You believe that the price of a share will fall significantly very soon, but the rest of the market does not. The market thinks that the share price will remain the same. Assuming that your prediction will soon be true, which of the following trades is a bad idea? In other words, which trade will NOT make money or prevent losses?
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 $20 per trade. His broker invoices him for the trading costs at the end of the year.
- The shares that he currently owns and the shares that he intends to trade have the same level of systematic risk as the market portfolio.
- The market portfolio's expected return is 10% pa.
Measure the net gain over the first year as an expected wealth increase at the end of the year.
Acquirer firm plans to launch a takeover of Target firm. The firms operate in different industries and the CEO's rationale for the merger is to increase diversification and thereby decrease risk. The deal is not expected to create any synergies. An 80% scrip and 20% cash offer will be made that pays the fair price for the target's shares. The cash will be paid out of the firms' cash holdings, no new debt or equity will be raised.
Firms Involved in the Takeover | ||
Acquirer | Target | |
Assets ($m) | 6,000 | 700 |
Debt ($m) | 4,800 | 400 |
Share price ($) | 40 | 20 |
Number of shares (m) | 30 | 15 |
Ignore transaction costs and fees. Assume that the firms' debt and equity are fairly priced, and that each firms' debts' risk, yield and values remain constant. The acquisition is planned to occur immediately, so ignore the time value of money.
Calculate the merged firm's share price and total number of shares after the takeover has been completed.
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 company advertises an investment costing $1,000 which they say is underpriced. They say that it has an expected total return of 15% pa, but a required return of only 10% pa. Assume that there are no dividend payments so the entire 15% total return is all capital return.
Assuming that the company's statements are correct, what is the NPV of buying the investment if the 15% return lasts for the next 100 years (t=0 to 100), then reverts to 10% pa after that time? Also, what is the NPV of the investment if the 15% return lasts forever?
In both cases, assume that the required return of 10% remains constant. All returns are given as effective annual rates.
The answer choices below are given in the same order (15% for 100 years, and 15% forever):
A share currently worth $100 is expected to pay a constant dividend of $4 for the next 5 years with the first dividend in one year (t=1) and the last in 5 years (t=5).
The total required return is 10% pa.
What do you expected the share price to be in 5 years, just after the dividend at that time has been paid?
Question 792 mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate, log-normal distribution, confidence interval
A risk manager has identified that their investment fund’s continuously compounded portfolio returns are normally distributed with a mean of 10% pa and a standard deviation of 40% pa. The fund’s portfolio is currently valued at $1 million. Assume that there is no estimation error in the above figures. To simplify your calculations, all answers below use 2.33 as an approximation for the normal inverse cumulative density function at 99%. All answers are rounded to the nearest dollar. Assume one month is 1/12 of a year. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
Question 851 labour force, no explanation
Below is a table showing some figures about the Australian labour force.
Australian Labour Force and Employment Data | |
April 2017 Seasonally Adjusted figures | |
Employed persons ('000) | 12 061.9 |
Unemployed persons ('000) | 751.4 |
Unemployment rate (%) | 5.9 |
Participation rate (%) | 64.8 |
Source: ABS 6202.0 Labour Force, Australia, Apr 2017
What do you estimate is the size of working age population in thousands (‘000)?