Fight Finance

Question 75  WACC, CAPM

A company has:

• 50 million shares outstanding.
• The market price of one share is currently $6.
• The risk-free rate is 5% and the market return is 10%.
• Market analysts believe that the company's ordinary shares have a beta of 2.
• The company has 1 million preferred stock which have a face (or par) value of $100 and pay a constant dividend of 10% of par. They currently trade for $80 each.
• The company's debentures are publicly traded and their market price is equal to 90% of their face value.
• The debentures have a total face value of $60,000,000 and the current yield to maturity of corporate debentures is 10% per annum. The corporate tax rate is 30%.

What is the company's after-tax weighted average cost of capital (WACC)? Assume a classical tax system.

(a) 11.75%

(b) 11.82%

(c) 13.54%

(d) 13.78%

(e) 20.84%

Question 177  implicit interest rate in wholesale credit

A furniture distributor offers credit to its customers. Customers are given 25 days to pay for their goods, but if they pay immediately they will get a 1% 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 25th day. All rates given below are effective annual rates.

(a) 0.0004

(b) 0.1301

(c) 0.1365

(d) 0.1460

(e) 0.1580

Question 573  bond pricing, zero coupon bond, term structure of interest rates, expectations hypothesis, liquidity premium theory, forward interest rate, yield curve

In the below term structure of interest rates equation, all rates are effective annual yields and the numbers in subscript represent the years that the yields are measured over:

###(1+r_{0-3})^3 = (1+r_{0-1})(1+r_{1-2})(1+r_{2-3}) ###

Which of the following statements is NOT correct?

(a) If the expectations hypothesis is true, then the forward rates are the expected future spot rates.

(b) If the liquidity premium theory is true, then the forward rates are lower than the expected future spot rates due to the liquidity premium.

(c) The yield curve is normal when: ##r_{0-1} < r_{1-2} < r_{2-3}##.

(d) The yield curve is flat when: ##r_{0-1} = r_{1-2} = r_{2-3}##.

(e) The yield curve is inverse when: ##r_{0-1} > r_{1-2} > r_{2-3}##.

Question 583  APR, effective rate, effective rate conversion

A semi-annual coupon bond has a yield of 3% pa. Which of the following statements about the yield is NOT correct? All rates are given to four decimal places.

(a) The APR compounding semi-annually is 3.0000% per annum.

(b) The effective 6 month rate is 1.5000% per six months.

(c) The effective annual rate is 3.0225% per annum.

(d) The effective monthly rate is 0.2500% per month.

(e) The APR compounding monthly is 2.9814% per annum.

Question 616  idiom, debt terminology, bond pricing

"Buy low, sell high" is a phrase commonly heard in financial markets. It states that traders should try to buy assets at low prices and sell at high prices.

Traders in the fixed-coupon bond markets often quote promised bond yields rather than prices. Fixed-coupon bond traders should try to:

(a) Buy at low yields, sell at high yields.

(b) Buy at high yields, sell at low yields.

(c) Buy at high yields, sell at high yields.

(d) Buy at low yields, sell at low yields.

(e) There is no preferable yield to buy or sell fixed-coupon debt.

Question 619  CFFA

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) Net income, depreciation and interest expense.

(b) Depreciation and capital expenditure.

(c) Current assets, current liabilities and cost of goods sold (COGS).

(d) Current assets, current liabilities and capital expenditure.

(e) Current assets, current liabilities and depreciation expense.

Question 627  CAPM, SML, NPV, Jensens alpha

Assets A, B, M and ##r_f## are shown on the graphs above. Asset M is the market portfolio and ##r_f## is the risk free yield on government bonds. Which of the below statements is NOT correct?

(a) Asset A has a Jensen's alpha of 4.5% pa.

(b) Asset A is under-priced.

(c) The NPV of buying asset A is zero.

(d) Asset B has a Jensen's alpha of zero.

(e) Asset B is fairly priced.

Question 779  mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate

Fred owns some BHP shares. He has calculated BHP’s monthly returns for each month in the past 30 years using this formula:

###r_\text{t monthly}=\ln⁡ \left( \dfrac{P_t}{P_{t-1}} \right)###

He then took the arithmetic average and found it to be 0.8% per month using this formula:

###\bar{r}_\text{monthly}= \dfrac{ \displaystyle\sum\limits_{t=1}^T{\left( r_\text{t monthly} \right)} }{T} =0.008=0.8\% \text{ per month}###

He also found the standard deviation of these monthly returns which was 15% per month:

###\sigma_\text{monthly} = \dfrac{ \displaystyle\sum\limits_{t=1}^T{\left( \left( r_\text{t monthly} - \bar{r}_\text{monthly} \right)^2 \right)} }{T} =0.15=15\%\text{ per month}###

Assume that the past historical average return is the true population average of future expected returns and the stock's returns calculated above ##(r_\text{t monthly})## are normally distributed. Which of the below statements about Fred’s BHP shares is NOT correct?

(a) The returns ##r_\text{t monthly}## are continuously compounded monthly returns.

(b) The mean, median and mode of the continuously compounded annual return is expected to equal 0.8% per month.

(c) The annualised average continuously compounded return is ##\bar{r}_\text{cc annual}=12×0.008=0.096=9.6\%\text{ pa}##. The annualised standard deviation is ##\sigma_\text{annual} = \sqrt{12}×0.15=0.519615242 = 52\%\text{ pa}##.

(d) If the current price of the BHP shares is $20, they're expected to have a median value of $52.2339 ##(= 20×e^{0.008×12×10})## in 10 years.

(e) If the current price of the BHP shares is $20, they're expected to have a mean value of $13.5411 ##(= 20×e^{(0.008 - 0.15^2/2)×12×10})## in 10 years.

Question 852  gross domestic product, inflation, employment, no explanation

When the economy is booming (in an upswing), you tend to see:

(a) Low unemployment rates.

(b) Low inflation rates.

(c) Low GDP growth rates.

(d) Low wage growth rates.

(e) Low labour force participation rates.

Question 964  monetary policy, impossible trinity, foreign exchange rate

It’s often thought that the ideal currency or exchange rate regime would:

1. Be fixed against the USD;

2. Be convertible to and from USD for traders and investors so there are open goods, services and capital markets, and;

3. Allow independent monetary policy set by the country’s central bank, independent of the US central bank. So the country can set its own interest rate independent of the US Federal Reserve’s USD interest rate.

However, not all of these characteristics can be achieved. One must be sacrificed. This is the 'impossible trinity'.

Which of the following exchange rate regimes sacrifices independent monetary policy?

(a) Australia’s dollar, AUD.

(b) The Chinese territory Hong Kong’s dollar, HKD.

(c) Mainland China’s Renminbi, RMB.

(d) Panama’s currency.

(e) Saudi Arabia’s Riyal, SAR.