Strategic and Financial Decision-making Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Strategic and Financial Decision-making - Essay Example The brokers of the stock exchanges or any qualified individual can play the role of the analysts. They try to identify the trends by analyzing the past behaviour of the stock and other market important information. The statistical tools such as beta, alpha, regression, time series etc are popular among the analysts. London Stock exchange (LSE) is the prominent exchange in UK and FTSE 100 is a popular index of LSE followed by most of the investors and analysts. Beta of a stock measures the volatility of that particular stock with the market movement. In this report the betas of two FTSE 100 companies will be calculated using covariance and variance, and using the linear regression model. The two chosen companies are Experian (EXPN) and Sainsbury(J) (SBRY). EXPN is one of the leading companies in global information services. It provides data analytical tools and other systems that help an organisation to take proper decisions (Experian, Plc. n.d.). Organisations like banks, government departments or retailers etc are the clients of EXPN. SBRY is UK’s third largest chain of supermarket and convenience store engaged in retail marketing of daily household products like grocery, garments etc. â€Å"Sainsburys Supermarkets is UKs longest standing major food retailing chain, having opened its f irst store in 1869, presently consisting a chain of 525 supermarkets and 303 convenience stores – and Sainsburys Bank† (J Sainsbury Plc. 2010). SBRY and EXPN, both the companies were listed in the LSE on July 11, 1975 and on October 26, 2006 respectively and the stocks of these companies are currently traded at the rate  £323.78 and  £600 respectively (London Stock Exchange. 2010). In order to calculate the betas of both the companies, the historical stock prices are required. The beta will be calculated using the covariance of stock return and market return relative to the variance of market return. The second method uses linear