Fade to Slack

On August 20, 2005, 36 members of the GW Accelerated MBA program sat in Alexandria facing the final Financial Management quiz of the summer semester. This final quiz was the only thing that stood between them and finishing the first year of their graduate degrees in stule.

On August 20, 2005, 1 member of that same cohort was sitting by a swimming pool in St. Lucia where the only multiple choice questions he dealt with was “What will be your next drink from the swim-up free bar?”

No, I didn’t pick D – All of the Above.

Now it’s not a big deal that those 3 dozen classmates weren’t with me in St. Lucia. However, it is a big deal that I wasn’t with them in Alexandria. That’s okay, I thought at the time – my professor said that I can arrange to take it when I return to the States. Content with that knowledge, I did the only thing a academically conscientious student could do in such a scenario – I went for a swim in the Caribbean Sea.

Now it’s been nearly 4 months since that swim, and my transcripts are still showing a big old ‘I’ next to MGT 250. No, I doesn’t stand for two grades worse than an F. (The only thing worse than failure is Idiocy, as it would seem.) I stands for Incomplete, which until I make up that final quiz, paints a pretty accurate record of my achievement.

Now, as the YAB faithful know, I’ve been pretty busy this fall. I moved into a new place, got married, took four course, watched the entire 1st season of Lost, worked full-time, went to Homecoming twice, and I even found a little time to fuel up the Playstation. What I haven’t had time for – easy – take Quiz #3 downtown in the Dean of the MBA Program’s office.

Had I taken this exam in September, I would have been able to recall most of the material I had learned in Saturday morning lecture. Take this sample question –

“A money manager is holding a $10 million portfolio that consists of five stocks. The portfolio has a required return of 11 percent, and the market risk premium is 5 percent. What is the required return on Stock C, which has a beta value of 1.0 and 2 million invested?”

My answer in September would have been fairly accurate: Easy, first find the beta of the portfolio, which turns out is 1.02. Then find the actual return of the portfolio, which is .059. Finally, computer the return of Stock C by adding the actual portfolio return to the product of portfolio beta and risk. But September passed, and I didn’t find time.

Had I taken it by October, the concepts would have been beyond me and my answer would have really just been an assemblage of finance-sounding words. The stock portfolio, once taking into account the net present value of the required return, assuming cost of capital money money whoo whoo, should be delivered as dividends to Condon so that he may buy candy bars.

A November exam would not only have forced me to forget all of the requisite finance vocab, but I’m pretty sure knowledge from other areas would seep in to my response. I believe the best course of action with this portfolio is to trade Stock A and Stock D for Tom Brady and the Bears’ defense, and hope that the required return for Stock C is good enough to make the Monrovia Top Five.

This morning I was supposed to take the final once and for all, but the professor didn’t send the exam to the dean. Maybe it’s for the best. I may have just imploded on the spot.