population with diabetes - Essay Example Participation in physical activities among the girls also diminishes greatly as they grow up. This affects them significantly and makes them to be prone to diabetes. According to the American Heart Association, people who are prone to cardiovascular diseases range above 50 years. Many a time and often, cardiovascular diseases have been associated with men. However, women also suffer from heart diseases almost 10 years later. 25% of most old people who suffer from the cardiovascular diseases have little physical activities. 40% of women have excess cholesterol that lead to heart congestion thus strained blood flow. The adolescent especially those who spend a lot of time on TV consume more calories and they eat food rich in fats, they drink more sodas, and take a lot of juice. Some researchers have established that eating while watching increases satiety of eating, which make one to overeat thus increase of weight. Due to the curiosity of the advertisements, adolescent often take the s ugary food on adverts. People who spend a lot of time in office work, which does not involve a lot of physical work also run the risk of gaining more weight than necessary. People who do manual labor are less likely to develop cardiovascular diseases due to their physical engagements that automatically lead to the burning of too much calories. The obese people are also involved in this study. Obese people are likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases. They thus need immediate attention for them to be safe from the dreadful complications. Seeking to know the means of transport each category of the research participants uses can help in determining whether their bodies get some form of exercise; for example, those who ride on bicycles most of the time a less likely to suffer from cardiovascular complications than those who depend on vehicles. Finding out the hours one spend in watching TV helps the group to determine the major cause of

What is a wireless pineapple and how does it work Essay

What is a wireless pineapple and how does it work - Essay Example akes the attacker capable of pulling a number of tricks.Wifi Pineapple Mark V is Equipped with 2 radios it can work in client mode meaning it can piggyback on a nearby WiFi network and bridge the victims connections .Hak5 focuses on making easily accessible, affordable and infinitely expandable wireless hacking tools. Since 2008 the WiFi Pineapple has been serving penetration testers, law enforcement, military and government with a versatile wireless auditing platform for almost any deployment scenario.† (Mark, 2014) The wireless pineapple works in a unique way. Normally, any wireless devise would try to connect to the previous or last websites that were used. The Karma method often sends out probe request to want information from a specified point by SSID or access points that are specified by the broadcast SSID.The correct access point-AP,will always probe a response in which the client will initiate an association thus connection to home networks. However, a malicious device can break the code based system making the pineapple to responds to whatever AP the device has asked therefore deceiving it into believing they are home. This will make the attackers to access the information that they are not supposed to view. The WIFI pineapple is subjected to numerous risks. Ordinarily, the honey pots are usually set to get the traffic of the browser. When an individual sends data using the attackers system he or she opens herself to sslstrip risks. This sslstrip often rechannel the HTTPS traffic to HTTP equivalent thereby opening way to attackers. However, these risks can be mitigated using the following ways: (Anonymous, 2012) V. PineAP.This is "the next-gen rogue AP". This reduces Karma attack by sending Broadcast probe request only instead of all the SSIDs.This enables the APs to with a beacon with the information they are broadcasting. This enables the customer to decide on the one to connect to making it secure. The PineAP has several modules that make it to

Malaysian Conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund

Malaysian Conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund An Analysis Of Companies Portfolio Performance Using Sharpe Ratio: A Study On The Differences Of Performance Between Malaysian Conventional And Islamic Equity Mutual Fund In 2007 1.0 Introduction 1.0.1 Chapter Description In this chapter, explaining the background of the study, problem statement, objectives of the study, hypotheses, significance of this study, as well as the scope and limitations during the process of completing this study. 1.0.2 Background of the Study Portfolio evaluation is on the time before 1960. Investors evaluated portfolio performance almost entirely on the basis of the rate of return. They were aware of the concept of risk but did not know how to quantify or measure it, so they could consider it explicitly. Developments in portfolio theory in the early 1960s showed investors on how to quantify and measure risk in terms of the variability of returns. Still, because no single measure combined both return and risk, the two factors had to be considered separately as researchers such as Friend, Blume, and Crockett (1970). Specifically, the investigators grouped portfolios into similar risk classes based on a measure of risk (such as the variance of return) and compared the rates of return for alternative portfolios directly within these risk classes. Before 1960, investors evaluated portfolio performance almost entirely on the rate of return, although they knew that risk was a very important variable in determining investment success. The reason for omitting risk was the lack of knowledge on how to measure and quantify it. After the development of portfolio theory in early 60s, and CAPM in subsequent years, risk, measured as either by standard deviation or beta, was included in evaluation process. However, since there was not a single measure combining return and risk, two factors were to be considered separately that were researchers grouped portfolios into similar risk classes and compared rates of return of portfolios in the same risk class. There are many kinds of measurement such as Jensen, Treynor and also Sharpe to evaluate the companys portfolio performance. Jensens alpha has been a popular performance measure because it is a return concept. Related to Dr. William F. Sharpes contribution to style analysis of investment performance, the Sharpes alpha is related to the Jensens alpha in the sense that both measures excess returns. They differ, however, in the selection and construction of benchmarks. Sharpe (1966) developed a composite index which was very similar to the Treynor measure, the only difference was that it was being used as standard deviation, instead of beta. To measure the portfolio risk, the researcher needs the average rate of return for Portfolio during a specified time period, the average rate of return on risk-free rate during the same period, Sharpe performance index and the standard deviation of the rate of return for Portfolio during the time period. Sharpe preferred to compare portfolios to the capital market line (CML) rather than the security market line (SML). Sharpe index, therefore, evaluated funds performance based on both rate of return and diversification (Sharpe 1967). For a completely diversified portfolio Treynor and Sharpe indices would give identical rankings. Although the mutual fund industry in Malaysia started as far back as 1959 with the establishment of the Malayan Unit Trust Ltd, the development of the industry did not take-off until the 1980s with the launching of the Amanah Saham Nasional (ASN). In 2004, the Commission approved 17 new Syariah-based unit trust funds, bringing the total number of such funds to 71 or 24.4% of the total 291 approved funds in the industry as at the end of 2004 (2003: 55 funds or 24.3% of the total industry). Of the 71 Syariah-based unit trust funds, 14 were balanced funds, 14 were bond funds, 39 were equity funds, 2 two were fixed income funds and two were money market funds. The number of units in circulation for Syariah-based unit trust funds also increased from 8.59 billion units as at the end of 2003 to 13.16 billion units in 2004. The number of accounts registered an increase of 23.4% or 80,848 accounts, with a total of 427,000 accounts in 2004. One conventional fund made changes to its investment objectives and operations which enabled it to comply with the requirements of Syariah-based unit trust funds. In terms of value, the NAV of Syariah-based unit trust funds grew to RM6.76 billion representing 7.7% of the industry, an increase of 0.9% from the previous year. Over a 10-year period (1995-2004), the NAV of Syariah-based unit trust funds grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.18% while the overall industry CAGR was 7.89%. The recognition of the increasing dominance and importance of unit trusts as an investment instrument has spurred researchers to devise appropriate techniques to assess portfolio performance. The earlier works by Sharpe (1966), Treynor (1965) and Jensen (1968) represented significant contributions to the evaluation of portfolio performance. Therefore, the primary aim of this paper is to present new evidences for the analysis of companies portfolio performance using Sharpe ratio by studying the differences the performance between Malaysian conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund in 2007. 1.0.3 Overview of Conventional and Islamic Mutual Fund Mutual fund or better known as unit trust in Malaysia is an investment vehicle created by asset management companies specializing in pooling savings from both retail and institutional investors. Individual investors seeking liquidity, portfolio diversification and investment expertise are increasingly choosing unit trust funds as their investment vehicle. However, these investors do differ in their preferences based on their risk threshold, liquidity needs and their needs to comply with religious requirement. In the Malaysian context, the performance of mutual funds or more popularly known as unit trust funds as reported by Shamsher and Annuar (1995), Tan (1995), Leong and Aw (1997), Annuar et al,. (1997) and Low and Noor A. Ghazali (2005) concluded that on average, funds were unable to beat the market. The number of unit trust has grown dramatically in recent years. Unit trusts are now the preferred way for individual investors and many institutions to participate in the capital markets, and their popularity has increased demand for evaluations of fund performance. Muslims are not allowed to invest in standard mutual funds since their religion prohibits them from investing in certain equities, like those of banks or companies that deal in pork, alcohol, pornography and certain entertainment related products. An Islamic mutual fund is similar to a â€Å"conventional† mutual fund in many ways; however, unlike its â€Å"conventional† counterpart, an Islamic mutual fund must conform to the Sharia (Islamic Law) investment precepts. The Sharia encourages the use of profit sharing and partnership schemes, and forbids riba (interest), maysir (gambling and pure games of chance), and gharar (selling something that is not owned or that cannot be described in accurate detail; i.e., in terms of type, size and amount) (El-Gamal 2000). The Sharia guidelines and principles govern several aspects of an Islamic mutual fund, including its asset allocation (portfolio screening), investment and trading practices, and income distribution (purification). When selecting investments for their portfolio (asset allocation), conventional mutual funds can freely choose between debt-bearing investments and profit-bearing investment, and invest across the spectrum of all available industries. An Islamic mutual fund, however, must set up screens in order to select those companies that meet its qualitative and quantitative criteria set by Sharia guidelines. 1.1 Problem Statement At some levels, people are always interested in evaluating the performance of their investments. Having to spend the time and incurred the expense to design an asset allocation strategy and select the specific set of securities to form their portfolios, investors whether they are individuals, corporations, or financial institutions. It must be periodically determined whether this effort is worthwhile. Investors in managing their own portfolios should evaluate their performance, as should those who pay one or several professional money managers to make these decisions for them. It is imperative to determine the realized investment performance which justifies the additional costs of engaging professional management. Comparing a portfolios historical returns to those produced by other managers or indexes can be instructive; such comparisons do not produce a complete picture of the portfolios performance. Indeed, the central tenet of the modern approach to performance measurement is that it is impossible to make a thorough evaluation of an investment without explicitly control the risk of the portfolio. Given the complexity and importance of the issues involved, it is not a surprise to learn that there is not a single universally accepted procedure for risk-adjusting portfolio returns. Nevertheless, there are several techniques that are commonly employed. Some previous studies found results that are inconsistent with Chuas findings. These studies include Ewe (1994), Shamsher and Annuar (1995), and Tan (1995). Shamsher and Annuar (1995), focused their study on the performance of 54 unit trusts covering the period of late 80s to early 90s. They found out that the returns on investment in unit trust were well below the risk free and market returns. Furthermore, the results indicated that not only the degree of portfolios diversification was below expectation but the actual returns and risk characteristics of funds were also inconsistent with their stated objectives. Tan (1995) analyzed performance of 12 unit trusts over a 10-year period, 1984-1993. He concluded that unit trusts in general perform worse than the market portfolio. Consistent with Chuas findings, Tan also concluded that government sponsored funds performed better than private funds. As we can see, there are three portfolio performance evaluation techniques that comprise the basic ‘toolkit for measuring risk-adjusted performance. Although some redundancy exists among these measures, each of them provides unique perspectives, so that best viewed as complementary measures. In particular, examining the controversy surrounding the selection of the proper benchmark to use in the risk-adjustment process and discussing why these benchmark problems become larger when beginning to invest globally. From here, how to evaluate the performance of the investments in order to reduce the risk taken? What measurement can contribute to evaluating a good investment? Therefore, it is interesting to analyze the companies portfolio performance by studying on the differences in the performance between conventional and Islamic equity mutual fund in Malaysia by using Sharpe ratio. 1.2 Objectives of Research The general purpose of this study is to analyze the companies portfolio performance using Sharpe ratio by studying on the differences in the performance between conventional and Islamic equity mutual fund in Malaysia. A careful review on those questions has led to the development of the following specific research objectives which are: i. To measure and rank both relative quantitative performances of mutual fund (conventional/Islamic) on the basis of their return, total risk, coefficient of variation and Sharpe ratio. The term performance contains both the return and the risk undertaken by these mutual funds. ii. To investigate whether both mutual funds (conventional/Islamic) are earning higher returns than the benchmark returns (or market Portfolio/Index returns) in terms of risk. iii. To determine the relationship between dependent variable and independent variable. 1.3 Scope of Study The study is on the analysis of the companies portfolio performance in determining the measure of average daily return, total risk (standard deviation), coefficient of variation and Sharpe ratio. Moreover, to observe the differences in terms of performance between conventional and Islamic mutual fund in the context of Malaysian capital market by comparing them to the stock market index or Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) benchmark. The scopes of the study are stated as follow:  § The relationship between two variables: the return on equity mutual fund as the dependent variable whereas the return on stock market index (KLCI) as the independent variable for conventional and Islamic fund.  § The period of study will cover one (1) year starting from January 2007 to December 2007 using the daily basis collected from The Star and New Straits Times newspapers and also from the internet.  § This research will also focus on the conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund companies available in Malaysia. 1.4 Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework shows the relationship between the independent variables and dependent variable. The independent variable is the return on KLCI while the dependent variable is the return of Equity Mutual fund companies in Malaysia. Schematic diagram for the theoretical framework in this study is as follows: Market Index Equity Fund Market Index Islamic Equity Fund Independent Variable Dependent Variable 1.5 Hypotheses According to Uma Sekaran (2003), a hypothesis can be defined as a logically conjectured relationship between two or more variables expressed in the form of testable statement. Hypothesis can be divided into two categories which are Ho which is a Null Hypothesis and Ha which is an Alternate Hypothesis. The term â€Å"null† can be thought of as meaning â€Å"no change† or â€Å"no difference†. The second hypothesis is called alternative hypothesis. It is summary of the case if the null hypothesis is not true. It is stated that Ha, the alternative hypothesis is a statement of a view that has been prepared to be accepted if Ho is rejected. The hypotheses of this study are: Hypothesis 1: Ho: There is no relationship between the return on KLCI and the return on Conventional equity mutual fund. Ha: There is a relationship between the return on KLCI and the return on Conventional equity mutual fund. Hypothesis 2: Ho: There is no relationship between the return on KLCI and the return on Islamic equity mutual fund. Ha: There is a relationship between the return on KLCI and the return on Islamic equity mutual fund. 1.6 Limitations of the Study Data Collection and Cost Limitation The major source of data gained is from the secondary sources. The data is only available at certain places and it requires cost to obtain the data. Besides, it also requires costs in the process of printing, photocopying, data services and transportations to obtain the information. The information about the topic studied is also difficult to search in the library because of the limited information. As a result, it causes problems to the researcher to gather and collect the information. The information and data related to the study is rather difficult to obtain. Thus, the accuracy of the study depends on the accuracy of the data available and may not perfectly precise. In addition, data is also limited since it relies on the secondary sources alone. Lack of Experience and Expertise Since this research is the first research experience for the researcher, undoubtedly there are still lots of things to improve. The lacks of experience especially in data collection and time management have been the limitations to the researcher. Moreover, the researcher has limited knowledge on the topic and needs more understanding on the topic studied. Time Constraint Time is very limited for the researcher to complete the research. The researcher has to be very smart in scheduling the time to make sure the research is completed in time. Thus, time constraint has been identified as one of the limitations for the researcher. 1.7 Significance of the Study This research analyzes on the companies portfolio performance using Sharpe ratio by studying on the differences in the performance between conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund in Malaysia. Therefore this study will provide some information that can be useful because the data and findings from this research will help other researchers to produce better result in their research. This research is also significant to: To Researcher As a finance student, issues in measuring portfolio performance are so much important and crucial. By studying about measurement of portfolio performance in depth, a better understanding and knowledge is gained. This research has given the researcher the opportunity to get the experience in practice as well as in theories. To other researcher This study also can be a useful reference to other researchers who are keen to carry on the study regarding the performance of mutual fund in Malaysia. There are several fruitful areas in this study that can be further examined by other researchers. Further study will give an opportunity to other researchers to expand their view and knowledge. To do so, they need to refer to numerous literatures and hopefully, this research can come in handy for them. To Finance Students This research will be very useful for finance students in having more knowledge about the companys portfolio performance and the differences in the performance between conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual fund in Malaysia. They can use this research as a guide and as references in their studies in portfolio management and mutual fund in Malaysia. To Businesses This research is very important to businesses in realizing the effects of portfolio management on their performance. This is important so that they will have clear direction in deciding their investment. To Investors This study plays an important role in decision making since it gives the investors a prior knowledge of which Equity Mutual Fund companies is the best to invest and whether those companies provide high returns on investment. Moreover, revealing the specific volatility patterns in returns might also benefit investors in risk management and portfolio optimization. This research is also important to investors so that they can have a clearer picture of their investment choices. For investors the study can help them to know the risk and return of their investment transaction. 1.8 Definition of Terms Portfolio A collection of investments are all owned by the same individual or organization. These investments often include stocks, which are investments in individual businesses; bonds, which are investments in debt that are designed to earn interest; and mutual funds, which are essentially pools of money from many investors that are invested by professionals or according to indices. Sharpe Ratio A risk-adjusted measure developed by William F. Sharpe, calculated using standard deviation and excess return to determine reward per unit of risk. The higher the Sharpe ratio, the better the funds historical risk-adjusted performance. Mutual Fund (Unit Trust) A form of collective investment constituted under a trust deed or a pooled investment plan where the capital contributions of investors are combined into a legally formed trust fund. Equity fund Equity fund or stock fund is a fund that invests in Equities more commonly known as stocks. Such funds are typically held either in stock or cash, as opposed to bonds, notes or other securities. Return Based on Investopedia definition, return can be defined as the gain or lossof an investment over a specified period, expressed asa percentage increase over the initial investment cost. Gains on investments are considered to beany income received from the security, plus realized capital gains. Risk The quantifiable likelihood of loss or less-than-expected returns Risk-adjusted return A measure of how much an investment returned in relation to the amount of risk it took on. Often used to compare a high-risk, potentially high-return investment with a low-risk, lower-return investment. Benchmark A standard, used for comparison. For example, the Nasdaq may be used as a benchmark against which the performance of a technology stock is compared. Regression Analysis A statistical technique used to find relationships between variables for the purpose of predicting future values. Coefficient of Determination A measure of the correlation between the dependent and independent variables in a regression analysis. R-squared A measurement of how closely a portfolios performance correlates with the performance of a benchmark index, such as the SP 500, and thus a measurement of what portion of its performance can be explained by the performance of the overall market or index. Values for r-squared range from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates no correlation and 1 indicates perfect correlation. Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) is a stock market index generally accepted as the local stock market barometer. KLCI was introduced in 1986 to public the need for a stock market index which would serve as an accurate performance indicator of the Malaysian stock market as well as the economy. It is used to be the main index, and is now one of the three primary indices for the Malaysian stock market which the other two are FMB30 and FMBEMAS, Bursa Malaysia. It contains 100 companies from the Main Board with approximately 500 to 650 listed companies in the Main Board which comprise of multi-sectors companies across the year 2000 to 2006 and is a capitalization-weighted index. 2.0 Literature Review 2.1 Chapter Description Literature review is the documentation of a comprehensive review of the published and unpublished work from the secondary sources of data in the areas of specific interest to the researcher. The reason of the literature review is to ensure that no important variable that has in the past been founded repeatedly to have an impact on the problem is ignored. (Uma Sekaran, 2005 page 63). 2.2 Literature Review of Evaluated Portfolio Performance Craig W. French (2003) discussed on what is involved in evaluating portfolio performance, including the need to adjust for differential risk and differential time periods, the need for a benchmark, and constraints on portfolio managers. It also considered the difference between the portfolios performance and the managers performance. For measurement this paper used well-known risk-adjusted (composite) measures of Sharpe portfolio performance. Investors who had all (or substantially all) of their assets in a portfolio of securities should rely more on the Sharpe measure because total risk is important. Joel Owen and Ramon Rabinovitch (1998), for the last four decades, numerous authors have been suggesting methods to evaluate portfolio performance. Sharpe (1966) proposed performance measures which had produced a score for every portfolio being evaluated. These scores were used to compare the performance of any two portfolios or rank the performance of all portfolios in a given set. The earlier works by Sharpe (1966), Treynor (1965) and Jensen (1968) represented significant contributions to the evaluation of portfolio performance. 2.3 Literature Review of Sharpe Ratio Francisco Peà ±aranda (2007) in her paper commented on developments beyond mean-variance preferences to some alternatives to the Sharpe ratio. The main goal of those measures was to give a similar ranking to Sharpe ratios when returns were symmetrically distributed and showed a preference for skewness when they were not. Moreover, performance measures could be used to guide asset allocation since they can be used as the criterion to maximize with portfolio. Raphie Hayat (2006), the attractiveness of the Sharpe Ratio came from its intuitiveness and simplicity. The Sharpe Ratio are simple because it could rank funds on the base of a single and intuitive since it only rewarded funds with a higher ratio if their returns were higher with the same level of risk or if the risk was lowered while keeping the same level of return. Zhidong Bai, Keyan Wang, and Wing-Keung Wong (2006) stated that the asset performance evaluation was one of the most important areas in investment analysis. In order to compare the performance among assets, several statistics had been developed and among them, the Sharpe-ratio statistic was the most prevalent. However, the major limitation of the Sharpe-ratio statistic was that its distribution is only valid asymptotically, but not valid for small samples. Nevertheless, it was important in finance to test the performance among assets for small samples. Tzu-Wei Kuo and Cesario Mateus (2006), the Sharpe ratio was well known risk-adjusted performance measures and easily understood by an individual investor. Thus, investors could evaluate the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) performance, based on the Sharpe ratio. However, the Sharpe ratio relied on the assumption that returns were normally distributed having these measures difficulty in evaluating the performance with skewed return distributions. Martin Eling and Frank Schuhmacher said that the classic Sharpe ratio was adequate in evaluating investment funds when the returns of those funds were normally distributed and the investor intended to place all his risky assets into just one investment fund. Because hedge fund returns differed significantly from a normal distribution, other performance measures had been proposed and encouraged in both academic and practice-oriented literature. The Sharpe ratio measured the performance of an investment fund by considering the relationship between the risk premium and the standard deviation of the returns generated by a fund. The Sharpe ratio were an adequate performance measure if the returns of the investment funds were normally distributed and the investor wished to place all his risky assets in just one investment fund. Andreas G Merikas, Anna A Merikas and Ioannis Sorros (2005) examined the exact relationship between the Sharpe ratio and the information ratio. Sharpe in 1994 asserted that the information ratio was a generalized Sharpe ratio. Sharpe ratios had been estimated for each fund in each category, and an average ratio for each category. The Sharpe ratio would generally be positive since excess returns of funds over the risk free rate would be positive, unlike excess returns of funds over the market, which could be negative, as the return of the risk free bond was smaller but at the same time less volatile than the return of the market. Cheryl J. Frohlich, Anita Pennathur and Oliver Schnusenberg in their research, Sharpe reward-to-variability ratio was used if total variability was thought to be the appropriate measure of risk, a stocks (portfolios) risk-adjusted returns could be computed using the Sharpe Index. The Sharpe and Treynor Index eliminated the problem of only considering return as a measure of performance. However, neither ratio was independent of the time period over which it is measured. This means that the ratio can change from one period to another with different results. Moreover, both ratios also ignored the correlation of a fund with other assets, liabilities, or previous realizations of its own return. Mario Onorato (2004), the Sharpe Ratio of any investment was defined as its excess return, it is return in excess of a benchmark return divided by the standard deviation of excess return. The benchmark represents a risk free investment alternative. Moreover, although the Sharpe ratio has become part of the modern financial analysis, its applications typically did not account for the fact that it was an estimated quantity, subject to estimation errors that would be substantial in some cases. The statistical properties of Sharpe ratios depended intimately on the statistical properties of the return series on which they are based. This suggests that a more sophisticated approach to interpreting Sharpe ratios is called for, one that incorporates information about the investment style that generates the returns and the market environment in which those returns are generated. Wei Zhen (2004), in his paper said that the Sharpe (1966) and Treynor (1965) performance measures were widely accepted in both academia and industry to assess the Risk-adjusted value of a particular portfolio. It could be shown, after some mathematical treatment, that the Sharpe performance measure was useful when the portfolio of interest represented all of the investors investment, while Treynors measure was preferred when the portfolio under discussion was only a portion of the whole investment package. Robert McCauley and Guorong Jiang (2004), through the Sharpe ratio it compared the returns of portfolios in relation to their risk by dividing their returns in excess of the riskless rate of return by the volatility of their returns. A portfolio with a higher Sharpe ratio was preferred in that it offered a higher return per unit of risk, as measured by return volatility. William Goetzmann, Jonathan Ingersoll, Matthew Spiegel and Ivo Welch (2002), the Sharpe ratio is one of the most common measures of portfolio performance. It was used as a tool for evaluating and predicting the performance of mutual fund managers. Since then the Sharpe ratio, and its close analogues the Information ratio, the squared Sharpe ratio and M-squared, have become widely used in practice to rank investment managers and to evaluate the attractiveness of investment strategies in general. The appeal of the Sharpe measure was clear. It was an affine transformation of a simple t-test for equality in means of two variables, the first variable being the managers time series of returns and the second being a benchmark. The Sharpe ratio was also ubiquitous in academic research as a metric for bounding asset prices. Andrew Worthington and Helen Higgs (2002), the Sharpe ratio (also known as the reward-to-volatility ratio) indicated the excess return per unit of risk and was calculated by dividing the return in excess of the risk-free rate by the standard deviation of returns. In the current context, the Sharpe ratio was the most appropriate performance measure for an investor whose portfolio was composed wholly of a given artists work. Verena Kugi (1999), the Sharpe ratio measured the change in the portfolios return with respect to a one unit change in the portfolios risk. The higher this Reward-to-Variability-Ratio the more attractive was the evaluated portfolio because the investor received more compensation for the same increase in risk. Graphically, the Sharpe ratio was equal to the slope of a straight line connecting the position of the evaluated portfolio, for example a fund, with the risk-free rate. To determine the quality of performance, the Sharpe index of the evaluated portfolio was compared to the Sharpe index of the market or benchmark portfolio. The portfolios Sharpe index being higher than the markets Sharpe index indicated that the portfolio manager had outperformed the market. Respectively, a lower Sharpe ratio was a sign of underperformance. Any portfolio that was positioned on the capital market line had a Sharpe ratio equal to that of the market and was therefore characterized by neutral perform ance. Youguo Liang and Willard McIntosh (1998), the Sharpes alpha captured the excess return of Malaysian Conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund Malaysian Conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund An Analysis Of Companies Portfolio Performance Using Sharpe Ratio: A Study On The Differences Of Performance Between Malaysian Conventional And Islamic Equity Mutual Fund In 2007 1.0 Introduction 1.0.1 Chapter Description In this chapter, explaining the background of the study, problem statement, objectives of the study, hypotheses, significance of this study, as well as the scope and limitations during the process of completing this study. 1.0.2 Background of the Study Portfolio evaluation is on the time before 1960. Investors evaluated portfolio performance almost entirely on the basis of the rate of return. They were aware of the concept of risk but did not know how to quantify or measure it, so they could consider it explicitly. Developments in portfolio theory in the early 1960s showed investors on how to quantify and measure risk in terms of the variability of returns. Still, because no single measure combined both return and risk, the two factors had to be considered separately as researchers such as Friend, Blume, and Crockett (1970). Specifically, the investigators grouped portfolios into similar risk classes based on a measure of risk (such as the variance of return) and compared the rates of return for alternative portfolios directly within these risk classes. Before 1960, investors evaluated portfolio performance almost entirely on the rate of return, although they knew that risk was a very important variable in determining investment success. The reason for omitting risk was the lack of knowledge on how to measure and quantify it. After the development of portfolio theory in early 60s, and CAPM in subsequent years, risk, measured as either by standard deviation or beta, was included in evaluation process. However, since there was not a single measure combining return and risk, two factors were to be considered separately that were researchers grouped portfolios into similar risk classes and compared rates of return of portfolios in the same risk class. There are many kinds of measurement such as Jensen, Treynor and also Sharpe to evaluate the companys portfolio performance. Jensens alpha has been a popular performance measure because it is a return concept. Related to Dr. William F. Sharpes contribution to style analysis of investment performance, the Sharpes alpha is related to the Jensens alpha in the sense that both measures excess returns. They differ, however, in the selection and construction of benchmarks. Sharpe (1966) developed a composite index which was very similar to the Treynor measure, the only difference was that it was being used as standard deviation, instead of beta. To measure the portfolio risk, the researcher needs the average rate of return for Portfolio during a specified time period, the average rate of return on risk-free rate during the same period, Sharpe performance index and the standard deviation of the rate of return for Portfolio during the time period. Sharpe preferred to compare portfolios to the capital market line (CML) rather than the security market line (SML). Sharpe index, therefore, evaluated funds performance based on both rate of return and diversification (Sharpe 1967). For a completely diversified portfolio Treynor and Sharpe indices would give identical rankings. Although the mutual fund industry in Malaysia started as far back as 1959 with the establishment of the Malayan Unit Trust Ltd, the development of the industry did not take-off until the 1980s with the launching of the Amanah Saham Nasional (ASN). In 2004, the Commission approved 17 new Syariah-based unit trust funds, bringing the total number of such funds to 71 or 24.4% of the total 291 approved funds in the industry as at the end of 2004 (2003: 55 funds or 24.3% of the total industry). Of the 71 Syariah-based unit trust funds, 14 were balanced funds, 14 were bond funds, 39 were equity funds, 2 two were fixed income funds and two were money market funds. The number of units in circulation for Syariah-based unit trust funds also increased from 8.59 billion units as at the end of 2003 to 13.16 billion units in 2004. The number of accounts registered an increase of 23.4% or 80,848 accounts, with a total of 427,000 accounts in 2004. One conventional fund made changes to its investment objectives and operations which enabled it to comply with the requirements of Syariah-based unit trust funds. In terms of value, the NAV of Syariah-based unit trust funds grew to RM6.76 billion representing 7.7% of the industry, an increase of 0.9% from the previous year. Over a 10-year period (1995-2004), the NAV of Syariah-based unit trust funds grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.18% while the overall industry CAGR was 7.89%. The recognition of the increasing dominance and importance of unit trusts as an investment instrument has spurred researchers to devise appropriate techniques to assess portfolio performance. The earlier works by Sharpe (1966), Treynor (1965) and Jensen (1968) represented significant contributions to the evaluation of portfolio performance. Therefore, the primary aim of this paper is to present new evidences for the analysis of companies portfolio performance using Sharpe ratio by studying the differences the performance between Malaysian conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund in 2007. 1.0.3 Overview of Conventional and Islamic Mutual Fund Mutual fund or better known as unit trust in Malaysia is an investment vehicle created by asset management companies specializing in pooling savings from both retail and institutional investors. Individual investors seeking liquidity, portfolio diversification and investment expertise are increasingly choosing unit trust funds as their investment vehicle. However, these investors do differ in their preferences based on their risk threshold, liquidity needs and their needs to comply with religious requirement. In the Malaysian context, the performance of mutual funds or more popularly known as unit trust funds as reported by Shamsher and Annuar (1995), Tan (1995), Leong and Aw (1997), Annuar et al,. (1997) and Low and Noor A. Ghazali (2005) concluded that on average, funds were unable to beat the market. The number of unit trust has grown dramatically in recent years. Unit trusts are now the preferred way for individual investors and many institutions to participate in the capital markets, and their popularity has increased demand for evaluations of fund performance. Muslims are not allowed to invest in standard mutual funds since their religion prohibits them from investing in certain equities, like those of banks or companies that deal in pork, alcohol, pornography and certain entertainment related products. An Islamic mutual fund is similar to a â€Å"conventional† mutual fund in many ways; however, unlike its â€Å"conventional† counterpart, an Islamic mutual fund must conform to the Sharia (Islamic Law) investment precepts. The Sharia encourages the use of profit sharing and partnership schemes, and forbids riba (interest), maysir (gambling and pure games of chance), and gharar (selling something that is not owned or that cannot be described in accurate detail; i.e., in terms of type, size and amount) (El-Gamal 2000). The Sharia guidelines and principles govern several aspects of an Islamic mutual fund, including its asset allocation (portfolio screening), investment and trading practices, and income distribution (purification). When selecting investments for their portfolio (asset allocation), conventional mutual funds can freely choose between debt-bearing investments and profit-bearing investment, and invest across the spectrum of all available industries. An Islamic mutual fund, however, must set up screens in order to select those companies that meet its qualitative and quantitative criteria set by Sharia guidelines. 1.1 Problem Statement At some levels, people are always interested in evaluating the performance of their investments. Having to spend the time and incurred the expense to design an asset allocation strategy and select the specific set of securities to form their portfolios, investors whether they are individuals, corporations, or financial institutions. It must be periodically determined whether this effort is worthwhile. Investors in managing their own portfolios should evaluate their performance, as should those who pay one or several professional money managers to make these decisions for them. It is imperative to determine the realized investment performance which justifies the additional costs of engaging professional management. Comparing a portfolios historical returns to those produced by other managers or indexes can be instructive; such comparisons do not produce a complete picture of the portfolios performance. Indeed, the central tenet of the modern approach to performance measurement is that it is impossible to make a thorough evaluation of an investment without explicitly control the risk of the portfolio. Given the complexity and importance of the issues involved, it is not a surprise to learn that there is not a single universally accepted procedure for risk-adjusting portfolio returns. Nevertheless, there are several techniques that are commonly employed. Some previous studies found results that are inconsistent with Chuas findings. These studies include Ewe (1994), Shamsher and Annuar (1995), and Tan (1995). Shamsher and Annuar (1995), focused their study on the performance of 54 unit trusts covering the period of late 80s to early 90s. They found out that the returns on investment in unit trust were well below the risk free and market returns. Furthermore, the results indicated that not only the degree of portfolios diversification was below expectation but the actual returns and risk characteristics of funds were also inconsistent with their stated objectives. Tan (1995) analyzed performance of 12 unit trusts over a 10-year period, 1984-1993. He concluded that unit trusts in general perform worse than the market portfolio. Consistent with Chuas findings, Tan also concluded that government sponsored funds performed better than private funds. As we can see, there are three portfolio performance evaluation techniques that comprise the basic ‘toolkit for measuring risk-adjusted performance. Although some redundancy exists among these measures, each of them provides unique perspectives, so that best viewed as complementary measures. In particular, examining the controversy surrounding the selection of the proper benchmark to use in the risk-adjustment process and discussing why these benchmark problems become larger when beginning to invest globally. From here, how to evaluate the performance of the investments in order to reduce the risk taken? What measurement can contribute to evaluating a good investment? Therefore, it is interesting to analyze the companies portfolio performance by studying on the differences in the performance between conventional and Islamic equity mutual fund in Malaysia by using Sharpe ratio. 1.2 Objectives of Research The general purpose of this study is to analyze the companies portfolio performance using Sharpe ratio by studying on the differences in the performance between conventional and Islamic equity mutual fund in Malaysia. A careful review on those questions has led to the development of the following specific research objectives which are: i. To measure and rank both relative quantitative performances of mutual fund (conventional/Islamic) on the basis of their return, total risk, coefficient of variation and Sharpe ratio. The term performance contains both the return and the risk undertaken by these mutual funds. ii. To investigate whether both mutual funds (conventional/Islamic) are earning higher returns than the benchmark returns (or market Portfolio/Index returns) in terms of risk. iii. To determine the relationship between dependent variable and independent variable. 1.3 Scope of Study The study is on the analysis of the companies portfolio performance in determining the measure of average daily return, total risk (standard deviation), coefficient of variation and Sharpe ratio. Moreover, to observe the differences in terms of performance between conventional and Islamic mutual fund in the context of Malaysian capital market by comparing them to the stock market index or Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) benchmark. The scopes of the study are stated as follow:  § The relationship between two variables: the return on equity mutual fund as the dependent variable whereas the return on stock market index (KLCI) as the independent variable for conventional and Islamic fund.  § The period of study will cover one (1) year starting from January 2007 to December 2007 using the daily basis collected from The Star and New Straits Times newspapers and also from the internet.  § This research will also focus on the conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund companies available in Malaysia. 1.4 Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework shows the relationship between the independent variables and dependent variable. The independent variable is the return on KLCI while the dependent variable is the return of Equity Mutual fund companies in Malaysia. Schematic diagram for the theoretical framework in this study is as follows: Market Index Equity Fund Market Index Islamic Equity Fund Independent Variable Dependent Variable 1.5 Hypotheses According to Uma Sekaran (2003), a hypothesis can be defined as a logically conjectured relationship between two or more variables expressed in the form of testable statement. Hypothesis can be divided into two categories which are Ho which is a Null Hypothesis and Ha which is an Alternate Hypothesis. The term â€Å"null† can be thought of as meaning â€Å"no change† or â€Å"no difference†. The second hypothesis is called alternative hypothesis. It is summary of the case if the null hypothesis is not true. It is stated that Ha, the alternative hypothesis is a statement of a view that has been prepared to be accepted if Ho is rejected. The hypotheses of this study are: Hypothesis 1: Ho: There is no relationship between the return on KLCI and the return on Conventional equity mutual fund. Ha: There is a relationship between the return on KLCI and the return on Conventional equity mutual fund. Hypothesis 2: Ho: There is no relationship between the return on KLCI and the return on Islamic equity mutual fund. Ha: There is a relationship between the return on KLCI and the return on Islamic equity mutual fund. 1.6 Limitations of the Study Data Collection and Cost Limitation The major source of data gained is from the secondary sources. The data is only available at certain places and it requires cost to obtain the data. Besides, it also requires costs in the process of printing, photocopying, data services and transportations to obtain the information. The information about the topic studied is also difficult to search in the library because of the limited information. As a result, it causes problems to the researcher to gather and collect the information. The information and data related to the study is rather difficult to obtain. Thus, the accuracy of the study depends on the accuracy of the data available and may not perfectly precise. In addition, data is also limited since it relies on the secondary sources alone. Lack of Experience and Expertise Since this research is the first research experience for the researcher, undoubtedly there are still lots of things to improve. The lacks of experience especially in data collection and time management have been the limitations to the researcher. Moreover, the researcher has limited knowledge on the topic and needs more understanding on the topic studied. Time Constraint Time is very limited for the researcher to complete the research. The researcher has to be very smart in scheduling the time to make sure the research is completed in time. Thus, time constraint has been identified as one of the limitations for the researcher. 1.7 Significance of the Study This research analyzes on the companies portfolio performance using Sharpe ratio by studying on the differences in the performance between conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual Fund in Malaysia. Therefore this study will provide some information that can be useful because the data and findings from this research will help other researchers to produce better result in their research. This research is also significant to: To Researcher As a finance student, issues in measuring portfolio performance are so much important and crucial. By studying about measurement of portfolio performance in depth, a better understanding and knowledge is gained. This research has given the researcher the opportunity to get the experience in practice as well as in theories. To other researcher This study also can be a useful reference to other researchers who are keen to carry on the study regarding the performance of mutual fund in Malaysia. There are several fruitful areas in this study that can be further examined by other researchers. Further study will give an opportunity to other researchers to expand their view and knowledge. To do so, they need to refer to numerous literatures and hopefully, this research can come in handy for them. To Finance Students This research will be very useful for finance students in having more knowledge about the companys portfolio performance and the differences in the performance between conventional and Islamic Equity Mutual fund in Malaysia. They can use this research as a guide and as references in their studies in portfolio management and mutual fund in Malaysia. To Businesses This research is very important to businesses in realizing the effects of portfolio management on their performance. This is important so that they will have clear direction in deciding their investment. To Investors This study plays an important role in decision making since it gives the investors a prior knowledge of which Equity Mutual Fund companies is the best to invest and whether those companies provide high returns on investment. Moreover, revealing the specific volatility patterns in returns might also benefit investors in risk management and portfolio optimization. This research is also important to investors so that they can have a clearer picture of their investment choices. For investors the study can help them to know the risk and return of their investment transaction. 1.8 Definition of Terms Portfolio A collection of investments are all owned by the same individual or organization. These investments often include stocks, which are investments in individual businesses; bonds, which are investments in debt that are designed to earn interest; and mutual funds, which are essentially pools of money from many investors that are invested by professionals or according to indices. Sharpe Ratio A risk-adjusted measure developed by William F. Sharpe, calculated using standard deviation and excess return to determine reward per unit of risk. The higher the Sharpe ratio, the better the funds historical risk-adjusted performance. Mutual Fund (Unit Trust) A form of collective investment constituted under a trust deed or a pooled investment plan where the capital contributions of investors are combined into a legally formed trust fund. Equity fund Equity fund or stock fund is a fund that invests in Equities more commonly known as stocks. Such funds are typically held either in stock or cash, as opposed to bonds, notes or other securities. Return Based on Investopedia definition, return can be defined as the gain or lossof an investment over a specified period, expressed asa percentage increase over the initial investment cost. Gains on investments are considered to beany income received from the security, plus realized capital gains. Risk The quantifiable likelihood of loss or less-than-expected returns Risk-adjusted return A measure of how much an investment returned in relation to the amount of risk it took on. Often used to compare a high-risk, potentially high-return investment with a low-risk, lower-return investment. Benchmark A standard, used for comparison. For example, the Nasdaq may be used as a benchmark against which the performance of a technology stock is compared. Regression Analysis A statistical technique used to find relationships between variables for the purpose of predicting future values. Coefficient of Determination A measure of the correlation between the dependent and independent variables in a regression analysis. R-squared A measurement of how closely a portfolios performance correlates with the performance of a benchmark index, such as the SP 500, and thus a measurement of what portion of its performance can be explained by the performance of the overall market or index. Values for r-squared range from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates no correlation and 1 indicates perfect correlation. Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) is a stock market index generally accepted as the local stock market barometer. KLCI was introduced in 1986 to public the need for a stock market index which would serve as an accurate performance indicator of the Malaysian stock market as well as the economy. It is used to be the main index, and is now one of the three primary indices for the Malaysian stock market which the other two are FMB30 and FMBEMAS, Bursa Malaysia. It contains 100 companies from the Main Board with approximately 500 to 650 listed companies in the Main Board which comprise of multi-sectors companies across the year 2000 to 2006 and is a capitalization-weighted index. 2.0 Literature Review 2.1 Chapter Description Literature review is the documentation of a comprehensive review of the published and unpublished work from the secondary sources of data in the areas of specific interest to the researcher. The reason of the literature review is to ensure that no important variable that has in the past been founded repeatedly to have an impact on the problem is ignored. (Uma Sekaran, 2005 page 63). 2.2 Literature Review of Evaluated Portfolio Performance Craig W. French (2003) discussed on what is involved in evaluating portfolio performance, including the need to adjust for differential risk and differential time periods, the need for a benchmark, and constraints on portfolio managers. It also considered the difference between the portfolios performance and the managers performance. For measurement this paper used well-known risk-adjusted (composite) measures of Sharpe portfolio performance. Investors who had all (or substantially all) of their assets in a portfolio of securities should rely more on the Sharpe measure because total risk is important. Joel Owen and Ramon Rabinovitch (1998), for the last four decades, numerous authors have been suggesting methods to evaluate portfolio performance. Sharpe (1966) proposed performance measures which had produced a score for every portfolio being evaluated. These scores were used to compare the performance of any two portfolios or rank the performance of all portfolios in a given set. The earlier works by Sharpe (1966), Treynor (1965) and Jensen (1968) represented significant contributions to the evaluation of portfolio performance. 2.3 Literature Review of Sharpe Ratio Francisco Peà ±aranda (2007) in her paper commented on developments beyond mean-variance preferences to some alternatives to the Sharpe ratio. The main goal of those measures was to give a similar ranking to Sharpe ratios when returns were symmetrically distributed and showed a preference for skewness when they were not. Moreover, performance measures could be used to guide asset allocation since they can be used as the criterion to maximize with portfolio. Raphie Hayat (2006), the attractiveness of the Sharpe Ratio came from its intuitiveness and simplicity. The Sharpe Ratio are simple because it could rank funds on the base of a single and intuitive since it only rewarded funds with a higher ratio if their returns were higher with the same level of risk or if the risk was lowered while keeping the same level of return. Zhidong Bai, Keyan Wang, and Wing-Keung Wong (2006) stated that the asset performance evaluation was one of the most important areas in investment analysis. In order to compare the performance among assets, several statistics had been developed and among them, the Sharpe-ratio statistic was the most prevalent. However, the major limitation of the Sharpe-ratio statistic was that its distribution is only valid asymptotically, but not valid for small samples. Nevertheless, it was important in finance to test the performance among assets for small samples. Tzu-Wei Kuo and Cesario Mateus (2006), the Sharpe ratio was well known risk-adjusted performance measures and easily understood by an individual investor. Thus, investors could evaluate the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) performance, based on the Sharpe ratio. However, the Sharpe ratio relied on the assumption that returns were normally distributed having these measures difficulty in evaluating the performance with skewed return distributions. Martin Eling and Frank Schuhmacher said that the classic Sharpe ratio was adequate in evaluating investment funds when the returns of those funds were normally distributed and the investor intended to place all his risky assets into just one investment fund. Because hedge fund returns differed significantly from a normal distribution, other performance measures had been proposed and encouraged in both academic and practice-oriented literature. The Sharpe ratio measured the performance of an investment fund by considering the relationship between the risk premium and the standard deviation of the returns generated by a fund. The Sharpe ratio were an adequate performance measure if the returns of the investment funds were normally distributed and the investor wished to place all his risky assets in just one investment fund. Andreas G Merikas, Anna A Merikas and Ioannis Sorros (2005) examined the exact relationship between the Sharpe ratio and the information ratio. Sharpe in 1994 asserted that the information ratio was a generalized Sharpe ratio. Sharpe ratios had been estimated for each fund in each category, and an average ratio for each category. The Sharpe ratio would generally be positive since excess returns of funds over the risk free rate would be positive, unlike excess returns of funds over the market, which could be negative, as the return of the risk free bond was smaller but at the same time less volatile than the return of the market. Cheryl J. Frohlich, Anita Pennathur and Oliver Schnusenberg in their research, Sharpe reward-to-variability ratio was used if total variability was thought to be the appropriate measure of risk, a stocks (portfolios) risk-adjusted returns could be computed using the Sharpe Index. The Sharpe and Treynor Index eliminated the problem of only considering return as a measure of performance. However, neither ratio was independent of the time period over which it is measured. This means that the ratio can change from one period to another with different results. Moreover, both ratios also ignored the correlation of a fund with other assets, liabilities, or previous realizations of its own return. Mario Onorato (2004), the Sharpe Ratio of any investment was defined as its excess return, it is return in excess of a benchmark return divided by the standard deviation of excess return. The benchmark represents a risk free investment alternative. Moreover, although the Sharpe ratio has become part of the modern financial analysis, its applications typically did not account for the fact that it was an estimated quantity, subject to estimation errors that would be substantial in some cases. The statistical properties of Sharpe ratios depended intimately on the statistical properties of the return series on which they are based. This suggests that a more sophisticated approach to interpreting Sharpe ratios is called for, one that incorporates information about the investment style that generates the returns and the market environment in which those returns are generated. Wei Zhen (2004), in his paper said that the Sharpe (1966) and Treynor (1965) performance measures were widely accepted in both academia and industry to assess the Risk-adjusted value of a particular portfolio. It could be shown, after some mathematical treatment, that the Sharpe performance measure was useful when the portfolio of interest represented all of the investors investment, while Treynors measure was preferred when the portfolio under discussion was only a portion of the whole investment package. Robert McCauley and Guorong Jiang (2004), through the Sharpe ratio it compared the returns of portfolios in relation to their risk by dividing their returns in excess of the riskless rate of return by the volatility of their returns. A portfolio with a higher Sharpe ratio was preferred in that it offered a higher return per unit of risk, as measured by return volatility. William Goetzmann, Jonathan Ingersoll, Matthew Spiegel and Ivo Welch (2002), the Sharpe ratio is one of the most common measures of portfolio performance. It was used as a tool for evaluating and predicting the performance of mutual fund managers. Since then the Sharpe ratio, and its close analogues the Information ratio, the squared Sharpe ratio and M-squared, have become widely used in practice to rank investment managers and to evaluate the attractiveness of investment strategies in general. The appeal of the Sharpe measure was clear. It was an affine transformation of a simple t-test for equality in means of two variables, the first variable being the managers time series of returns and the second being a benchmark. The Sharpe ratio was also ubiquitous in academic research as a metric for bounding asset prices. Andrew Worthington and Helen Higgs (2002), the Sharpe ratio (also known as the reward-to-volatility ratio) indicated the excess return per unit of risk and was calculated by dividing the return in excess of the risk-free rate by the standard deviation of returns. In the current context, the Sharpe ratio was the most appropriate performance measure for an investor whose portfolio was composed wholly of a given artists work. Verena Kugi (1999), the Sharpe ratio measured the change in the portfolios return with respect to a one unit change in the portfolios risk. The higher this Reward-to-Variability-Ratio the more attractive was the evaluated portfolio because the investor received more compensation for the same increase in risk. Graphically, the Sharpe ratio was equal to the slope of a straight line connecting the position of the evaluated portfolio, for example a fund, with the risk-free rate. To determine the quality of performance, the Sharpe index of the evaluated portfolio was compared to the Sharpe index of the market or benchmark portfolio. The portfolios Sharpe index being higher than the markets Sharpe index indicated that the portfolio manager had outperformed the market. Respectively, a lower Sharpe ratio was a sign of underperformance. Any portfolio that was positioned on the capital market line had a Sharpe ratio equal to that of the market and was therefore characterized by neutral perform ance. Youguo Liang and Willard McIntosh (1998), the Sharpes alpha captured the excess return of

Essay on the Angel of a Woman in The Birthmark -- Birthmark Essays

Angel of a Woman in â€Å"The Birthmark†Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, â€Å"The Birthmark,† contains a wonderful example of the perfect wife. This essay will develop that theme.    In the opening paragraph of â€Å"The Birthmark† the narrator introduces Aylmer as a scientist who â€Å"had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one.† Hawthorne’s description of the scientist’s love for Georgiana is apt, for love is just that – spiritual. And the theme of this tale is a spiritual one. Through the course of the story Aylmer declines spiritually, while Georgiana advances spiritually.    Even after Aylmer has â€Å"persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife,† he is not capable of loving her properly, unselfishly, because he â€Å"had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion.† The narrator seeks to justify this error or lack in Aylmer by explaining that â€Å"it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy.† Already at the outset of the tale, the reader perceives that Georgiana is going to be shortchanged in this marriage. She is exposed to the problem initially when her husband asks whether â€Å"it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?'' Aylmer is in quest of physical perfection in his wife; unfortunately he discounts her inner, spiritual value so clearly manifested in her comment: ``To tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it mi ght be so.'' In using the word â€Å"simple† she is being honest and not sarcastic; she is being humble and respectful of others’ (parents?) evaluation of herself. T... ...dab: â€Å"Laugh, thing of the senses! You have earned the right to laugh.'' But there is no success, for with great tenderness and concern for her husband’s happiness, Georgiana softly says, â€Å"I am dying!† The narrator’s beautifully poetic way of expressing the demise of the wife is memorable: â€Å"The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame.† The soul of this angelic, loving woman, â€Å"lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight.† A true angel of womankind is ascending to heaven.    WORKS CITED    Hawthorne, Nathaniel . The Birthmark Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HawBirt.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1      

Office 365

Abstract This project will centers on Microsoft office 365. We are going to discuss how Microsoft Office 365 have the ability to impact the business environment in a way that we never thought it was possible. In this report we will be describing Microsoft office 365, its benefits, how it will be implemented into the business, its critical assessments, course integration, and we will compare and contrast some of the review on this technology. Office 365 Table of Contents Summary4 Benefits6 Implementation Plan8 Course Integration9 Critical Assessment: Critique Technology (Compare and Contrast the technology)11 Review of Technology11 Compare and contrast12 Pricing12 Storage13 Works Cited13 Summary Office 365 is a new offering from Microsoft that utilizes the cloud to provide online, seamless, collaboration for businesses and non-profit organizations. Office 365 contains all the familiar applications and productivity tools that everyone is already familiar with, but hosts them in a cloud environment that minimizes maintenance and storage costs while allowing individuals to work from virtually anywhere and on any device. As a cloud-based service, Office 365 offers all the benefits you would expect from a hosted software suite. The pay-as-you-go model allows organizations to pay for only what they need at any given time by increasing and decreasing subscriptions on the fly. With highly automated maintenance, dynamic storage capabilities and deployment flexibility, local IT departments can spend less resources managing desktop software and focus their efforts on strategic initiatives. The largest impact of using the cloud-based Office 365 suite  ¬will be visible to both, users and IT departments. Users will always have the latest features by performing upgrades behind the scenes without any interaction from local IT departments at no additional cost. Microsoft Office 365 consists of five components that are aimed at increasing the productivity of the user base. These include the Office Professional Plus, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Web Apps, and Lync Online. While each of those components are all cloud-based through the web, they carry the same user-interface and familiarity with the existing Microsoft offerings for desktops. Additionally, content and documents can be transferred back and forth between the desktop applications and Office 365 applications seamlessly. First on the list of offerings in the Microsoft Office 365 suite is the Office Professional Plus package. This package consists of all the traditional Microsoft Office applications including, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and OneNote. Each of these applications functions almost identically to their desktop variants and carries the same user interface. Users will be familiar with the environment and require minimal training. While the Office Professional Package allows you to create, modify and view documents, it relies on another component to store, organize, and manage the documents and content. This is the SharePoint Online component. At its core, SharePoint Online is a content management system that allows for collaboration, workflows, real-time updates, and access level management. In addition to the traditional content management functionality, SharePoint Online is also a web portal that allows organizations to create websites and communicate enterprise wide. Functionality includes, but is not limited to wikis, blogs, and discussion forums. The Exchange Online and Lync Online components are all about communication. Exchange Online is an online, service-based email server that works very much like Microsoft Exchange Server. It includes email functionality, content management, and calendar management. Lync Online takes this one step further by adding video and web conferencing functionality, enterprise instant messaging and virtual meetings. All of these communication features of Office 365 are available online from virtually anywhere. Being able to access everything from virtually anywhere is complimented by the ability to use almost any type of device to use Office 365. This includes cell phones, tablets, and even kiosks in malls and other public places. This functionality comes from the Web Apps component of Office 365. Web Apps makes editing, viewing, and sharing content a possibility no matter where you are and what devices you have available to you. It works with all Microsoft Office documents and even enables email and Lync communication functionality on mobile devices. It's the next step in taking the desktop experience to your mobile device. All of these features come together to provide an online solution to meet the demands of today's organizations. By minimizing maintenance, reducing cost, and adding mobility and flexibility, Microsoft aims to offer a next generation solution that will reap all the benefits of the cloud. Benefits Office 365 has an array of endless benefits. The many benefits include cost, security, ease of use, and many other factors. Some of the benefits that it offers are anytime, anywhere access, professional face for your business, ease of communication and collaboration inside and outside your organization, friendly user interface, straightforward to use e-mail, collaboration, and online meeting solutions, safety and security, seamless coordination with the tools you already know, no requirement for advanced It knowledge, 99. 9-percent availability, flexibility of your business and much more. One major benefit is that you can view your documents, e-mails, calendars, and contacts from on virtually any device you that you own. You also don’t necessarily have to be in a central location. You can view all your documents or email anywhere in the world. Office 365 is a very basic easy to use infrastructure. Everything is user friendly and straight forward. Another feature is that you can edit your documents or edit your calendar from any device. It’s also very safe and secure. The anti-virus and ant-spam are updated frequently. With this technology you can rely on never losing a document again. It’s all stored in a cloud environment. With the cloud environment you can communicate with people all over the world. With this environment it saves businesses a lot of money. Office 365 is based on a pay as you go option. The pricing is based per person on a monthly basis. It’s virtually very cheap to purchase. One key benefit is that it is very cost effective. This product is a pay-as-you-go service. Even though the prices are on a monthly base it’s still very affordable. Microsoft came up with three different plans. Businesses can choose their preference based on the necessity or features they want. Everyone from small businesses to educational institutions can utilize this product. Office 365 helps businesses save money and time. Office 365 can be used on a vast array of devices from PCs to hand held devices. The first plan is designed for a small business which consists of up to 25 employees. This plan is paid monthly. This plan is six dollars per user/per month. This access includes mobile access. With mobile devices the only requirement is that it has a Wi-Fi connection. With this fee it includes many features such as e-mail, ease of access to view documents anywhere, use of SharePoint, and many other functions. With e-mail functionality you get up to 25MB of storage. E-mail archiving is also a great benefit. Another feature is the ease of access of viewing documents online. Not only can documents be viewed online but documents can be easily edited online also. The second plan is for midsize businesses and enterprises. This plan can be purchased on a monthly plan or a yearly plan. The cost is ten dollars to twenty seven dollars per month. This cost is per user/per month. The key benefits with this plan is that you get 24/7 support, anti-virus is supported, ease of distributing documents through SharePoint, and the use of instant messaging for business meetings. Another major benefit is that you can have unlimited e-mail storage. It also consists of â€Å"Enterprise voice†. This is a key advancement in order to lower the costs of communication. With this feature you don’t need the use of a telephone but you do need internet connection to use the many features. The last plan that is offered is the â€Å"Kiosk Worker Plan†. The price is four dollars to ten dollars per user/per month. This plan is geared towards people who work in retail or people who share PCs. This plan consists of a 500 MB e-mail storage size. Kiosk workers utilize Microsoft Exchange to view their e-mail or calendar. They also have the ease of editing documents on the web. They only have basic editing rights. With the four dollar plan they can only view the documents and they can’t make any changes. Implementation Plan The way office 365 is going to be implemented into the business is simple, but it is very important that when you introduce a new product like Office 365 that we do so methodically, by doing so we avoid lot of errors and make it easy for the people that are going to be using this product. What we must first do is a detail introduction of the product to all the active stakeholders, this done by either calling for a meeting or sending information and introduction guides to the stakeholders. After the introduction briefing it is now up to us to study the costumer infrastructure and do a run through of all the activities that we will do and the problems that might occur during this process. Upon this review we can now give the costumer timeline and guidance of the installation process. Upon completion, it is now time to give the company help or service desk training regarding common problem solving. After this we can now start doing the testing of the product on site and in the process giving training to those that are eventually going to be using Office 365. Finally we do the actual migration of our data into the new cloud system. Office 365 will now allow user to access their e-mail, important documents, contacts, and calendar on nearly any device from almost anywhere. It frees you to work where and when you choose, allowing you to respond to important requests right away, no matter where you are. Because you can use your mobile device to access e-mail and documents, you won’t have to hurry back to the office or look for a Wi-Fi hot spot if you are using your computer. When traveling, you can access your e-mail and even edit online documents from most popular web browsers and easy to use. Office 365 is easy to try, simple to learn, and straightforward to use. It works flawlessly with the programs you know and use most, including Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint. With Office 365, you can choose which tools to use. With Office 365, you can create a password-protected portal to share large, hard-to-email files both inside and outside your organization, giving you a single location to find the very latest versions of files or documents, no matter how many people are working on them. Powerful security features from Microsoft help protect your data. Office 365 is backed with a 99. 9-percent uptime, financially backed guarantee. Office 365 helps safeguard your data with enterprise-grade reliability, disaster recovery capabilities, data centers in multiple locations, and a strict privacy policy. It also helps protect your email environment with up-to-date antivirus and anti-spam solutions. Course Integration Microsoft Office 365 has numerous benefits to offer its prospective customers, individual, small and medium business to enterprises and government agencies. Throughout the course so far we have learned about IS topics ranging from new technologies, strategies, techniques, best practices and ethical and managerial challenges. Microsoft Office 365 is built primarily from the ground up to support cloud computing and provide access from anywhere at any time and using the vast majority of wireless devices that support Wi-Fi. Cloud Computing in Office 365 represents a competitive advantage that the company keeps advertizing about. Microsoft came up with a strategic planning and competitive pricing model tailored to its customers. They have different pricing schemes that suit and appeal to everyone. Part of the company’s strategic planning is to capitalize on the â€Å"Five Industry Forces†, in which they are among the first to enter this market, they don’t fear threats of new competitors entering this market since it requires a great deal of investments, they have the bargaining power of suppliers since they provide something that not many companies can provide, they don’t fear any threat generated from any substitute in the market since there are not that many companies providing the same service, and they have a very well and respectful brand. Some small size companies that do not afford the cost of sophisticated functional systems depend heavily on Office application to fill this gap and provide them with all functionalities that enable them to carry on with their day-to-day activities. Microsoft Office 365 provides the ultimate solution for collaboration and communication through several means either through Exchange server for big organizations or Outlook for small companies and also through Lync. Microsoft Office 365 promises 99. 9% availability and uptime through its innovative cloud computing. The company uses Service Level Agreements with their customers to define the level and the quality of expected services and the estimated time to recover from an outage. As the number of malicious threats increase on the application level, Microsoft promises a much secured environment backed by industry standard anti-virus, anti-phishing and anti-spam that alleviates the effort of maintenance off the IT folks and let them concentrate on their core business. Throughout the course, we talked about the new approach of cost saving and cost reduction of applications through the use of Software as a Service (SaaS). Office 365 is a great example for this approach, in which the company bundles different set of tools and applications and make them available on demand for a monthly fees. This model reinforces the â€Å"economies of scale† in application operations, in which an application provider may be able to provide better and cheap services. As much as Office 365 has plenty of good things to offer; it is also inevitable from the ethical and managerial challenges. Among these challenges are, hosting all these data in its data center presents a big challenge for the company. One of the biggest questions is how Microsoft will handle security and privacy. In a release note from Microsoft detailing the security and privacy features of the application and in lieu of the Patriot act, Microsoft stated â€Å"In a limited number of circumstances,  Microsoft may need to disclose  data without your prior consent, including as needed to satisfy legal requirements, or to protect the rights or property of Microsoft or others (including the enforcement of agreements or policies governing the use of the service). † Critical Assessment: Critique Technology (Compare and Contrast the technology) Review of Technology Office 365 is about being connected and be able to work virtually anywhere. Office 365 offers many services to the costumers. For example, †¢ SharePoint Online o Intranets o Extranets o Collaboration, connectivity, productivity †¢ Exchange Online o E-mail, calendars, contacts and tasks o Cross platforms (PC, Web, Mobile) o Collaboration, connectivity, productivity †¢ Lync Online (The new version of OCS) o Communication capabilities like chat, audio- or video calls. o Collaboration, connectivity, productivity †¢ Office Web Apps Online version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote o Totally awesome. o Collaboration, connectivity, productivity †¢ Office Professional Plus o All the familiar Office application you’re used to playing around with is of course included â€Å"Office 365†. The cloud keeps the IT-departments irresponsible for the hardware and patching or upgrades needs to be taken care of. Microsoft will be responsibl e for the cloud and they will provide hardware and patching or upgrades when they are needed. Also, security is Microsoft responsibility, and with office 365, organization can be hooked up in a minute. Compare and contrast Pricing A. Google Apps †¢ Google Apps for Business  costs either $5 a month per user or $50 a year per user. †¢ It's free for â€Å"accredited not-for-profit 501(c) (3) entities with < 3,000 users, K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. †¢ Fewer than 10 users you can use Google Apps for free. †¢ You can also use Google Docs, without Google Apps, for free. B. Office 365 †¢ Starts at $6 per user per month for small organizations with less than 25 employees. †¢ $10 – $27 for more than 25 employees per month †¢ There's also kiosk pricing at $4 or $10 a month. No discounts for education. C. Zoho †¢ Starts at $3 – $5 per user per month †¢ E-mail is a  separate service  and costs $2. 50 – $3. 50 per user per month †¢ There are also free versions of both the e-mail service and Docs Storage A. Google Apps †¢ Provide 25GB per user for e-mail and 1GB per user for documents. †¢ E-mail attachment sizes are limited to 25MB. B. Office 365 †¢ The basic 365 plans provide 25GB of e-mail storage. †¢ Attachments are limited to 35MB. C. Zoho †¢ Offers 1GB of storage †¢ Mail includes 10-15 GB per user depending on the plan. Attachments are limited to 10MB. Works Cited Crane, R. (2011, July 25). Why Office 365’s small business plan may not suit small business. Retrieved october 25, 2011, from boxfreeit: www.. com/Productivity/why-office-365s-small-business-plan-is-no-good-for-small-business. html Lynn, S. (2011, July 1). Office 365: The Good and Not-So-Good. Retrieved October 25, 2011, from Pcmag: http://www. pcmag. com/article2/0,2817,2387974,00. asp#fbid=_CcTS-_Hax6 Microsoft. (2011, June 25). micfrosoft . Retrieved october 25, 2011, from Office 365 : http://www. microsoft. om/en-us/office365/what-is-office365. aspx#fbid=oP-bkIxUagi Microsoft. (2011, July 21). microsoft feed. Retrieved october 25, 2011, from microsfot feed: http://microsoftfeed. com/2011/top-10-benefits-of-microsoft-office-365/ Simon. (2011, 07 04). Office 365 Detailed Service Descriptions. Retrieved 10 25, 2011, from Simon May: http://simon-may. com/uk-technet/office-365-detailed-service-descriptions/ Topal, J. (2011, june 07). Moving to the cloud with Office 365. Good or bad business decision? Grid User Post. Retrieved october 25, 2011, from community offcie 365: http://community. ffice365. com/en-us/b/the_grid/archive/2011/06/07/grid-user-post-moving-to-the-cloud-with-office-365-good-or-bad-business-decision. aspx Office 365 – Part 1: What Is Office 365 and How Can My Organization Benefit from Using It? † Tobias Zimmergren, 12 June 2011. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. Finley, Klint. â€Å"Office 365 vs. Google Apps vs. Zoho. †Ã‚  ReadWriteWeb – Web Apps, Web Technology Trends, Social Networking and Social Media. Readwriteweb, 28 June 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. . Zack Whittaker, June 23, 2011. Microsoft: ‘We can hand over Office 365 da ta without your permission'

Interpersonal conflict in the Movie “Hitch” Essay

Interpersonal conflict within any relationship is normal but must be carefully resolved so that long term damage doesn’t occur. In the movie, â€Å"Hitch† there was a few interpersonal conflicts that erupted. According to Sole, â€Å"The way in which each person deals with conflict varies based on experience, personality, and communication style. Often we do not know how we will deal with a particular circumstance until it occurs (Sole, 2011).† This particular film was not shy of conflict; this paper will include ways on how the interpersonal conflict could have been resolved. One of the main interpersonal conflicts in the film was dishonesty of the main character. He was a guy who gets hired by people to hook them up together. He basically coaches and trains them on how to be more desirable. He does a full make over from their appearance to what initially comes out of their mouth. The conflict started when the main character took on a new client who was desperat e to date this woman who was like a mogul in her field. The new client was not the best at establishing relationships with people especially when it came to love interest. According to Sole, â€Å"The parties in an interpersonal relationship also have consistent patterns of interacting and communicating with each other, and these patterns are unique to that relationship (Sole, 2011).† The main characters interpersonal conflict emerged when he engaged in a relationship with a woman that he was attracted to. The woman had later on found out the type of work that he was involved in and she felt that it was misleading to people. She felt that their whole relationship was based on lies. According to Sole â€Å"Conflict can be dangerous because it has a tendency to grow and worsen, but it can also have important benefits that can strengthen a relationship and might even be desirable (Sole, 2011).† The main characters client did end up with his significant other but the main character lost his love interest for a short period of time. According to Sole, â€Å"Researchers have found that serious relationship problems arise when those in the rela tionship are unable to reach beyond the immediate conflict and include positive as well as negative emotions in their discussions (Sole, 2011).† In this particular movie the characters were using aggressive communication as a means of getting their points across. This could very well be relationship suicide. They should  utilize a more assertive way of communicating to each other. While they were arguing they should have found a way to lighten the argument. According to Sole, â€Å"In happy marriages, instead of always responding to anger with anger, the couples found a way to lighten the tension and to de-escalate the conflict (Sole 2011).† When it comes to interpersonal conflict all is not lost because of the fact that it could be a healthy factor for any relationship. According to Sole, â€Å"some conflict may actually be good for a marriage over time and can lead to the personal growth of both parties—if the negative communication is aimed at the other person’s specific behavior and not at the whole person (Sole, 2011).† This is basically pointing out the actions that an individual took or di dn’t take. It’s similar to how you deal with a child that’s misbehaving. For an example you tell the child that their actions were bad and not that they are bad. When you take this type of approach you can salvage a relationship and not affect anyone’s self-esteem. In the long term they will understand how to avoid the same conflict in the future. References: Sole, K. (2011).Making connections: Understanding interpersonal communication. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.