Fight Finance

A European bond paying annual coupons of 6% offers a yield of 10% pa.

Convert the yield into an effective monthly rate, an effective annual rate and an effective daily rate. Assume that there are 365 days in a year.

All answers are given in the same order:

### r_\text{eff, monthly} , r_\text{eff, yearly} , r_\text{eff, daily} ###

You're about to buy a car. These are the cash flows of the two different cars that you can buy:

• You can buy an old car for $5,000 now, for which you will have to buy $90 of fuel at the end of each week from the date of purchase. The old car will last for 3 years, at which point you will sell the old car for $500.
• Or you can buy a new car for $14,000 now for which you will have to buy $50 of fuel at the end of each week from the date of purchase. The new car will last for 4 years, at which point you will sell the new car for $1,000.

Bank interest rates are 10% pa, given as an effective annual rate. Assume that there are exactly 52 weeks in a year. Ignore taxes and environmental and pollution factors.

Should you buy the or the ?

Unrestricted negative gearing is allowed in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Negative gearing laws allow income losses on investment properties to be deducted from a tax-payer's pre-tax personal income. Negatively geared investors benefit from this tax advantage. They also hope to benefit from capital gains which exceed the income losses.

For example, a property investor buys an apartment funded by an interest only mortgage loan. Interest expense is $2,000 per month. The rental payments received from the tenant living on the property are $1,500 per month. The investor can deduct this income loss of $500 per month from his pre-tax personal income. If his personal marginal tax rate is 46.5%, this saves $232.5 per month in personal income tax.

The advantage of negative gearing is an example of the benefits of:

In Australia in the 1980's, inflation was around 8% pa, and residential mortgage loan interest rates were around 14%.

In 2013, inflation was around 2.5% pa, and residential mortgage loan interest rates were around 4.5%.

If a person can afford constant mortgage loan payments of $2,000 per month, how much more can they borrow when interest rates are 4.5% pa compared with 14.0% pa?

Give your answer as a proportional increase over the amount you could borrow when interest rates were high ##(V_\text{high rates})##, so:

###\text{Proportional increase} = \dfrac{V_\text{low rates}-V_\text{high rates}}{V_\text{high rates}} ###

Assume that:

• Interest rates are expected to be constant over the life of the loan.
• Loans are interest-only and have a life of 30 years.
• Mortgage loan payments are made every month in arrears and all interest rates are given as annualised percentage rates (APR's) compounding per month.

An investor wants to make a portfolio of two stocks A and B with a target expected portfolio return of 16% pa.

• Stock A has an expected return of 8% pa.
• Stock B has an expected return of 12% pa.

What portfolio weights should the investor have in stocks A and B respectively?

An American wishes to convert USD 1 million to Australian dollars (AUD). The exchange rate is 0.8 USD per AUD. How much is the USD 1 million worth in AUD?

A 2-year futures contract on a stock paying a continuous dividend yield of 3% pa was bought when the underlying stock price was $10 and the risk free rate was 10% per annum with continuous compounding. Assume that investors are risk-neutral, so the stock's total required return is the risk free rate.

Find the forward price ##(F_2)## and value of the contract ##(V_0)## initially. Also find the value of the contract in 6 months ##(V_{0.5})## if the stock price rose to $12.

If a firm makes a profit and pays no dividends, which of the firm’s accounts will increase?

The current Australian exchange rate is 0.8 USD per AUD.

If you think that the AUD will depreciate against the USD, contrary to the rest of the market, how could you profit? Right now you should:

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:

Which of the following statements is NOT correct?