Mark A. Teer believes he has found a surefire way to save money. He advises his friends, "Buy direct from the manufacturer. Any time intermediaries get involved, you'll pay a higher price. After all, every intermediary involved in the marketing process must charge enough to earn a profit." Mark's advice:A. is entirely correct. Intermediaries must charge a high enough price for the activities they perform to earn a profit, so using intermediaries must result in a higher price.

B. is impractical, because in most markets the distribution process is so complex that it is impossible to determine who the actual producer really is.

C. is not valid in many cases. Intermediaries do add costs to products, but they also create value by performing marketing functions efficiently. In many cases the value they create more than offsets the costs they add.

D. is never true. Markets that make use of intermediaries can always provide goods at lower cost than those that rely on direct distribution.

Stock a has a beta of 1.2 and a standard deviation of 20%. stock b has a beta of 0.8 and a standard deviation of 25%. portfolio p has $200,000 consisting of $100,000 invested in stock a and $100,000 in stock b. which of the following statements is correct? (assume that the stocks are in equilibrium.) (a) stock b has a higher required rate of return than stock a. (b) portfolio p has a standard deviation of 22.5%. (c) portfolio p has a beta equal to 1.0. (d) more information is needed to determine the portfolio's beta. (e) stock a's returns are less highly correlated with the returns on most other stocks than are b's returns.

Oerstman, inc. uses a standard costing system and develops its overhead rates from the current annual budget.the budget is based on an expected annual output of 120,000 units requiring 480,000 direct labor hours.(practical capacity is 500,000 hours)annual budgeted overhead costs total $772,800, of which $556,800 is fixed overhead.a total of 119,300 units, using 478,000 direct labor hours, were produced during the year.actual variable overhead costs for the year were $260,400 and actual fixed overhead costs were $555,450.required: 1. compute the fixed overhead spending variance and indicate if favorable or unfavorable.2. compute the fixed overhead volume variance and indicate if favorable or unfavorable.

Costco wholesale corporation operates membership warehouses selling food, appliances, consumer electronics, apparel and other household goods at 471 locations across the u.s. as well as in canada, mexico and puerto rico. as of its fiscal year-end 2005, costco had approximately 21.2 million members. selected fiscal-year information from the company's balance sheets follows. ($ millions). selected balance sheet data 2005 2004 merchandise inventories $4,015 $3,644 deferred membership income (liability) 501 454 (a) during fiscal 2005, costco collected $1,120 cash for membership fees. use the financial statement effectstemplate to record the cash collected for membership fees. (b) in 2005, costco recorded $46,347 million in merchandise costs (that is, cost of goods sold). record thistransaction in the financial statement effects template. (c) determine the value of merchandise that costco purchased during fiscal-year 2005. use the financial statementeffects template to record these merchandise purchases. assume all of costco's purchases are on credit.