Fight Finance

Most listed Australian companies pay dividends twice per year, the 'interim' and 'final' dividends, which are roughly 6 months apart.

You are an equities analyst trying to value the company BHP. You decide to use the Dividend Discount Model (DDM) as a starting point, so you study BHP's dividend history and you find that BHP tends to pay the same interim and final dividend each year, and that both grow by the same rate.

You expect BHP will pay a $0.55 interim dividend in six months and a $0.55 final dividend in one year. You expect each to grow by 4% next year and forever, so the interim and final dividends next year will be $0.572 each, and so on in perpetuity.

Assume BHP's cost of equity is 8% pa. All rates are quoted as nominal effective rates. The dividends are nominal cash flows and the inflation rate is 2.5% pa.

What is the current price of a BHP share?

A share just paid its semi-annual dividend of $10. The dividend is expected to grow at 2% every 6 months forever. This 2% growth rate is an effective 6 month rate. Therefore the next dividend will be $10.20 in six months. The required return of the stock 10% pa, given as an effective annual rate.

What is the price of the share now?

A stock is expected to pay the following dividends:

After year 4, the dividend will grow in perpetuity at 4% pa. The required return on the stock is 10% pa. Both the growth rate and required return are given as effective annual rates.

What will be the price of the stock in 5 years (t = 5), just after the dividend at that time has been paid?

A firm plans to issue equity and use the cash raised to pay off its debt. No assets will be bought or sold. Ignore the costs of financial distress.

Which of the following statements is NOT correct, all things remaining equal?

To value a business's assets, the free cash flow of the firm (FCFF, also called CFFA) needs to be calculated. This requires figures from the firm's income statement and balance sheet. For what figures is the balance sheet needed? Note that the balance sheet is sometimes also called the statement of financial position.

A trader sells one crude oil European style put option contract on the CME expiring in one year with an exercise price of $44 per barrel for a price of $6.64. The crude oil spot price is $40.33. If the trader doesn’t close out her contract before maturity, then at maturity she will have the:

Below is a historical sample of returns on the S&P500 capital index.

Assume that the one-tail Z-statistic corresponding to a probability of 99.9% is exactly 3.09. Which of the following statements is NOT correct? Based on the historical data, the 99.9% daily:

Observe the below graph of Chinese foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank, as well as the Chinese currency the Yuan (CNY, also called the Renminbi, RMB) against the US Dollar. Note the inverted y-axis scale on the Yuan exchange rate graph.

Which of the below statements is NOT correct?