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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 328 bond pricing, APR

A 10 year Australian government bond was just issued at par with a yield of 3.9% pa. The fixed coupon payments are semi-annual. The bond has a face value of $1,000.

Six months later, just after the first coupon is paid, the yield of the bond decreases to 3.65% pa. What is the bond's new price?

Question 384 option, real option

Which of the following is the least useful method or model to calculate the value of a real option in a project?

Question 464 mispriced asset, NPV, DDM, market efficiency

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):

Question 475 payout ratio, dividend, no explanation

The below screenshot of Commonwealth Bank of Australia's (CBA) details were taken from the Google Finance website on 7 Nov 2014. Some information has been deliberately blanked out.

Image of CBA on Google finance on 7 Nov 2014

What was CBA's approximate payout ratio over the 2014 financial year?

Note that the firm's interim and final dividends were $1.83 and $2.18 respectively over the 2014 financial year.

Question 525 income and capital returns, real and nominal returns and cash flows, inflation

Which of the following statements about cash in the form of notes and coins is NOT correct? Assume that inflation is positive.

Notes and coins:

Question 556 portfolio risk, portfolio return, standard deviation

An investor wants to make a portfolio of two stocks A and B with a target expected portfolio return of 12% pa.

Stock A has an expected return of 10% pa and a standard deviation of 20% pa.
Stock B has an expected return of 15% pa and a standard deviation of 30% pa.

The correlation coefficient between stock A and B's expected returns is 70%.

What will be the annual standard deviation of the portfolio with this 12% pa target return?

Question 622 expected and historical returns, risk

An economy has only two investable assets: stocks and cash.

Stocks had a historical nominal average total return of negative two percent per annum (-2% pa) over the last 20 years. Stocks are liquid and actively traded. Stock returns are variable, they have risk.

Cash is riskless and has a nominal constant return of zero percent per annum (0% pa), which it had in the past and will have in the future. Cash can be kept safely at zero cost. Cash can be converted into shares and vice versa at zero cost.

The nominal total return of the shares over the next year is expected to be:

Question 708 continuously compounding rate, continuously compounding rate conversion

Convert a 10% continuously compounded annual rate ##(r_\text{cc annual})## into an effective annual rate ##(r_\text{eff annual})##. The equivalent effective annual rate is:

Question 741 APR, effective rate

A home loan company advertises an interest rate of 4.5% pa, payable monthly. Which of the following statements about the interest rate is NOT correct?

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