In Australia, domestic university students are allowed to buy concession tickets for the bus, train and ferry which sell at a discount of 50% to full-price tickets.
The Australian Government do not allow international university students to buy concession tickets, they have to pay the full price.
Some international students see this as unfair and they are willing to pay for fake university identification cards which have the concession sticker.
What is the most that an international student would be willing to pay for a fake identification card?
Assume that international students:
- consider buying their fake card on the morning of the first day of university from their neighbour, just before they leave to take the train into university.
- buy their weekly train tickets on the morning of the first day of each week.
- ride the train to university and back home again every day seven days per week until summer holidays 40 weeks from now. The concession card only lasts for those 40 weeks. Assume that there are 52 weeks in the year for the purpose of interest rate conversion.
- a single full-priced one-way train ride costs $5.
- have a discount rate of 11% pa, given as an effective annual rate.
Approach this question from a purely financial view point, ignoring the illegality, embarrassment and the morality of committing fraud.
An investor bought two fixed-coupon bonds issued by the same company, a zero-coupon bond and a 7% pa semi-annual coupon bond. Both bonds have a face value of $1,000, mature in 10 years, and had a yield at the time of purchase of 8% pa.
A few years later, yields fell to 6% pa. Which of the following statements is correct? Note that a capital gain is an increase in price.
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.
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.
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 $250. How many one year S&P500 futures contracts should the fund manager sell?
Question 784 boot strapping zero coupon yield, forward interest rate, term structure of interest rates
Information about three risk free Government bonds is given in the table below.
| Federal Treasury Bond Data | ||||
| Maturity | Yield to maturity | Coupon rate | Face value | Price |
| (years) | (pa, compounding annually) | (pa, paid annually) | ($) | ($) |
| 1 | 0% | 2% | 100 | 102 |
| 2 | 1% | 2% | 100 | 101.9703951 |
| 3 | 2% | 2% | 100 | 100 |
Based on the above government bonds' yields to maturity, which of the below statements about the spot zero rates and forward zero rates is NOT correct?
Question 792 mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate, log-normal distribution, confidence interval
A risk manager has identified that their investment fund’s continuously compounded portfolio returns are normally distributed with a mean of 10% pa and a standard deviation of 40% 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. Assume one month is 1/12 of a year. Which of the following statements 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?
A one year European-style call option has a strike price of $4. The option's underlying stock pays no dividends and currently trades at $5. The risk-free interest rate is 10% pa continuously compounded. Use a single step binomial tree to calculate the option price, assuming that the price could rise to $8 ##(u = 1.6)## or fall to $3.125 ##(d = 1/1.6)## in one year. The call option price now is:
The risk-weight on "Margin lending against listed instruments on recognised exchanges" is 20% according to APRA's interpretation of the Basel 3 Accord in 'Prudential Standard APS 112 Capital Adequacy: Standardised Approach to Credit Risk, Attachment A: Risk-weights for on-balance sheet assets'.
A bank is considering lending a $100,000 margin loan secured by an ASX-listed stock. How much regulatory capital will the bank require to grant this loan under the Basel 3 Accord? Ignore the capital conservation buffer and the off-balance sheet exposure.
The market's expected total return is 10% pa and the risk free rate is 5% pa, both given as effective annual rates.
A stock has a beta of 0.7.
In the last 5 minutes, bad economic news was released showing a higher chance of recession. Over this time the share market fell by 2%. The risk free rate was unchanged. What do you think was the stock's historical return over the last 5 minutes, given as an effective 5 minute rate?