Question 320 foreign exchange rate, monetary policy, American and European terms
Investors expect the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to decrease the overnight cash rate at their next meeting.
Then unexpectedly, the RBA announce that they will keep the policy rate unchanged.
What do you expect to happen to Australia's exchange rate in the short term? The Australian dollar is likely to:
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 638 option, option payoff at maturity, no explanation
Which of the below formulas gives the payoff ##(f)## at maturity ##(T)## from being long a put option? Let the underlying asset price at maturity be ##S_T## and the exercise price be ##X_T##.
An equity index fund manager controls a USD1 billion diversified equity portfolio with a beta of 1.3. The equity manager fears that a global recession will begin in the next year, causing equity prices to tumble. The market does not think that this will happen. If the fund manager wishes to reduce her portfolio beta to 0.5, how many S&P500 futures should she sell?
The US market equity index is the S&P500. One year CME futures on the S&P500 currently trade at 2,062 points and the spot price is 2,091 points. Each point is worth $250. How many one year S&P500 futures contracts should the fund manager sell?
Question 703 utility, risk aversion, utility function, gamble
Mr Blue, Miss Red and Mrs Green are people with different utility functions.
Each person has $500 of initial wealth. A coin toss game is offered to each person at a casino where the player can win or lose $500. Each player can flip a coin and if they flip heads, they receive $500. If they flip tails then they will lose $500. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
The DuPont formula is:
###\dfrac{\text{Net Profit}}{\text{Sales}} \times \dfrac{\text{Sales}}{\text{Total Assets}} \times \dfrac{\text{Total Assets}}{\text{Owners' Equity}}###
Which of the following statements about the DuPont formula is NOT correct?
Question 861 open interest, closing out future contract, no explanation
Alice, Bob, Chris and Delta are traders in the futures market. The following trades occur over a single day in a newly-opened equity index future that matures in one year which the exchange just made available.
1. Alice buys 2 future from Bob.
2. Chris buys 5 futures from Delta.
3. Chris buys 9 futures from Bob.
These were the only trades made in this equity index future.
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
Question 881 Nixon Shock, Bretton Woods, foreign exchange rate, foreign exchange system history, no explanation
In the ‘Nixon Shock’ on August 15, 1971, the United States government:
Question 993 inflation, real and nominal returns and cash flows
In February 2020, the RBA cash rate was 0.75% pa and the Australian CPI inflation rate was 1.8% pa.
You currently have $100 in the bank which pays a 0.75% pa interest rate.
Apples currently cost $1 each at the shop and inflation is 1.8% pa which is the expected growth rate in the apple price.
This information is summarised in the table below, with some parts missing that correspond to the answer options. All rates are given as effective annual rates. Note that when payments are not specified as real, as in this question, they're conventionally assumed to be nominal.
| Wealth in Dollars and Apples | ||||
| Time (year) | Bank account wealth ($) | Apple price ($) | Wealth in apples | |
| 0 | 100 | 1 | 100 | |
| 1 | 100.75 | 1.018 | (a) | |
| 2 | (b) | (c) | (d) | |
Which of the following statements is NOT correct? Your: