A stock is expected to pay the following dividends:
| Cash Flows of a Stock | ||||||
| Time (yrs) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ... |
| Dividend ($) | 0 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 20 | ... |
After year 4, the dividend will grow in perpetuity at 5% pa. The required return of the stock is 10% pa. Both the growth rate and required return are given as effective annual rates.
What is the current price of the stock?
The Chinese government attempts to fix its exchange rate against the US dollar and at the same time use monetary policy to fix its interest rate at a set level.
To be able to fix its exchange rate and interest rate in this way, what does the Chinese government actually do?
- Adopts capital controls to prevent financial arbitrage by private firms and individuals.
- Adopts the same interest rate (monetary policy) as the United States.
- Fixes inflation so that the domestic real interest rate is equal to the United States' real interest rate.
Which of the above statements is or are true?
Question 461 book and market values, ROE, ROA, market efficiency
One year ago a pharmaceutical firm floated by selling its 1 million shares for $100 each. Its book and market values of equity were both $100m. Its debt totalled $50m. The required return on the firm's assets was 15%, equity 20% and debt 5% pa.
In the year since then, the firm:
- Earned net income of $29m.
- Paid dividends totaling $10m.
- Discovered a valuable new drug that will lead to a massive 1,000 times increase in the firm's net income in 10 years after the research is commercialised. News of the discovery was publicly announced. The firm's systematic risk remains unchanged.
Which of the following statements is NOT correct? All statements are about current figures, not figures one year ago.
Hint: Book return on assets (ROA) and book return on equity (ROE) are ratios that accountants like to use to measure a business's past performance.
###\text{ROA}= \dfrac{\text{Net income}}{\text{Book value of assets}}###
###\text{ROE}= \dfrac{\text{Net income}}{\text{Book value of equity}}###
The required return on assets ##r_V## is a return that financiers like to use to estimate a business's future required performance which compensates them for the firm's assets' risks. If the business were to achieve realised historical returns equal to its required returns, then investment into the business's assets would have been a zero-NPV decision, which is neither good nor bad but fair.
###r_\text{V, 0 to 1}= \dfrac{\text{Cash flow from assets}_\text{1}}{\text{Market value of assets}_\text{0}} = \dfrac{CFFA_\text{1}}{V_\text{0}}###
Similarly for equity and debt.
What is the covariance of a variable X with a constant C?
The cov(X, C) or ##\sigma_{X,C}## equals:
Question 625 dividend re-investment plan, capital raising
Which of the following statements about dividend re-investment plans (DRP's) is NOT correct?
A $100 stock has a continuously compounded expected total return of 10% pa. Its dividend yield is 2% pa with continuous compounding. What do you expect its price to be in one year?
Question 664 real and nominal returns and cash flows, inflation, no explanation
What is the present value of real payments of $100 every year forever, with the first payment in one year? The nominal discount rate is 7% pa and the inflation rate is 4% pa.
A company conducts a 2 for 3 rights issue at a subscription price of $8 when the pre-announcement stock price was $9. Assume that all investors use their rights to buy those extra shares.
What is the percentage increase in the stock price and the number of shares outstanding? The answers are given in the same order.
Question 956 option, Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing, delta hedging, hedging
A bank sells a European call option on a non-dividend paying stock and delta hedges on a daily basis. Below is the result of their hedging, with columns representing consecutive days. Assume that there are 365 days per year and interest is paid daily in arrears.
| Delta Hedging a Short Call using Stocks and Debt | |||||||
| Description | Symbol | Days to maturity (T in days) | |||||
| 60 | 59 | 58 | 57 | 56 | 55 | ||
| Spot price ($) | 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?
Question 992 inflation, real and nominal returns and cash flows
You currently have $100 in the bank which pays a 10% pa interest rate.
Oranges currently cost $1 each at the shop and inflation is 5% pa which is the expected growth rate in the orange price.
This information is summarised in the table below, with some parts missing that correspond to the answer options. All rates are given as effective annual rates. Note that when payments are not specified as real, as in this question, they're conventionally assumed to be nominal.
| Wealth in Dollars and Oranges | ||||
| Time (year) | Bank account wealth ($) | Orange price ($) | Wealth in oranges | |
| 0 | 100 | 1 | 100 | |
| 1 | 110 | 1.05 | (a) | |
| 2 | (b) | (c) | (d) | |
Which of the following statements is NOT correct? Your: