I'm trying to solve a list of math exercises and got stuck on this one. I have no idea of how to go about solving it. It asks to build 3 graphs, but if someone could explain just one of them I should be able to find my way on the other ones.
The share price of a certain company debuts at 10 dollars on the stock market, and the shares are negotiated 24 hours a day. Draw the graphs associated to the share price over a two-year period for the follwing situations:
a) The share price rises at a constant rate during the first 18 months until reaching a top price of 50 dollars, lowering to 25 dollars at a constant rate over the next 6 months.
b) The price rises at a constant rate over 2 months until it reaches 15 dollars, drops to 8 dollars at a constant rate over the next 9 months, then rises again at a constant rate to 12 dollars at the end of the two-year period.
c) The price rises constantly, reaching 60 dollars at the end of the first year. An economic crisis instantingly drops it to \$25 and it's price keeps lowering at a constant rate over the next 3 months, until reaching \$5. Then, it rises at a constant rate to \$12 at the end of the two-year period.
I'll explain a), and you should find the rest doable.
First: you have two variables. Price and time. You will want your variable price to be a function of time, to show the change of the variable over time. It is conventional to put time on the $x$-axis, so we will put the share price on the $y$-axis. Your $x$-axis should start at a time $0$, and go for 24 months.
The share price debuts at $10$. Okay, so draw a point at $x=0,y=10$ to indicate this: at time $0$, the price of the shares was $10$ dollars. Then the price rises constantly until it hits $50$ dollars at month $18$. So place a point on your graph at $x=18,y=50$. So you'll want to draw a line that connects the points $(0,10)$ and $(18,50)$. The price is increasing at a constant rate, so the increase in price from month-to-month is always the same. So you should draw a straight line between $(0,10)$ and $(18,50)$.
Then the price falls back to $25$ dollars between months $18$ and $24$. So place a point at $x=24,y=25$. Price decreases at a constant rate, so you need to draw a straight line from the peak at $(18,50)$ to the point at $(24,25)$. Then you're done.