The following data on annual rates of return were collected from 11 randomly selected stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (“the big board”) and 12 randomly selected stocks listed on NASDAQ. Assume the population standard deviations are the same. At the .10 significance level, can we conclude that the annual rates of return are higher on “the big board”?

NYSE                                         NASDAQ
15.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    8.8
10.7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    6.0
20.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14.4
18.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19.1
19.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17.6
8.7   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17.8
17.8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15.9
13.8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17.9
22.7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21.6
14.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    6.0
26.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11.9
                                                        23.4

a. What are the null and alternate hypotheses?

b. Compute the test statistic.

c. Compute the p-value.

d. What is your decision regarding the null hypothesis?

e. Interpret the result.