Fight Finance

Question 2  NPV, Annuity

Katya offers to pay you $10 at the end of every year for the next 5 years (t=1,2,3,4,5) if you pay her $50 now (t=0). You can borrow and lend from the bank at an interest rate of 10% pa, given as an effective annual rate. Ignore credit risk.

Will you or politely Katya's deal?

Question 126  IRR

What is the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of the project detailed in the table below?

Assume that the cash flows shown in the table are paid all at once at the given point in time. All answers are given as effective annual rates.

Project Cash Flows
Time (yrs)	Cash flow ($)
0	-100
1	0
2	121

(a) 0.21

(b) 0.105

(c) 0.1111

(d) 0.1

(e) 0

Question 157  bill pricing, simple interest rate, no explanation

A 90-day Bank Accepted Bill has a face value of $1,000,000. The interest rate is 6% pa and there are 365 days in the year. What is its price?

(a) $13,369,963.37

(b) $6,400,000.00

(c) $985,735.05

(d) $985,421.17

(e) $156,250.00

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 348  PE ratio, Multiples valuation

Estimate the US bank JP Morgan's share price using a price earnings (PE) multiples approach with the following assumptions and figures only:

• The major US banks JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Citi Group (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are comparable companies;
• JP Morgan Chase's historical earnings per share (EPS) is $4.37;
• Citi Group's share price is $50.05 and historical EPS is $4.26;
• Wells Fargo's share price is $48.98 and historical EPS is $3.89.

Note: Figures sourced from Google Finance on 24 March 2014.

(a) $53.2353

(b) $53.1831

(c) $53.0995

(d) $26.5498

(e) $2.7849

Question 430  option, no explanation

A European call option will mature in ##T## years with a strike price of ##K## dollars. The underlying asset has a price of ##S## dollars.

What is an expression for the payoff at maturity ##(f_T)## in dollars from having written (being short) the call option?

(a) ##\min(S_T - K, 0)##.

(b) ##-\min(S_T - K, 0)##.

(c) ##\max(K-S_T, 0)##.

(d) ##-\max(K-S_T, 0)##.

(e)##-\max(S_T-K, 0)##.

Question 523  income and capital returns, real and nominal returns and cash flows, inflation

A low-growth mature stock has an expected nominal total return of 6% pa and nominal capital return of 2% pa. Inflation is expected to be 3% pa.

All of the above are effective nominal rates and investors believe that they will stay the same in perpetuity.

What are the stock's expected real total, capital and income returns?

The answer choices below are given in the same order.

(a) 2.9126%, 3.8835%, -0.9709%.

(b) 2.9126%, -0.9709%, 3.8835%.

(c) 2.9126%, -0.9709%, 0.9709%.

(d) -0.0291%, -1%, 0.9709%.

(e) 0%, -0.9709%, 0.9709%.

Question 615  debt terminology

You buy a house funded using a home loan. Have you or debt?

Question 658  CFFA, income statement, balance sheet, no explanation

To value a business's assets, the free cash flow of the firm (FCFF, also called CFFA) needs to be calculated. This requires figures from the firm's income statement and balance sheet. For what figures is the income statement needed? Note that the income statement is sometimes also called the profit and loss, P&L, or statement of financial performance.

(a) Net income, depreciation and interest expense.

(b) Depreciation and capital expenditure.

(c) Current assets and current liabilities.

(d) Current assets, current liabilities and capital expenditure.

(e) Current assets, current liabilities and depreciation expense.

Question 704  utility, risk aversion, utility function, gamble

Mr Blue, Miss Red and Mrs Green are people with different utility functions.

Each person has $256 of initial wealth. A coin toss game is offered to each person at a casino where the player can win or lose $256. Each player can flip a coin and if they flip heads, they receive $256. If they flip tails then they will lose $256. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?

(a) All people would appear rational to an economist since they prefer more wealth to less.

(b) Mrs Green and Miss Red would appear unusual to an economist since they are not risk averse.

(c) Mr Blue's certainty equivalent of the gamble is $64. This is less than his current wealth of $256 which is why he would refuse the gamble.

(d) Miss Red's certainty equivalent of the gamble is $256. This is the same as her current wealth of $256 which is why she would be indifferent to playing or not.

(e) Mrs Green's certainty equivalent of the gamble is $512. This is more than her current wealth of $256 which is why she would love to play.