A company runs a number of slaughterhouses which supply hamburger meat to McDonalds. The company is afraid that live cattle prices will increase over the next year, even though there is widespread belief in the market that they will be stable. What can the company do to hedge against the risk of increasing live cattle prices? Which statement(s) are correct?
(i) buy call options on live cattle.
(ii) buy put options on live cattle.
(iii) sell call options on live cattle.
Select the most correct response:
There are many ways to write the ordinary annuity formula.
Which of the following is NOT equal to the ordinary annuity formula?
Find the sample standard deviation of returns using the data in the table:
| Stock Returns | |
| Year | Return pa |
| 2008 | 0.3 |
| 2009 | 0.02 |
| 2010 | -0.2 |
| 2011 | 0.4 |
The returns above and standard deviations below are given in decimal form.
Question 536 idiom, bond pricing, capital structure, leverage
The expression 'my word is my bond' is often used in everyday language to make a serious promise.
Why do you think this expression uses the metaphor of a bond rather than a share?
An equity index stands at 100 points and the one year equity futures price is 102.
The equity index is expected to have a dividend yield of 4% pa. Assume that investors are risk-neutral so their total required return on the shares is the same as the risk free Treasury bond yield which is 10% pa. Both are given as discrete effective annual rates.
Assuming that the equity index is fairly priced, an arbitrageur would recognise that the equity futures are:
Question 722 mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate
Here is a table of stock prices and returns. Which of the statements below the table is NOT correct?
| Price and Return Population Statistics | ||||
| Time | Prices | LGDR | GDR | NDR |
| 0 | 100 | |||
| 1 | 50 | -0.6931 | 0.5 | -0.5 |
| 2 | 100 | 0.6931 | 2 | 1 |
| Arithmetic average | 0 | 1.25 | 0.25 | |
| Arithmetic standard deviation | 0.9802 | 1.0607 | 1.0607 | |
Question 875 omitted variable bias, systematic and idiosyncratic risk, CAPM, single factor model, two factor model
The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the Single Index Model (SIM) are single factor models whose only risk factor is the market portfolio’s return. Say a Solar electricity generator company and a Beach bathing chair renting company are influenced by two factors, the market portfolio return and cloud cover in the sky. When it's sunny and not cloudy, both the Solar and Beach companies’ stock prices do well. When there’s dense cloud cover and no sun, both do poorly. Assume that cloud coverage risk is a systematic risk that cannot be diversified and that cloud cover has zero correlation with the market portfolio’s returns.
Which of the following statements about these two stocks is NOT correct?
The CAPM and SIM:
A stock has an expected return of 10% pa and you're 90% sure that over the next year, the return will be between -15% and 35%. The stock's returns are normally distributed. Note that the Z-statistic corresponding to a one-tail:
- 90% normal probability density function is 1.282.
- 95% normal probability density function is 1.645.
- 97.5% normal probability density function is 1.960.
What is the stock’s standard deviation of returns in percentage points per annum (pp pa)?