Fight Finance

Question 73  portfolio risk, standard deviation

Portfolio Details
Stock	Expected return	Standard deviation	Covariance ##(\sigma_{A,B})##	Beta	Dollars invested
A	0.2	0.4	0.12	0.5	40
B	0.3	0.8		1.5	80

What is the standard deviation (not variance) of the above portfolio? Note that the stocks' covariance is given, not correlation.

(a) 0.5497

(b) 0.5651

(c) 0.5963

(d) 0.6156

(e) 0.8165

Question 224  CFFA

Cash Flow From Assets (CFFA) can be defined as:

(a) Cash available to distribute to creditors and stockholders.

(b) Cash flow to creditors minus cash flow to stockholders.

(c) Net income (or earnings) plus depreciation plus interest expense.

(d) Net income minus the increase in net working capital.

(e) Net income minus net capital spending minus the increase in net working capital.

Question 296  CFFA, interest tax shield

Which one of the following will decrease net income (NI) but increase cash flow from assets (CFFA) in this year for a tax-paying firm, all else remaining constant?

Remember:

###NI=(Rev-COGS-FC-Depr-IntExp).(1-t_c )### ###CFFA=NI+Depr-CapEx - ΔNWC+IntExp###

(a) An increase in revenue (##Rev##).

(b) An decrease in revenue (##Rev##).

(c) An increase in rent expense (part of fixed costs, ##FC##).

(d) An increase in interest expense (##IntExp##).

(e) An increase in dividends.

Question 333  DDM, time calculation

When using the dividend discount model, care must be taken to avoid using a nominal dividend growth rate that exceeds the country's nominal GDP growth rate. Otherwise the firm is forecast to take over the country since it grows faster than the average business forever.

Suppose a firm's nominal dividend grows at 10% pa forever, and nominal GDP growth is 5% pa forever. The firm's total dividends are currently $1 billion (t=0). The country's GDP is currently $1,000 billion (t=0).

In approximately how many years will the company's total dividends be as large as the country's GDP?

(a) 1,443 years

(b) 1,199 years

(c) 955 years

(d) 674 years

(e) 148 years

Question 440  option, no explanation

Two put options are exactly the same, but one has a low and the other has a high exercise price. Which option would you expect to have the higher price, the option with the or exercise price, or should they have the price?

Question 449  personal tax on dividends, classical tax system

A small private company has a single shareholder. This year the firm earned a $100 profit before tax. All of the firm's after tax profits will be paid out as dividends to the owner.

The corporate tax rate is 30% and the sole shareholder's personal marginal tax rate is 45%.

The United States' classical tax system applies because the company generates all of its income in the US and pays corporate tax to the Internal Revenue Service. The shareholder is also an American for tax purposes.

What will be the personal tax payable by the shareholder and the corporate tax payable by the company?

(a) Personal tax of $6.43 and corporate tax of $45.

(b) Personal tax of $15 and corporate tax of $30.

(c) Personal tax of $16.5 and corporate tax of $45.

(d) Personal tax of $31.5 and corporate tax of $30.

(e) Personal tax of $45 and corporate tax of $0.

Question 562  covariance

What is the covariance of a variable X with itself?

The cov(X, X) or ##\sigma_{X,X}## equals:

(a) var(X) or ##\sigma_X^2##

(b) sd(X) or ##\sigma_X##

(c) 1

(d) 0

(e) Mathematically undefined

Question 599  bond pricing

On 22-Mar-2013 the Australian Government issued series TB139 treasury bonds with a combined face value $23.4m, listed on the ASX with ticker code GSBG25.

The bonds mature on 21-Apr-2025, the fixed coupon rate is 3.25% pa and coupons are paid semi-annually on the 21st of April and October of each year. Each bond's face value is $1,000.

At market close on Friday 11-Sep-2015 the bonds' yield was 2.736% pa.

At market close on Monday 14-Sep-2015 the bonds' yield was 2.701% pa. Both yields are given as annualised percentage rates (APR's) compounding every 6 months. For convenience, assume 183 days in 6 months and 366 days in a year.

What was the historical total return over those 3 calendar days between Friday 11-Sep-2015 and Monday 14-Sep-2015?

There are 183 calendar days from market close on the last coupon 21-Apr-2015 to the market close of the next coupon date on 21-Oct-2015.

Between the market close times from 21-Apr-2015 to 11-Sep-2015 there are 143 calendar days. From 21-Apr-2015 to 14-Sep-2015 there are 146 calendar days.

From 14-Sep-2015 there were 20 coupons remaining to be paid including the next one on 21-Oct-2015.

All of the below answers are given as effective 3 day rates.

(a) -0.035%

(b) 0.0267%

(c) 0.035%

(d) 0.2667%

(e) 0.3078%

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 956  option, Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing, delta hedging, hedging

A bank sells a European call option on a non-dividend paying stock and delta hedges on a daily basis. Below is the result of their hedging, with columns representing consecutive days. Assume that there are 365 days per year and interest is paid daily in arrears.

Delta Hedging a Short Call using Stocks and Debt
Description	Symbol	Days to maturity (T in days)
		60	59	58	57	56	55
Spot price ($)	S	10000	10125	9800	9675	10000	10000
Strike price ($)	K	10000	10000	10000	10000	10000	10000
Risk free cont. comp. rate (pa)	r	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05
Standard deviation of the stock's cont. comp. returns (pa)	σ	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.4
Option maturity (years)	T	0.164384	0.161644	0.158904	0.156164	0.153425	0.150685
Delta	N[d1] = dc/dS	0.552416	0.582351	0.501138	0.467885	0.550649	0.550197
Probability that S > K at maturity in risk neutral world	N[d2]	0.487871	0.51878	0.437781	0.405685	0.488282	0.488387
Call option price ($)	c	685.391158	750.26411	567.990995	501.487157	660.982878	?
Stock investment value ($)	N[d1]*S	5524.164129	5896.301781	4911.152036	4526.788065	5506.488143	?
Borrowing which partly funds stock investment ($)	N[d2]*K/e^(r*T)	4838.772971	5146.037671	4343.161041	4025.300909	4845.505265	?
Interest expense from borrowing paid in arrears ($)	r*N[d2]*K/e^(r*T)		0.662891	0.704985	0.594994	0.551449	?
Gain on stock ($)	N[d1]*(SNew - SOld)		69.052052	-189.264008	-62.642245	152.062648	?
Gain on short call option ($)	-1*(cNew - cOld)		-64.872952	182.273114	66.503839	-159.495721	?
Net gain ($)	Gains - InterestExpense		3.516209	-7.695878	3.266599	-7.984522	?
Gamma	Γ = d^2c/dS^2	0.000244	0.00024	0.000255	0.00026	0.000253	0.000255
Theta	θ = dc/dT	2196.873429	2227.881353	2182.174706	2151.539751	2266.589184	2285.1895

 

In the last column when there are 55 days left to maturity there are missing values. Which of the following statements about those missing values is NOT correct?

(a) The call option price is expected to be $654.757851.

(b) The stock investment value used for hedging should be $5506.488143, partly funded by $4845.505265 in debt.

(c) The interest expense on the borrowing from the previous day will be $0.663813.

(d) The gain on the stock is zero and the gain on the short call option is $6.225027.

(e) The net gain is $5.561214.