Much is made of the fact that certain mutual funds outperform the market year after year (that is, the return from holding shares in the mutual fund is higher than the return from holding a portfolio such as the S&P 500). For concreteness, consider a 10-year period and let the population be the 4,170 mutual funds reported in The Wall Street Journal on January 1, 1995. By saying that performance relative to the market is random, we mean that each fund has a 50–50 chance of outperforming the market in any year and that performance is independent from year to year. (i) If performance relative to the market is truly random, what is the probability that any particular fund outperforms the market in all 10 years? (ii) Of the 4,170 mutual funds, what is the expected number of funds that will outperform the market in all 10 years? (iii) Find the probability that at least one fund out of 4,170 funds outperforms the market in all 10 years. What do you make of your answer? (iv) If you have a statistical package that computes binomial probabilities, find the probability that at least five funds outperform the market in all 10 years.

MATLAB: An Introduction with Applications
6th Edition
ISBN:9781119256830
Author:Amos Gilat
Publisher:Amos Gilat
Chapter1: Starting With Matlab
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 1P
icon
Related questions
Topic Video
Question

Much is made of the fact that certain mutual funds outperform the market year after year (that is, the return from holding shares in the mutual fund is higher than the return from holding a portfolio such as the S&P 500). For concreteness, consider a 10-year period and let the population be the 4,170 mutual funds reported in The Wall Street Journal on January 1, 1995. By saying that performance relative to the market is random, we mean that each fund has a 50–50 chance of outperforming the market in any year and that performance is independent from year to year.

(i) If performance relative to the market is truly random, what is the probability that any particular fund outperforms the market in all 10 years?

(ii) Of the 4,170 mutual funds, what is the expected number of funds that will outperform the market in all 10 years?

(iii) Find the probability that at least one fund out of 4,170 funds outperforms the market in all 10 years. What do you make of your answer?

(iv) If you have a statistical package that computes binomial probabilities, find the probability that at least five funds outperform the market in all 10 years.

Expert Solution
trending now

Trending now

This is a popular solution!

steps

Step by step

Solved in 3 steps with 1 images

Blurred answer
Knowledge Booster
Discrete Probability Distributions
Learn more about
Need a deep-dive on the concept behind this application? Look no further. Learn more about this topic, statistics and related others by exploring similar questions and additional content below.
Similar questions
Recommended textbooks for you
MATLAB: An Introduction with Applications
MATLAB: An Introduction with Applications
Statistics
ISBN:
9781119256830
Author:
Amos Gilat
Publisher:
John Wiley & Sons Inc
Probability and Statistics for Engineering and th…
Probability and Statistics for Engineering and th…
Statistics
ISBN:
9781305251809
Author:
Jay L. Devore
Publisher:
Cengage Learning
Statistics for The Behavioral Sciences (MindTap C…
Statistics for The Behavioral Sciences (MindTap C…
Statistics
ISBN:
9781305504912
Author:
Frederick J Gravetter, Larry B. Wallnau
Publisher:
Cengage Learning
Elementary Statistics: Picturing the World (7th E…
Elementary Statistics: Picturing the World (7th E…
Statistics
ISBN:
9780134683416
Author:
Ron Larson, Betsy Farber
Publisher:
PEARSON
The Basic Practice of Statistics
The Basic Practice of Statistics
Statistics
ISBN:
9781319042578
Author:
David S. Moore, William I. Notz, Michael A. Fligner
Publisher:
W. H. Freeman
Introduction to the Practice of Statistics
Introduction to the Practice of Statistics
Statistics
ISBN:
9781319013387
Author:
David S. Moore, George P. McCabe, Bruce A. Craig
Publisher:
W. H. Freeman