Fight Finance

Question 138  bond pricing, premium par and discount bonds

Bonds A and B are issued by the same Australian company. Both bonds yield 7% pa, and they have the same face value ($100), maturity, seniority, and payment frequency.

The only difference is that bond A pays coupons of 10% pa and bond B pays coupons of 5% pa. Which of the following statements is true about the bonds' prices?

(a) The prices of bonds A and B will be more than $100.

(b) The prices of bonds A and B will be less than $100.

(c) Bond A will have a price more than $100, and bond B will have a price less than $100.

(d) Bond A will have a price less than $100, and bond B will have a price more than $100.

(e) Bonds A and B will both have a price of $100.

Question 269  time calculation, APR

A student won $1m in a lottery. Currently the money is in a bank account which pays interest at 6% pa, given as an APR compounding per month.

She plans to spend $20,000 at the beginning of every month from now on (so the first withdrawal will be at t=0). After each withdrawal, she will check how much money is left in the account. When there is less than $500,000 left, she will donate that remaining amount to charity.

In how many months will she make her last withdrawal and donate the remainder to charity?

(a) In 31 months (t=31 months).

(b) In 30 months (t=30 months).

(c) In 28 months (t=28 months).

(d) In 27 months (t=27 months).

(e) In 26 months (t=26 months).

Question 448  franking credit, personal tax on dividends, imputation tax system

A small private company has a single shareholder. This year the firm earned a $100 profit before tax. All of the firm's after tax profits will be paid out as dividends to the owner.

The corporate tax rate is 30% and the sole shareholder's personal marginal tax rate is 45%.

The Australian imputation tax system applies because the company generates all of its income in Australia and pays corporate tax to the Australian Tax Office. Therefore all of the company's dividends are fully franked. The sole shareholder is an Australian for tax purposes and can therefore use the franking credits to offset his personal income tax liability.

What will be the personal tax payable by the shareholder and the corporate tax payable by the company?

(a) Personal tax of $6.43 and corporate tax of $45.

(b) Personal tax of $15 and corporate tax of $30.

(c) Personal tax of $16.5 and corporate tax of $45.

(d) Personal tax of $31.5 and corporate tax of $30.

(e) Personal tax of $45 and corporate tax of $0.

Question 511  capital budgeting, CFFA

Find the cash flow from assets (CFFA) of the following project.

One Year Mining Project Data
Project life	1 year
Initial investment in building mine and equipment	$9m
Depreciation of mine and equipment over the year	$8m
Kilograms of gold mined at end of year	1,000
Sale price per kilogram	$0.05m
Variable cost per kilogram	$0.03m
Before-tax cost of closing mine at end of year	$4m
Tax rate	30%

Note 1: Due to the project, the firm also anticipates finding some rare diamonds which will give before-tax revenues of $1m at the end of the year.

Note 2: The land that will be mined actually has thermal springs and a family of koalas that could be sold to an eco-tourist resort for an after-tax amount of $3m right now. However, if the mine goes ahead then this natural beauty will be destroyed.

Note 3: The mining equipment will have a book value of $1m at the end of the year for tax purposes. However, the equipment is expected to fetch $2.5m when it is sold.

Find the project's CFFA at time zero and one. Answers are given in millions of dollars ($m), with the first cash flow at time zero, and the second at time one.

(a) -9,   15.65

(b) -9,   14.3

(c) -12,   16.8

(d) -12,   16.35

(e) -12,   14.3

Question 574  inflation, real and nominal returns and cash flows, NPV

What is the present value of a nominal payment of $100 in 5 years? The real discount rate is 10% pa and the inflation rate is 3% pa.

(a) $71.2986

(b) $62.0921

(c) $61.5028

(d) $54.276

(e) $53.5612

Question 694  utility

Which of the below statements about utility is NOT generally accepted by economists? Most people are thought to:

(a) Prefer more to less, meaning that they will always like to have more wealth.

(b) Be risk averse, meaning that they dislike risk as measured by the standard deviation of wealth.

(c) Have a positively sloped utility function, so the gradient or first derivative of the utility function is always positive.

(d) Have a utility function that increases at a diminishing rate. So the shape is concave down like a frown, or the second derivative is always negative.

(e) Have a utility function that rises until it reaches the satiation point, then it falls because too much wealth causes problems.

Question 726  return distribution, mean and median returns

If a stock's expected future prices are log-normally distributed, what will be bigger, the stock's or future price? Or would you expect them to be ?

Question 779  mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate

Fred owns some BHP shares. He has calculated BHP’s monthly returns for each month in the past 30 years using this formula:

###r_\text{t monthly}=\ln⁡ \left( \dfrac{P_t}{P_{t-1}} \right)###

He then took the arithmetic average and found it to be 0.8% per month using this formula:

###\bar{r}_\text{monthly}= \dfrac{ \displaystyle\sum\limits_{t=1}^T{\left( r_\text{t monthly} \right)} }{T} =0.008=0.8\% \text{ per month}###

He also found the standard deviation of these monthly returns which was 15% per month:

###\sigma_\text{monthly} = \dfrac{ \displaystyle\sum\limits_{t=1}^T{\left( \left( r_\text{t monthly} - \bar{r}_\text{monthly} \right)^2 \right)} }{T} =0.15=15\%\text{ per month}###

Assume that the past historical average return is the true population average of future expected returns and the stock's returns calculated above ##(r_\text{t monthly})## are normally distributed. Which of the below statements about Fred’s BHP shares is NOT correct?

(a) The returns ##r_\text{t monthly}## are continuously compounded monthly returns.

(b) The mean, median and mode of the continuously compounded annual return is expected to equal 0.8% per month.

(c) The annualised average continuously compounded return is ##\bar{r}_\text{cc annual}=12×0.008=0.096=9.6\%\text{ pa}##. The annualised standard deviation is ##\sigma_\text{annual} = \sqrt{12}×0.15=0.519615242 = 52\%\text{ pa}##.

(d) If the current price of the BHP shares is $20, they're expected to have a median value of $52.2339 ##(= 20×e^{0.008×12×10})## in 10 years.

(e) If the current price of the BHP shares is $20, they're expected to have a mean value of $13.5411 ##(= 20×e^{(0.008 - 0.15^2/2)×12×10})## in 10 years.

Question 889  cross currency interest rate parity, no explanation

Judging by the graph, in 2018 the USD short term interest rate set by the US Federal Reserve is higher than the JPY short term interest rate set by the Bank of Japan, which is higher than the EUR short term interest rate set by the European central bank.

At the latest date shown in 2018: ##r_{USD}>r_{JPY}>r_{EUR}##

Assume that each currency’s yield curve is flat at the latest date shown in 2018, so interest rates are expected to remain at their current level into the future.

Which of the following statements is NOT correct?

Over time you would expect the:

(a) USD to appreciate against the JPY.

(b) USD to depreciate against the EUR.

(c) JPY to appreciate against the USD.

(d) JPY to depreciate against the EUR.

(e) EUR to appreciate against the JPY.

Question 960  DDM, stock pricing

You are an equities analyst trying to value the equity of the Australian supermarket conglomerate Woolworths, with ticker WOW. In Australia, listed companies like Woolworths tend to pay dividends every 6 months. The payment around September is the final dividend and the payment around March is called the interim dividend. Both occur annually.

• Today is mid-November 2018.
• WOW's last final dividend of $0.50 was two months ago in mid-September 2018.
• WOW's last interim dividend of $0.43 was eight months ago in mid-March 2018.
• Judging by the dividend history and WOW's prospects, you judge that the growth rate in the dividends will be 3% pa forever.
• Assume that WOW's total cost of equity is 6.5% pa. All rates are quoted as nominal effective rates.
• The dividends are nominal cash flows and the inflation rate is 2.5% pa.

What should be the current share price of WOW?

(a) $28.511766

(b) $28.066400

(c) $27.839257

(d) $27.655693

(e) $27.368571