A firm wishes to raise $10 million now. They will issue 6% pa semi-annual coupon bonds that will mature in 8 years and have a face value of $1,000 each. Bond yields are 10% pa, given as an APR compounding every 6 months, and the yield curve is flat.
How many bonds should the firm issue? All numbers are rounded up.
Three important classes of investable risky assets are:
- Corporate debt which has low total risk,
- Real estate which has medium total risk,
- Equity which has high total risk.
Assume that the correlation between total returns on:
- Corporate debt and real estate is 0.1,
- Corporate debt and equity is 0.1,
- Real estate and equity is 0.5.
You are considering investing all of your wealth in one or more of these asset classes. Which portfolio will give the lowest total risk? You are restricted from shorting any of these assets. Disregard returns and the risk-return trade-off, pretend that you are only concerned with minimising risk.
Question 312 foreign exchange rate, American and European terms
If the current AUD exchange rate is USD 0.9686 = AUD 1, what is the American terms quote of the AUD against the USD?
Question 637 option, option payoff at maturity, no explanation
Which of the below formulas gives the payoff ##(f)## at maturity ##(T)## from being short a call option? Let the underlying asset price at maturity be ##S_T## and the exercise price be ##X_T##.
Question 796 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 risk-neutral probability that a European call option will be exercised?
Question 841 gross domestic product, government spending
The government spends money on:
- Goods and services such as defence, police, schools, hospitals and roads; and
- Transfer payments (also called welfare) such as the pension, dole, disability support and student support.
When calculating GDP (=C+I+G+X-M), the ‘government spending’ component (G) is supposed to include:
A one year European-style put option has a strike price of $4. The option's underlying stock pays no dividends and currently trades at $5. The risk-free interest rate is 10% pa continuously compounded. Use a single step binomial tree to calculate the option price, assuming that the price could rise to $8 ##(u = 1.6)## or fall to $3.125 ##(d = 1/1.6)## in one year. The put option price now is:
Question 895 comparative advantage in trade, production possibilities curve
Adam and Bella are the only people on a remote island.
Luckily there are Coconut and Date palm trees on the island that grow delicious fruit. The problem is that harvesting the fruit takes a lot of work.
Adam can pick 7 coconuts per hour, 6 dates per hour or any linear combination of coconuts and dates. For example, he could pick 3.5 coconuts and 3 dates per hour.
Bella can pick 3 coconuts per hour, 5 dates per hour or any linear combination. For example, she could pick 1.5 coconuts and 2.5 dates per hour.
This information is summarised in the table and graph:
Harvest Rates Per Hour | ||
Coconuts | Dates | |
Adam | 7 | 6 |
Bella | 3 | 5 |
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
You work for XYZ company and you’ve been asked to evaluate a new project which has double the systematic risk of the company’s other projects.
You use the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) formula and input the treasury yield ##(r_f )##, market risk premium ##(r_m-r_f )## and the company’s asset beta risk factor ##(\beta_{XYZ} )## into the CAPM formula which outputs a return.
This return that you’ve just found is:
Question 973 foreign exchange rate, monetary policy, no explanation
Suppose the market expects the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to increase the policy rate by 25 basis points at their next meeting. The current exchange rate is 0.8 USD per AUD.
Then unexpectedly, the RBA announce that they will leave the policy rate unchanged due to increasing unemployment and fears of a potential recession.
What do you expect to happen to Australia's exchange rate on the day when the surprise announcement is made? The Australian dollar is likely to: