Executive Summary: In mid-1997 Joe Ricketts the Chairman and CEO of Ameritrade‚ decided that Ameritrade’s new mission would be to become “the largest brokerage firm worldwide based on the number of trades.” In order to accomplish this mission Ameritrade would need to invest significantly in technology and advertising. This strategy would require large expenditures relative to Ameritrade’s existing capital. In order to gauge the financial impact of these large expenditures‚ there needed to be
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Group Case 1: Ameritrade – Cost of Capital Executive Summary: As a deep-discount brokerage‚ Ameritrade planned to improve its competitive position by price cutting‚ technology enhancements‚ and increased advertising in mid-1997. Before initiating the plan‚ Ameritrade needed know whether the investment returned more than it cost. We were hired to estimate the cost of capital correctly. The key question is to find suitable comparable firms to estimate Ameritrade’s asset beta‚ since it was a recently-listed
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Ameritrade is formed in 1971‚ and is a pioneer in the deep-discount brokerage sector. In march 1997‚ Ameritrade raised $22.5 million in an initial public offering. Management at Ameritrade is considering substantial investments in technology and advertising‚ but is unsure of the appropriate cost of capital. Estimating the cost of capital 1. Since we do not have the beta for Ameritrade‚ we need to find comparable firms for which we could compute the betas. There are several candidates in the
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Cost of Capital at Ameritrade 1) Briefly describe the project that Ameritrade is considering In order to maintain its competitive edge in the discount brokerage market‚ Ameritrade is considering making major investment state of the art technology that can prevent system outages and guarantee 100% reliability. The new system would enable Ameritrade to follow its mission of becoming the largest brokerage firm based on the number of trades. As part of the project the firm would also invest in a new
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Ameritrade – case study Executive Summary Ameritrade provides online brokerage services and operates an Internet-based financial management services business. 90% of the company’s revenues are from the provision of discount brokerage services. The company’s objective is to improve its competitive position in deep-discount brokerage. In order to achieve this objective‚ the company must grow its customer base‚ requiring an investment of $100 million to upgrade its technological capabilities as well
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Executive Summary As a Deep-Discount Brokerage firm‚ Ameritrade Holding Corporation (AHC) plans to invest in advertising and technology in order to increase their consumer base and thus revenues. The purpose of this report is to assess the riskiness of the proposed investments by considering the project’s cost of capital calculated via the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). A range of factors will be considered in order to assess each possible variable that may influence the result. Areas of focus
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capital structure. They might have a certain debt to equity ratio they wish to maintain‚ or perhaps there would be covenants put on their contracts requiring them to maintain a certain debt to equity ratio while their loan was outstanding. Ameritrade should use a 6.10% risk free rate when calculating its cost of capital. This is the average of the 20 year bond annualized yield to maturity (on August 31‚ 1997) and the long term historical average annual return (from 1929 1996). The long term
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1) What factors should Ameritrade management consider when evaluating the proposed advertising program and technology upgrades? Why? Strategic evaluation 2) Ameritrade does not have a beta estimate as the firm has been publicly traded for only a short time period. What comparable firms do you recommend as the appropriate benchmarks for evaluating the risk of Ameritrade’s planned advertising and technology investments. Beta: 1) which firms to use as a benchmark and why 2) Calculate beta
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Winter Survival Exercise Situation You have just crash landed somewhere in the woods of southern Manitoba or possibly northern Minnesota. It is 11:32 am in mid-January. The small plane in which you were travelling crashed onto a small lake. The pilot and co-pilot were killed. Shortly after the crash‚ the plane sank completely into the lake with the pilot and co-pilot’s bodies inside. Everyone else on the flight escaped to land dry and without serious injury. The crash came suddenly before the
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Lovely Professional University Term Paper Numerical Analysis MTH 204 Topic: Comparison of rate of convergence of iterative methods Submitted To: Ramanjeet Kaur Submitted By: Angad Singh Roll no: 37 Section: B1801 Regd No: 10801352 Content Acknowledgement. Iterative method. Rate of convergence. Different Iterative methods. Rate of convergence of different iterative methods. Comparison of rate of convergence of iterative methods. Bibliography. Acknowledgment
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