Fight Finance

Question 47  implicit interest rate in wholesale credit

A wholesale horticulture nursery offers credit to its customers.

Customers are given 60 days to pay for their goods, but if they pay immediately they will get a 3% discount.

What is the effective interest rate implicit in the discount being offered? Assume 365 days in a year and that all customers pay either immediately or on the 60th day. All rates given below are effective annual rates.

(a) 0.44858472

(b) 0.203571651

(c) 0.1825

(d) 0.16913962

(e) 0.164576124

Question 66  CAPM, SML

Government bonds currently have a return of 5% pa. A stock has an expected return of 6% pa and the market return is 7% pa. What is the beta of the stock?

(a) -0.5

(b) 0

(c) 0.5

(d) 1

(e) 7

Question 358  PE ratio, Multiples valuation

Estimate the Chinese bank ICBC's share price using a backward-looking price earnings (PE) multiples approach with the following assumptions and figures only. Note that the renminbi (RMB) is the Chinese currency, also known as the yuan (CNY).

• The 4 major Chinese banks ICBC, China Construction Bank (CCB), Bank of China (BOC) and Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) are comparable companies;
• ICBC 's historical earnings per share (EPS) is RMB 0.74;
• CCB's backward-looking PE ratio is 4.59;
• BOC 's backward-looking PE ratio is 4.78;
• ABC's backward-looking PE ratio is also 4.78;

Note: Figures sourced from Google Finance on 25 March 2014. Share prices are from the Shanghai stock exchange.

(a) RMB 6.4595

(b) RMB 6.3739

(c) RMB 6.3311

(d) RMB 3.4903

(e) RMB 3.3966

Question 505  equivalent annual cash flow

A low-quality second-hand car can be bought now for $1,000 and will last for 1 year before it will be scrapped for nothing.

A high-quality second-hand car can be bought now for $4,900 and it will last for 5 years before it will be scrapped for nothing.

What is the equivalent annual cost of each car? Assume a discount rate of 10% pa, given as an effective annual rate.

The answer choices are given as the equivalent annual cost of the low-quality car and then the high quality car.

(a) $100,   $490

(b) $909.09,   $608.5

(c) $1,000,   $980

(d) $1,000,   $1578.3

(e) $1,100,   $1,292.61

Question 700  utility, risk aversion, utility function, gamble

Mr Blue, Miss Red and Mrs Green are people with different utility functions.

Each person has $50 of initial wealth. A coin toss game is offered to each person at a casino where the player can win or lose $50. Each player can flip a coin and if they flip heads, they receive $50. If they flip tails then they will lose $50. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?

(a) Mr Blue's expected utility of wealth from gambling is 7.5 while refusing is 8.54. So the gamble makes him less happy.

(b) Miss Red's expected utility of wealth from gambling is 5 and refusing is also 5. So the gamble doesn't affect her happiness at all.

(c) Mr Blue's certainty equivalent of the risky gamble is $25. This is less than his current wealth which is why he would refuse.

(d) Miss Red's certainty equivalent of the risky gamble is any wealth. She's indifferent since she always has the same level of happiness.

(e) Mrs Green's certainty equivalent of the risky gamble is $25. This is less than her current wealth which is why she would refuse.

Question 709  continuously compounding rate, APR

Which of the following interest rate quotes is NOT equivalent to a 10% effective annual rate of return? Assume that each year has 12 months, each month has 30 days, each day has 24 hours, each hour has 60 minutes and each minute has 60 seconds. APR stands for Annualised Percentage Rate.

(a) 9.7617696% is the APR compounding semi-annually ##(r_\text{apr comp 6mth})##

(b) 9.5689685% is the APR compounding monthly ##(r_\text{apr comp monthly})##

(c) 9.6454756% is the APR compounding daily ##(r_\text{apr comp daily})##

(d) 9.5310182% is the APR compounding per second ##(r_\text{apr comp per second})##

(e) 9.5310180% is the continuously compounded rate per annum ##(r_\text{cc annual})##

Question 791  mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate, log-normal distribution, VaR, confidence interval

A risk manager has identified that their pension fund’s continuously compounded portfolio returns are normally distributed with a mean of 5% pa and a standard deviation of 20% 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. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?

(a) The mean (expected or arithmetic average) portfolio value in one year is $1,072,508. The median (50th percentile) portfolio value in one year is $1,051,271.

(b) The annual 99% relative VaR is $391,591.

(c) The annual 99% absolute VaR is $340,320.

(d) The 98% confidence interval of portfolio values in one year ##(V_1)## is ##\$659,680 < V_1 < \$1,675,312,977##.

(e) The 98% confidence interval of continuously compounded portfolio returns over the next year ##(r_{0 \rightarrow 1})## is ##-41.6\% < r_{0 \rightarrow 1} < 51.6\%##.

Question 827  future, basis risk, no explanation

You intend to use futures on oil to hedge the risk of purchasing oil. There is no cross-hedging risk. Oil pays no dividends but it’s costly to store. Which of the following statements about basis risk in this scenario is NOT correct?

(a) Basis risk makes hedges more risky.

(b) Basis risk can only lead to worse than expected effective dollar prices.

(c) Basis risk only occurs when the future is closed out early, before it matures.

(d) ‘The basis’ is defined as the underlying spot price less the futures price quote ##(S_t - F_{t,T})##.

(e) The futures price of oil will tend to be higher than the spot price due to storage costs, so the basis will tend to be positive for hedgers who long futures contracts.

Question 835  VaR, no explanation

A company has a 95% daily Value at Risk (VaR) of $1 million. The units of this VaR are in:

(a) Dollars ($).

(b) Dollars per day ($/day).

(c) Dollars per day squared ($/day^2).

(d) Dollars squared per day ($^2/day).

(e) Dollars squared per day squared ($^2/day^2).

Question 908  effective rate, return types, gross discrete return, return distribution, price gains and returns over time

For an asset's price to double from say $1 to $2 in one year, what must its gross discrete return (GDR) be? If the price now is ##P_0## and the price in one year is ##P_1## then the gross discrete return over the next year is:

###\text{GDR}_\text{annual} = \dfrac{P_1}{P_0}###

(a) 0%

(b) 30.102999566%

(c) 69.314718056%

(d) 100%

(e) 200%