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Question 178  bond pricing, premium par and discount bonds

Which one of the following bonds is trading at a discount?



Question 190  pay back period

A project has the following cash flows:

Project Cash Flows
Time (yrs) Cash flow ($)
0 -400
1 0
2 500
 

What is the payback period of the project in years?

Normally cash flows are assumed to happen at the given time. But here, assume that the cash flows are received smoothly over the year. So the $500 at time 2 is actually earned smoothly from t=1 to t=2.



Question 271  CAPM, option, risk, systematic risk, systematic and idiosyncratic risk

All things remaining equal, according to the capital asset pricing model, if the systematic variance of an asset increases, its required return will increase and its price will decrease.
If the idiosyncratic variance of an asset increases, its price will be unchanged.

What is the relationship between the price of a call or put option and the total, systematic and idiosyncratic variance of the underlying asset that the option is based on? Select the most correct answer.

Call and put option prices increase when the:



Question 302  WACC, CAPM

Which of the following statements about the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is NOT correct?



Question 561  covariance, correlation

The covariance and correlation of two stocks X and Y's annual returns are calculated over a number of years. The units of the returns are in percent per annum ##(\% pa)##.

What are the units of the covariance ##(\sigma_{X,Y})## and correlation ##(\rho_{X,Y})## of returns respectively?

Hint: Visit Wikipedia to understand the difference between percentage points ##(\text{pp})## and percent ##(\%)##.


Question 592  future, margin call

A trader buys one December futures contract on orange juice. Each contract is for the delivery of 10,000 pounds. The current futures price is $1.20 per pound. The initial margin is $5,000 per contract, and the maintenance margin is $4,000 per contract.

What is the smallest price change would that would lead to a margin call for the buyer?



Question 602  foreign exchange rate, American and European terms

Chinese people usually quote the Chinese Yuan or Renminbi in RMB per 1 USD. For example, in October 2015 the Chinese Renminbi was 6.35 RMB per USD. Is this an or terms quote?


Question 688  future, hedging

A pig farmer in the US is worried about the price of hogs falling and wants to lock in a price now. In one year the pig farmer intends to sell 1,000,000 pounds of hogs. Luckily, one year CME lean hog futures expire on the exact day that he wishes to sell his pigs. The futures have a notional principal of 40,000 pounds (about 18 metric tons) and currently trade at a price of 63.85 cents per pound. The underlying lean hogs spot price is 77.15 cents per pound. The correlation between the futures price and the underlying hogs price is one and the standard deviations are both 4 cents per pound. The initial margin is USD1,500 and the maintenance margin is USD1,200 per futures contract.

Which of the below statements is NOT correct?



Question 825  future, hedging, tailing the hedge, speculation, no explanation

An equity index fund manager controls a USD500 million diversified equity portfolio with a beta of 0.9. The equity manager expects a significant rally in equity prices next year. The market does not think that this will happen. If the fund manager wishes to increase his portfolio beta to 1.5, how many S&P500 futures should he buy?

The US market equity index is the S&P500. One year CME futures on the S&P500 currently trade at 2,155 points and the spot price is 2,180 points. Each point is worth $250.

The number of one year S&P500 futures contracts that the fund manager should buy is:



Question 981  margin loan, Basel accord, credit conversion factor

Margin loans secured by listed stock have a Basel III risk weight of 20%.

For margin loans that cannot be immediately cancelled by banks and asked to be repaid, the credit conversion factor (CCF) is 20%.

Suppose you have a stock portfolio worth $500,000, financed by:

  • $300,000 of your own money; and
  • $200,000 of the bank’s funds in the form of a margin loan which can only be cancelled by the bank after 5 days notice. The margin loan’s maximum LVR is 70%.

How much regulatory capital must the bank hold due to your margin loan? Assume that the bank wishes to pay dividends to its shareholders, so include the 2.5% capital conservation buffer in your calculations.