Dennis is aged 45 and is planning to retire at 65 year of age.He estimates

that he needs $480,000 to provide for his retirement.His current superannuation fund has a balance of $60,000 and is delivering 7%p.a. compounded quarterly.Find the monthly contributions needed to meet the retirement lump sum target.

'US and German stock returns.wf1' data file contains daily log-returns

(03.01.2006 - 30.12.2011) for the United States and German stock markets. Answer the following questions.  
a) Estimate a bivariate VAR and examine wheatear there are lead-lag relationships for the returns of two equity markets. Justify the appropriate lag length for the VAR. [10 marks]
b) Investigate if these markets are causally related. [20 marks]
c) Provide a plot of the variance decompositions and interpret it. Are these results sensitive to an order of variables? [20 marks] 
d) Do you think the variance decomposition results are consistent with the causality results? Explain Why? [10 marks]  
 

Your grandfather has been putting $1000 into a savings account on

every birthday since your first(i.e. when you turned one).The account pays an interest rate of 3% per annum.Determine how long did it take for the account to accumulate to a current balance of $23,414.44 and therefore how old are you now.