Fight Finance

Question 205  depreciation tax shield, CFFA

There are a number of ways that assets can be depreciated. Generally the government's tax office stipulates a certain method.

But if it didn't, what would be the ideal way to depreciate an asset from the perspective of a businesses owner?

(a) 'Straight line' or 'prime cost' depreciation, which allocates equal depreciation expenses over each year of the asset's life.

(b) 'Diminishing value' or 'reducing balance' depreciation, which allocates more depreciation expense at the start of the asset's life and less towards the end.

(c) No depreciation at all, so the asset is always kept on the books as being the same value that it was bought for. The asset will cause no depreciation expense in any year.

(d) Allocating all of the depreciation expense to the final year of the asset's life.

(e) Allocating all of the depreciation expense to the first year of the asset's life. Accountants would call this 'expensing' the asset, rather than 'capitalising' it and depreciating it slowly.

Question 257  bond pricing

A 10 year bond has a face value of $100, a yield of 6% pa and a fixed coupon rate of 8% pa, paid semi-annually. What is its price?

(a) $114.7202

(b) $114.8775

(c) $122.9398

(d) $126.628

(e) $174.3874

Question 268  time calculation, APR

You're trying to save enough money for a deposit to buy a house. You want to buy a house worth $400,000 and the bank requires a 20% deposit ($80,000) before it will give you a loan for the other $320,000 that you need.

You currently have no savings, but you just started working and can save $2,000 per month, with the first payment in one month from now. Bank interest rates on savings accounts are 4.8% pa with interest paid monthly and interest rates are not expected to change.

How long will it take to save the $80,000 deposit? Round your answer up to the nearest month.

(a) 27 months (t=27 months).

(b) 38 months (t=38 months).

(c) 40 months (t=40 months).

(d) 43 months (t=43 months).

(e) 79 months (t=79 months).

Question 338  market efficiency, CAPM, opportunity cost, technical analysis

A man inherits $500,000 worth of shares.

He believes that by learning the secrets of trading, keeping up with the financial news and doing complex trend analysis with charts that he can quit his job and become a self-employed day trader in the equities markets.

What is the expected gain from doing this over the first year? Measure the net gain in wealth received at the end of this first year due to the decision to become a day trader. Assume the following:

• He earns $60,000 pa in his current job, paid in a lump sum at the end of each year.
• He enjoys examining share price graphs and day trading just as much as he enjoys his current job.
• Stock markets are weak form and semi-strong form efficient.
• He has no inside information.
• He makes 1 trade every day and there are 250 trading days in the year. Trading costs are $20 per trade. His broker invoices him for the trading costs at the end of the year.
• The shares that he currently owns and the shares that he intends to trade have the same level of systematic risk as the market portfolio.
• The market portfolio's expected return is 10% pa.

Measure the net gain over the first year as an expected wealth increase at the end of the year.

(a) $110,000

(b) $50,000

(c) $45,000

(d) -$15,000

(e) -$65,000

Question 671  future, forward, hedging

It's possible for both parties in a futures or forward contract to be hedging, so neither are speculating. or ?

Question 726  return distribution, mean and median returns

If a stock's expected future prices are log-normally distributed, what will be bigger, the stock's or future price? Or would you expect them to be ?

Question 793  option, hedging, delta hedging, gamma hedging, gamma, Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing

A bank buys 1000 European put options on a $10 non-dividend paying stock at a strike of $12. The bank wishes to hedge this exposure. The bank can trade the underlying stocks and European call options with a strike price of 7 on the same stock with the same maturity. Details of the call and put options are given in the table below. Each call and put option is on a single stock.

European Options on a Non-dividend Paying Stock
Description	Symbol	Put Values	Call Values
Spot price ($)	##S_0##	10	10
Strike price ($)	##K_T##	12	7
Risk free cont. comp. rate (pa)	##r##	0.05	0.05
Standard deviation of the stock's cont. comp. returns (pa)	##\sigma##	0.4	0.4
Option maturity (years)	##T##	1	1
Option price ($)	##p_0## or ##c_0##	2.495350486	3.601466138
##N[d_1]##	##\partial c/\partial S##		0.888138405
##N[d_2]##	##N[d_2]##		0.792946442
##-N[-d_1]##	##\partial p/\partial S##	-0.552034778
##N[-d_2]##	##N[-d_2]##	0.207053558
Gamma	##\Gamma = \partial^2 c/\partial S^2## or ##\partial^2 p/\partial S^2##	0.098885989	0.047577422
Theta	##\Theta = \partial c/\partial T## or ##\partial p/\partial T##	0.348152078	0.672379961

 

Which of the following statements is NOT correct?

(a) If the underlying stock price suddenly rose by $0.01, the put option price would be expected to fall by less than $0.00552034777953178.

(b) If the underlying stock price suddenly fell by $0.01, the put option price would be expected to rise by more than $0.00552034777953178.

(c) If the underlying stock price suddenly rose by $0.01, the call option price would be expected to rise by more than $0.00888138404936379.

(d) To Delta hedge the 1000 long put options, long 552.0348 stocks.

(e) To Delta and Gamma hedge the 1000 long put options, long 2078.4226 call options and short 2397.9617 stocks.

Question 794  option, Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing, option delta, no explanation

Which of the following quantities from the Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing formula gives the Delta of a European call option?

(a) ##N[d_1]##

(b) ##N[d_2]##

(c) ##−N[−d_1]##

(d) ##−N[−d_2]##

(e) ##N[−d_2]##

Where:

###d_1=\dfrac{\ln⁡[S_0/K]+(r+\sigma^2/2).T)}{\sigma.\sqrt{T}}### ###d_2=d_1-\sigma.\sqrt{T}=\dfrac{\ln⁡[S_0/K]+(r-\sigma^2/2).T)}{\sigma.\sqrt{T}}###

Question 838  option, put call parity

A stock, a call, a put and a bond are available to trade. The call and put options' underlying asset is the stock they and have the same strike prices, ##K_T##.

Being long the call and short the stock is equivalent to being:

(a) Long the put only.

(b) Long the put and long the bond.

(c) Long the put and short the bond.

(d) Short the put and long the bond.

(e) Short the put and short the bond.

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