Marathon Petroleum Corporation disclosed the following in its 2015 annual report. The company reported revenues and cost of revenues of $75,384 million and $57,138 million respectively in 2015.

Inventories are stated at the lower of cost or market. Costs of crude oil, refinery feedstocks and refined products are aggregated on a consolidated basis for purposes of assessing if the LIFO cost basis of these inventories may have to be written down to market values. At December 31, 2015, market values for these inventories, which totaled approximately 4.0 billion gallons, were lower than their LIFO cost basis and, as a result, we recorded an inventory valuation charge of $345 million to cost of revenues to value these inventories at the lower of cost or market.

a. Compute gross profit margin for 2015. Round answer to one decimal place (ex: 0.2345 = 23.5%) Answer%
b. What would gross profit margin and the gross profit margin percentage have been if the company had not had to record the lower of cost or market adjustment? Round answer to one decimal place (ex: 0.2345 = 23.5%) Answer%
c. At the end of the year, Marathon’s LIFO reserve was $684 million. If the company had used FIFO, what would the inventory valuation charge have been?

Which of the following actions would be most likely to reduce potential conflicts of interest between stockholders and bondholders? a) compensating managers with stock options, b) financing risky projects with additional debt, c) the threat of hostile takeovers, d) the use of covenants in bond agreements that limit the firm's use of additional debt and constrain managers actions, e) abolishing the security and exchange commission

Andy purchases only two goods, apples (a) and kumquats (k). he has an income of $125 and can buy apples at $5 per pound and kumquats at $5 per pound. his utility function is u(a, k) = 6a + 2k. what is his marginal utility for apples and his marginal utility for kumquats? andy's marginal utility for apples (mu subscript a) is mu subscript aequals 6 and his marginal utility for kumquats (mu subscript k) is

Blue computers, a major pc manufacturer in the united states, currently has plants in kentucky and pennsylvania. the kentucky plant has a capacity of 1 million units a year and the pennsylvania plant has a capacity of 1.5 million units a year. the firm divides the united states into five markets: northeast, southeast, midwest, south, and west. each pc sells for $1,000. the firm anticipates a 50 perc~nt growth in demand (in each region) this year (after which demand will stabilize) and wants to build a plant with a capacity of 1.5 million units per year to accommodate the growth. potential sites being considered are in north carolina and california. currently the firm pays federal, state, and local taxes on the income from each plant. federal taxes are 20 percent of income, and all state and local taxes are 7 percent of income in each state. north carolina has offered to reduce taxes for the next 10 years from 7 percent to 2 percent. blue computers would like to take the tax break into consideration when planning its network. consider income over the next 10 years in your analysis. assume that all costs remain unchanged over the 10 years. use a discount factor of 0.1 for your analysis. annual fixed costs, production and shipping costs per unit, and current regional demand (before the 50 percent growth) are shown in table 5-13. (a) if blue computers sets an objective of minimizing total fixed and variable costs, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? (b) if blue computers sets an objective of maximizing after-tax profits, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? variable production and shipping cost ($/unit) annual fixed cost northeast southeast midwest south west (million$) kentucky 185 180 175 175 200 150 pennsylvania 170 190 180 200 220 200 n. carolina 180 180 185 185 215 150 california 220 220 195 195 175 150 demand ('000 units/month) 700 400 400 300 600