PREFACE:
in order to understand the solutions i'm going to give, you guys are going to have to understand how to use percentage multipliers (the decimal quantities by which you can multiply things in order to increase/decrease them by given percentages). if you don't know how to use these, then check out the JULY 22 video link at the following page:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm--
SOLUTION
you guys are killing me with all these variables.
note:
accounts Wrote:2001, the closing price of stock A and stock B are the same.
let's call this "x"; subscripts are just a big fat waste of time if both of these are the same.
(1) 2002, the closing price of stock A is 8% greater than the closing price of stock B.
let's call them "y" (for stock b) and "1.08y" (for stock a). again, if you don't understand where the 1.08 comes from, go ahead and watch the video link above.
then the price increases are (1.08y - x) and (y - x).
these aren't going to be in a constant ratio (in other words, the percentage difference between these isn't going to be a constant). so, insufficient.
the other way you could handle this statement: PLUG IN NUMBERS
* if the stocks went from 0 and 0, respectively, to 100 and 108, then the increases are 100 and 108. in this case, the desired percentage difference would be 8%.
* if the stocks went from 99 and 99, respectively, to 100 and 108, then the increases are 1 and 9. in this case, the desired percentage difference is 800%.
8 and 800 are not the same.
insufficient.
(2) The closing price of stock A is increased by 15% from 2001 to 2002.
clearly insufficient, since we know nothing about stock b.
--
together:
from statement 2, we know that the value of stock a went from x to 1.15x.
now using statement 1, we know that the value of stock a must have gone up to 1.08 times the value of stock b.
therefore, the value of stock b = value of stock a, divided by 1.08. so that's stock b = 1.15x/1.08. (no need to actually simplify this number; the important point is that it's just a constant times x.)
since 1.15x and (1.15/1.08)x are both constants times x, the percentage difference between them is going to be a constant. (if you don't see why, write out the expression for the percentage difference, and notice that the variable 'x' will cancel out of the expression.)