Fight Finance

Question 139  implicit interest rate in wholesale credit

A wholesale shop offers credit to its customers. The customers are given 21 days to pay for their goods. But if they pay straight away (now) they get a 1% discount.

What is the effective interest rate given to customers who pay in 21 days? All rates given below are effective annual rates. Assume 365 days in a year.

(a) 0.0005

(b) 0.0006

(c) 0.1603

(d) 0.1738

(e) 0.1909

Question 233  bond pricing

A four year bond has a face value of $100, a yield of 9% and a fixed coupon rate of 6%, paid semi-annually. What is its price?

(a) $94.6187

(b) $90.1062

(c) $72.592

(d) $70.3185

(e) $53.1754

Question 242  technical analysis, market efficiency

Select the most correct statement from the following.

'Chartists', also known as 'technical traders', believe that:

(a) Markets are weak-form efficient.

(b) Markets are semi-strong-form efficient.

(c) Past prices cannot be used to predict future prices.

(d) Past returns can be used to predict future returns.

(e) Stock prices reflect all publically available information.

Question 282  expected and historical returns, income and capital returns

You're the boss of an investment bank's equities research team. Your five analysts are each trying to find the expected total return over the next year of shares in a mining company. The mining firm:

• Is regarded as a mature company since it's quite stable in size and was floated around 30 years ago. It is not a high-growth company;
• Share price is very sensitive to changes in the price of the market portfolio, economic growth, the exchange rate and commodities prices. Due to this, its standard deviation of total returns is much higher than that of the market index;
• Experienced tough times in the last 10 years due to unexpected falls in commodity prices.
• Shares are traded in an active liquid market.

Your team of analysts present their findings, and everyone has different views. While there's no definitive true answer, whose calculation of the expected total return is the most plausible? Assume that:

• The analysts' source data is correct and true, but their inferences might be wrong;
• All returns and yields are given as effective annual nominal rates.

(a) Alice says 5% pa since she calculated that this was the average total yield on government bonds over the last 10 years. She says that this is also the expected total yield implied by current prices on one year government bonds.

(b) Bob says 4% pa since he calculated that this was the average total return on the mining stock over the last 10 years.

(c) Cate says 3% pa since she calculated that this was the average growth rate of the share price over the last 10 years.

(d) Dave says 6% pa since he calculated that this was the average growth rate of the share market price index (not the accumulation index) over the last 10 years.

(e) Eve says 15% pa since she calculated that this was the discount rate implied by the dividend discount model using the current share price, forecast dividend in one year and a 3% growth rate in dividends thereafter, which is the expected long term inflation rate.

Question 402  PE ratio, no explanation

Which of the following companies is most suitable for valuation using PE multiples techniques?

(a) A company with positive earnings that does not have any comparable firms.

(b) A company with positive earnings that has comparable firms with positive earnings.

(c) A company with positive earnings that has comparable firms with negative earnings.

(d) A company with negative earnings that has comparable firms with negative earnings.

(e) A company with negative earnings that has comparable firms with positive earnings.

Question 508  income and capital returns

Which of the following equations is NOT equal to the total return of an asset?

Let ##p_0## be the current price, ##p_1## the expected price in one year and ##c_1## the expected income in one year.

(a) ##r_\text{total} = \dfrac{c_1+p_1-p_0}{p_0} ##

(b) ##r_\text{total} = \dfrac{c_1+p_1}{p_0} - 1##

(c) ##r_\text{total} = \dfrac{c_1}{p_0} + \dfrac{p_1-p_0}{p_0}##

(d) ##r_\text{total} = \dfrac{c_1}{p_0} + \dfrac{p_1}{p_0} ##

(e) ##r_\text{total} = \dfrac{c_1}{p_0} + \dfrac{p_1}{p_0} - 1##

Question 558  portfolio weights, portfolio return, short selling

An investor wants to make a portfolio of two stocks A and B with a target expected portfolio return of 16% pa.

• Stock A has an expected return of 8% pa.
• Stock B has an expected return of 12% pa.

What portfolio weights should the investor have in stocks A and B respectively?

(a) 200%, -100%

(b) 200%, 100%

(c) -100%, 200%

(d) 100%, 200%

(e) -100%, 100%

Question 636  option, option payoff at maturity, no explanation

Which of the below formulas gives the payoff ##(f)## at maturity ##(T)## from being long a call option? Let the underlying asset price at maturity be ##S_T## and the exercise price be ##X_T##.

(a) ##f_{LC,T}=max⁡(S_T-X_T,0)##

(b) ##f_{LC,T}=max⁡(X_T-S_T,0)##

(c) ##f_{LC,T}=-max⁡(S_T-X_T,0)##

(d) ##f_{LC,T}=-max⁡(X_T-S_T,0)##

(e) ##f_{LC,T}=min⁡(X_T-S_T,0)##

Question 764  bond pricing, no explanation

A 4.5% fixed coupon Australian Government bond was issued at par in mid-April 2009. Coupons are paid semi-annually in arrears in mid-April and mid-October each year. The face value is $1,000. The bond will mature in mid-April 2020, so the bond had an original tenor of 11 years.

Today is mid-September 2015 and similar bonds now yield 1.9% pa.

What is the bond's new price? Note: there are 10 semi-annual coupon payments remaining from now (mid-September 2015) until maturity (mid-April 2020); both yields are given as APR's compounding semi-annually; assume that the yield curve was flat before the change in yields, and remained flat afterwards as well.

(a) $1,108.390216

(b) $1,114.640575

(c) $1,123.457853

(d) $1,127.892613

(e) $1,132.344879

Question 946  stock split, bonus issue, stock dividend

A 1-for-4 bonus issue is equivalent to a 4-for-1 stock split or a 25% stock dividend. or ?