Fight Finance

The theory of fixed interest bond pricing is an application of the theory of Net Present Value (NPV). Also, a 'fairly priced' asset is not over- or under-priced. Buying or selling a fairly priced asset has an NPV of zero.

Considering this, which of the following statements is NOT correct?

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. Note that the $8 dividend at time zero is about to be paid tonight.

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

A student won $1m in a lottery. Currently the money is in a bank account which pays interest at 6% pa, given as an APR compounding per month.

She plans to spend $20,000 at the beginning of every month from now on (so the first withdrawal will be at t=0). After each withdrawal, she will check how much money is left in the account. When there is less than $500,000 left, she will donate that remaining amount to charity.

In how many months will she make her last withdrawal and donate the remainder to charity?

Find Sidebar Corporation's Cash Flow From Assets (CFFA), also known as Free Cash Flow to the Firm (FCFF), over the year ending 30th June 2013.

Note: All figures are given in millions of dollars ($m).

The cash flow from assets was:

Your friend is trying to find the net present value of an investment which:

• Costs $1 million initially (t=0); and
• Pays a single positive cash flow of $1.1 million in one year (t=1).

The investment has a total required return of 10% pa due to its moderate level of undiversifiable risk.

Your friend is aware of the importance of opportunity costs and the time value of money, but he is unsure of how to find the NPV of the project.

He knows that the opportunity cost of investing the $1m in the project is the expected gain from investing the money in shares instead. Like the project, shares also have an expected return of 10% since they have moderate undiversifiable risk. This opportunity cost is $0.1m ##(=1m \times 10\%)## which occurs in one year (t=1).

He knows that the time value of money should be accounted for, and this can be done by finding the present value of the cash flows in one year.

Your friend has listed a few different ways to find the NPV which are written down below.

Method 1: ##-1m + \dfrac{1.1m}{(1+0.1)^1} ##

Method 2: ##-1m + 1.1m - 1m \times 0.1 ##

Method 3: ##-1m + \dfrac{1.1m}{(1+0.1)^1} - 1m \times 0.1 ##

Which of the above calculations give the correct NPV? Select the most correct answer.

In Australia in the 1980's, inflation was around 8% pa, and residential mortgage loan interest rates were around 14%.

In 2013, inflation was around 2.5% pa, and residential mortgage loan interest rates were around 4.5%.

If a person can afford constant mortgage loan payments of $2,000 per month, how much more can they borrow when interest rates are 4.5% pa compared with 14.0% pa?

Give your answer as a proportional increase over the amount you could borrow when interest rates were high ##(V_\text{high rates})##, so:

###\text{Proportional increase} = \dfrac{V_\text{low rates}-V_\text{high rates}}{V_\text{high rates}} ###

Assume that:

• Interest rates are expected to be constant over the life of the loan.
• Loans are interest-only and have a life of 30 years.
• Mortgage loan payments are made every month in arrears and all interest rates are given as annualised percentage rates (APR's) compounding per month.

An asset's total expected return over the next year is given by:

###r_\text{total} = \dfrac{c_1+p_1-p_0}{p_0} ###

Where ##p_0## is the current price, ##c_1## is the expected income in one year and ##p_1## is the expected price in one year. The total return can be split into the income return and the capital return.

Which of the following is the expected capital return?

An investor bought a 5 year government bond with a 2% pa coupon rate at par. Coupons are paid semi-annually. The face value is $100.

Calculate the bond's new price 8 months later after yields have increased to 3% pa. Note that both yields are given as APR's compounding semi-annually. Assume that the yield curve was flat before the change in yields, and remained flat afterwards as well.

Accountants and finance professionals have lots of names for the same things which can be quite confusing.

Which of the following groups of items are NOT synonyms?

Calculate Australia’s GDP over the 2016 calendar year using the below table:

Source: ABS 5206.0 Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product. Table 3. Expenditure on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Current prices.

Over the 2016 calendar year, Australia’s GDP was: