Give a quick stream of consciousness before answering the following question. An equity analyst needs to select 2 stocks for the upcoming year and rank these securities in terms of their investment potential. If the analyst has narrowed down the list of potential stocks to 5, in how many ways can she choose and rank her top 2 picks?\nOptions:\n(A) 20\n(B) 30\n(C) 10\n(D) 40\n(E) 80
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Number of ways of choosing 2 stocks = 5C2\nNumber of ways of ranking the chosen stocks = 2!\nHence total ways of chosing and ranking = 5C2 * 2! = 20
The answer: (A).
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