You have collected 10 years' worth of data on annual returns on Microsoft's common shares and the SP 500 Composite Index.

You have collected 10 years' worth of data on annual returns on Microsoft's common shares and the S&P 500 Composite Index. You then plotted the data on an X-Y graph, with the Microsoft returns on the y-axis and the index returns on the x-axis. The trend line drawn on this plot of returns is called the _________________ line.

Select one:

a. security market

b. reward-to-risk ratio

c. systematic risk

d. return term structure

e. characteristic