A company has:
- 100 million ordinary shares outstanding which are trading at a price of $5 each. Market analysts estimated that the company's ordinary stock has a beta of 1.5. The risk-free rate is 5% and the market return is 10%.
- 1 million preferred shares which have a face (or par) value of $100 and pay a constant annual dividend of 9% of par. The next dividend will be paid in one year. Assume that all preference dividends will be paid when promised. They currently trade at a price of $90 each.
- Debentures that have a total face value of $200 million and a yield to maturity of 6% per annum. They are publicly traded and their market price is equal to 110% of their face value.
The corporate tax rate is 30%. All returns and yields are given as effective annual rates.
What is the company's after-tax Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)? Assume a classical tax system.
Suppose that the US government recently announced that subsidies for fresh milk producers will be gradually phased out over the next year. Newspapers say that there are expectations of a 40% increase in the spot price of fresh milk over the next year.
Option prices on fresh milk trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) reflect expectations of this 40% increase in spot prices over the next year. Similarly to the rest of the market, you believe that prices will rise by 40% over the next year.
What option trades are likely to be profitable, or to be more specific, result in a positive Net Present Value (NPV)?
Assume that:
- Only the spot price is expected to increase and there is no change in expected volatility or other variables that affect option prices.
- No taxes, transaction costs, information asymmetry, bid-ask spreads or other market frictions.
A share was bought for $10 (at t=0) and paid its annual dividend of $0.50 one year later (at t=1). Just after the dividend was paid, the share price was $11 (at t=1).
What was the total return, capital return and income return? Calculate your answers as effective annual rates. The choices are given in the same order:
##r_\text{total}##, ##r_\text{capital}##, ##r_\text{dividend}##.
A furniture distributor offers credit to its customers. Customers are given 25 days to pay for their goods, but if they pay immediately they will get a 1% discount.
What is the effective interest rate implicit in the discount being offered? Assume 365 days in a year and that all customers pay either immediately or on the 25th day. All rates given below are effective annual rates.
A young lady is trying to decide if she should attend university or not.
The young lady's parents say that she must attend university because otherwise all of her hard work studying and attending school during her childhood was a waste.
What's the correct way to classify this item from a capital budgeting perspective when trying to decide whether to attend university?
The hard work studying at school in her childhood should be classified as:
A firm has a debt-to-equity ratio of 25%. What is its debt-to-assets ratio?
Question 890 foreign exchange rate, monetary policy, no explanation
The market expects the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to increase the policy rate by 25 basis points at their next meeting. The current exchange rate is 0.8 USD per AUD.
Then unexpectedly, the RBA announce that they will increase the policy rate by 50 basis points due to increased fears of inflation.
What do you expect to happen to Australia's exchange rate on the day when the surprise announcement is made? The Australian dollar is likely to suddenly:
Question 904 option, Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing, option on future on stock index
A six month European-style call option on six month S&P500 index futures has a strike price of 2800 points.
The six month futures price on the S&P500 index is currently at 2740.805274 points. The futures underlie the call option.
The S&P500 stock index currently trades at 2700 points. The stock index underlies the futures. The stock index's standard deviation of continuously compounded returns is 25% pa.
The risk-free interest rate is 5% pa continuously compounded.
Use the Black-Scholes-Merton formula to calculate the option price. The call option price now is:
You work for XYZ company and you’ve been asked to evaluate a new project which has double the systematic risk of the company’s other projects.
You use the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) formula and input the treasury yield ##(r_f )##, market risk premium ##(r_m-r_f )## and the company’s asset beta risk factor ##(\beta_{XYZ} )## into the CAPM formula which outputs a return.
This return that you’ve just found is: