Fight Finance

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.

(a) -0.80

(b) 0.80

(c) 1.20

(d) 1.80

(e) 2.20

Question 241  Miller and Modigliani, leverage, payout policy, diversification, NPV

One of Miller and Modigliani's (M&M's) important insights is that a firm's managers should not try to achieve a particular level of leverage in a world with zero taxes and perfect information since investors can make their own leverage. Therefore corporate capital structure policy is irrelevant since investors can achieve their own desired leverage at the personal level by borrowing or lending on their own.

This principal of 'home-made' or 'do-it-yourself' leverage can also be applied to other topics. Read the following statements to decide which are true:

(I) Payout policy: a firm's managers should not try to achieve a particular pattern of equity payout.

(II) Agency costs: a firm's managers should not try to minimise agency costs.

(III) Diversification: a firm's managers should not try to diversify across industries.

(IV) Shareholder wealth: a firm's managers should not try to maximise shareholders' wealth.

Which of the above statement(s) are true?

(a) I only.

(b) I and II only.

(c) I and III only.

(d) III only.

(e) All are true.

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 306  risk, standard deviation

Let the standard deviation of returns for a share per month be ##\sigma_\text{monthly}##.

What is the formula for the standard deviation of the share's returns per year ##(\sigma_\text{yearly})##?

Assume that returns are independently and identically distributed (iid) so they have zero auto correlation, meaning that if the return was higher than average today, it does not indicate that the return tomorrow will be higher or lower than average.

(a) ##\sigma_\text{yearly} = \sigma_\text{monthly}##

(b) ##\sigma_\text{yearly} = \sigma_\text{monthly} \times 12##

(c) ##\sigma_\text{yearly} = \sigma_\text{monthly} \times 144##

(d) ##\sigma_\text{yearly} = \sigma_\text{monthly} \times \sqrt{12}##

(e) ##\sigma_\text{yearly} = \sigma_\text{monthly} \times {12}^{1/3}##

Question 330  APR, effective rate, debt terminology

Which of the following statements about effective rates and annualised percentage rates (APR's) is NOT correct?

(a) Effective rates compound once over their time period. So an effective monthly rate compounds once per month.

(b) APR's compound more than once per year. So an APR compounding monthly compounds 12 times per year. The exception is an APR that compounds annually (once per year) which is the same thing as an effective annual rate.

(c) To convert an effective rate to an APR, multiply the effective rate by the number of time periods in one year. So an effective monthly rate multiplied by 12 is equal to an APR compounding monthly.

(d) To convert an APR compounding monthly to an effective monthly rate, divide the APR by the number of months in one year (12).

(e) To convert an APR compounding monthly to an effective weekly rate, divide the APR by the number of weeks in one year (approximately 52).

Question 485  capital budgeting, opportunity cost, sunk cost

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) A sunk cost.

(b) An opportunity cost.

(c) A negative side effect.

(d) A positive side effect.

(e) A depreciation expense.

Question 740  real and nominal returns and cash flows, DDM, inflation

Taking inflation into account when using the DDM can be hard. Which of the following formulas will NOT give a company's current stock price ##(P_0)##? Assume that the annual dividend was just paid ##(C_0)##, and the next dividend will be paid in one year ##(C_1)##.

(a) ##P_0=\dfrac{C_\text{1,nominal}}{r_\text{nominal} - g_\text{nominal}}##

(b) ##P_0 =\dfrac{C_0 (1+g_\text{nominal} )^1}{r_\text{nominal} - g_\text{nominal}}##

(c) ##P_0=\dfrac{C_\text{1,real}}{r_\text{real} - g_\text{real}}##

(d) ##P_0=\dfrac{C_0 (1+r_\text{real})^1}{r_\text{real} - g_\text{real}}##

(e) ##P_0=\dfrac{C_0(1+r_\text{nominal} )^1}{r_\text{nominal} - g_\text{nominal}} - C_0##

Question 802  negative gearing, leverage, capital structure, no explanation

Which of the following statements about ‘negative gearing’ is NOT correct?

(a) Negative gearing provides benefits by increasing the investor’s personal pre-tax income in the current year.

(b) Negative gearing works best when the investor has a high personal income so they're in a high personal marginal income tax bracket.

(c) Negative gearing works best when the asset makes large capital gains but has low income (such as rent).

(d) The more leverage, the bigger the interest tax shield benefit of negative gearing.

(e) Real estate and shares can be negatively geared.

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:

(a) 226.43 points

(b) 220.56 points

(c) 176.21 points

(d) 162.83 points

(e) 128.92 points

Question 925  mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate, no explanation

The arithmetic average and standard deviation of returns on the ASX200 accumulation index over the 24 years from 31 Dec 1992 to 31 Dec 2016 were calculated as follows:

###\bar{r}_\text{yearly} = \dfrac{ \displaystyle\sum\limits_{t=1992}^{24}{\left( \ln⁡ \left( \dfrac{P_{t+1}}{P_t} \right) \right)} }{T} = \text{AALGDR} =0.0949=9.49\% \text{ pa}###

###\sigma_\text{yearly} = \dfrac{ \displaystyle\sum\limits_{t=1992}^{24}{\left( \left( \ln⁡ \left( \dfrac{P_{t+1}}{P_t} \right) - \bar{r}_\text{yearly} \right)^2 \right)} }{T} = \text{SDLGDR} = 0.1692=16.92\text{ pp pa}###

Assume that the log gross discrete returns are normally distributed and that the above estimates are true population statistics, not sample statistics, so there is no standard error in the sample mean or standard deviation estimates. Also assume that the standardised normal Z-statistic corresponding to a one-tail probability of 2.5% is exactly -1.96.

Which of the following statements is NOT correct? If you invested $1m today in the ASX200, then over the next 4 years:

(a) Continuously compounded mean and median returns are both 37.96% over the 4 year period.

(b) 95% confidence interval of the continuously compounded returns is between -28.3664% and 104.2864% over the 4 year period.

(c) Mean dollar value is $1.547835m while its median dollar value is $1.4617m in 4 years.

(d) 95% confidence interval of the dollar value is between $0.75302m and $2.17038m in 4 years.

(e) 95% confidence interval of the effective annual return is between -24.698% and 183.7332% over the 4 year period.