An industrial chicken farmer grows chickens for their meat. Chickens:
- Cost $0.50 each to buy as chicks. They are bought on the day they’re born, at t=0.
- Grow at a rate of $0.70 worth of meat per chicken per week for the first 6 weeks (t=0 to t=6).
- Grow at a rate of $0.40 worth of meat per chicken per week for the next 4 weeks (t=6 to t=10) since they’re older and grow more slowly.
- Feed costs are $0.30 per chicken per week for their whole life. Chicken feed is bought and fed to the chickens once per week at the beginning of the week. So the first amount of feed bought for a chicken at t=0 costs $0.30, and so on.
- Can be slaughtered (killed for their meat) and sold at no cost at the end of the week. The price received for the chicken is their total value of meat (note that the chicken grows fast then slow, see above).
The required return of the chicken farm is 0.5% given as an effective weekly rate.
Ignore taxes and the fixed costs of the factory. Ignore the chicken’s welfare and other environmental and ethical concerns.
Find the equivalent weekly cash flow of slaughtering a chicken at 6 weeks and at 10 weeks so the farmer can figure out the best time to slaughter his chickens. The choices below are given in the same order, 6 and 10 weeks.
Question 407 income and capital returns, inflation, real and nominal returns and cash flows
A stock has a real expected total return of 7% pa and a real expected capital return of 2% pa.
Inflation is expected to be 2% pa. All rates are given as effective annual rates.
What is the nominal expected total return, capital return and dividend yield? The answers below are given in the same order.
On 1 February 2016 you were told that your refinery company will need to purchase oil on 1 July 2016. You were afraid of the oil price rising between now and then so you bought some August 2016 futures contracts on 1 February 2016 to hedge against changes in the oil price. On 1 February 2016 the oil price was $40 and the August 2016 futures price was $43.
It's now 1 July 2016 and oil price is $45 and the August 2016 futures price is $46. You bought the spot oil and closed out your futures position on 1 July 2016.
What was the effective price paid for the oil, taking into account basis risk? All spot and futures oil prices quoted above and below are per barrel.
Question 834 option, delta, theta, gamma, standard deviation, Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing
Which of the following statements about an option (either a call or put) and its underlying stock is NOT correct?
| European Call Option | ||
| on a non-dividend paying stock | ||
| Description | Symbol | Quantity |
| Spot price ($) | ##S_0## | 20 |
| Strike price ($) | ##K_T## | 18 |
| Risk free cont. comp. rate (pa) | ##r## | 0.05 |
| Standard deviation of the stock's cont. comp. returns (pa) | ##\sigma## | 0.3 |
| Option maturity (years) | ##T## | 1 |
| Call option price ($) | ##c_0## | 3.939488 |
| Delta | ##\Delta = N[d_1]## | 0.747891 |
| ##N[d_2]## | ##N[d_2]## | 0.643514 |
| Gamma | ##\Gamma## | 0.053199 |
| Theta ($/year) | ##\Theta = \partial c / \partial T## | 1.566433 |
Question 861 open interest, closing out future contract, no explanation
Alice, Bob, Chris and Delta are traders in the futures market. The following trades occur over a single day in a newly-opened equity index future that matures in one year which the exchange just made available.
1. Alice buys 2 future from Bob.
2. Chris buys 5 futures from Delta.
3. Chris buys 9 futures from Bob.
These were the only trades made in this equity index future.
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
Question 922 Stutzer portfolio performance indicator, Sharpe ratio, no explanation
Stutzer’s Portfolio Performance Indicator (PPI) ranks portfolios similarly to what other performance metric, assuming that the portfolios’ continuously compounded returns (LGDR’s) are normally distributed?
Question 956 option, Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing, delta hedging, hedging
A bank sells a European call option on a non-dividend paying stock and delta hedges on a daily basis. Below is the result of their hedging, with columns representing consecutive days. Assume that there are 365 days per year and interest is paid daily in arrears.
| Delta Hedging a Short Call using Stocks and Debt | |||||||
| Description | Symbol | Days to maturity (T in days) | |||||
| 60 | 59 | 58 | 57 | 56 | 55 | ||
| Spot price ($) | S | 10000 | 10125 | 9800 | 9675 | 10000 | 10000 |
| Strike price ($) | K | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 | 10000 |
| Risk free cont. comp. rate (pa) | r | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 |
| Standard deviation of the stock's cont. comp. returns (pa) | σ | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| Option maturity (years) | T | 0.164384 | 0.161644 | 0.158904 | 0.156164 | 0.153425 | 0.150685 |
| Delta | N[d1] = dc/dS | 0.552416 | 0.582351 | 0.501138 | 0.467885 | 0.550649 | 0.550197 |
| Probability that S > K at maturity in risk neutral world | N[d2] | 0.487871 | 0.51878 | 0.437781 | 0.405685 | 0.488282 | 0.488387 |
| Call option price ($) | c | 685.391158 | 750.26411 | 567.990995 | 501.487157 | 660.982878 | ? |
| Stock investment value ($) | N[d1]*S | 5524.164129 | 5896.301781 | 4911.152036 | 4526.788065 | 5506.488143 | ? |
| Borrowing which partly funds stock investment ($) | N[d2]*K/e^(r*T) | 4838.772971 | 5146.037671 | 4343.161041 | 4025.300909 | 4845.505265 | ? |
| Interest expense from borrowing paid in arrears ($) | r*N[d2]*K/e^(r*T) | 0.662891 | 0.704985 | 0.594994 | 0.551449 | ? | |
| Gain on stock ($) | N[d1]*(SNew - SOld) | 69.052052 | -189.264008 | -62.642245 | 152.062648 | ? | |
| Gain on short call option ($) | -1*(cNew - cOld) | -64.872952 | 182.273114 | 66.503839 | -159.495721 | ? | |
| Net gain ($) | Gains - InterestExpense | 3.516209 | -7.695878 | 3.266599 | -7.984522 | ? | |
| Gamma | Γ = d^2c/dS^2 | 0.000244 | 0.00024 | 0.000255 | 0.00026 | 0.000253 | 0.000255 |
| Theta | θ = dc/dT | 2196.873429 | 2227.881353 | 2182.174706 | 2151.539751 | 2266.589184 | 2285.1895 |
In the last column when there are 55 days left to maturity there are missing values. Which of the following statements about those missing values is NOT correct?
In his survey paper from 1956, John Lintner stated: “A prudent foresighted management will always do its best to plan ahead in all aspects of financial policy to avoid getting into such uncomfortable situations where dividends have to be cut substantially below those which the company's previous practice would lead stockholders to expect on the basis of current earnings.”
This is a statement about which decision made by financial managers?