Fight Finance

Question 89  WACC, CFFA, interest tax shield

A retail furniture company buys furniture wholesale and distributes it through its retail stores. The owner believes that she has some good ideas for making stylish new furniture. She is considering a project to buy a factory and employ workers to manufacture the new furniture she's designed. Furniture manufacturing has more systematic risk than furniture retailing.

Her furniture retailing firm's after-tax WACC is 20%. Furniture manufacturing firms have an after-tax WACC of 30%. Both firms are optimally geared. Assume a classical tax system.

Which method(s) will give the correct valuation of the new furniture-making project? Select the most correct answer.

(a) Discount the project's unlevered CFFA by the furniture manufacturing firms' 30% WACC after tax.

(b) Discount the project's unlevered CFFA by the company's 20% WACC after tax.

(c) Discount the project's levered CFFA by the company's 20% WACC after tax.

(d) Discount the project's levered CFFA by the furniture manufacturing firms' 30% WACC after tax.

(e) The methods outlined in answers (a) and (c) will give the same valuations, both are correct.

Question 107  interest only loan

You want to buy an apartment worth $300,000. You have saved a deposit of $60,000.

The bank has agreed to lend you $240,000 as an interest only mortgage loan with a term of 30 years. The interest rate is 6% pa and is not expected to change. What will be your monthly payments?

(a) 17,435.74

(b) 1,438.92

(c) 1,414.49

(d) 1,200.00

(e) 666.67

Question 214  rights issue

In late 2003 the listed bank ANZ announced a 2-for-11 rights issue to fund the takeover of New Zealand bank NBNZ. Below is the chronology of events:

• 23/10/2003. Share price closes at $18.30.

• 24/10/2003. 2-for-11 rights issue announced at a subscription price of $13. The proceeds of the rights issue will be used to acquire New Zealand bank NBNZ. Trading halt announced in morning before market opens.

• 28/10/2003. Trading halt lifted. Last (and only) day that shares trade cum-rights. Share price opens at $18.00 and closes at $18.14.

• 29/10/2003. Shares trade ex-rights.

All things remaining equal, what would you expect ANZ's stock price to open at on the first day that it trades ex-rights (29/10/2003)? Ignore the time value of money since time is negligibly short. Also ignore taxes.

(a) 17.3492

(b) 17.2308

(c) 14.8418

(d) 13.7908

(e) 13.7692

Question 243  fundamental analysis, market efficiency

Fundamentalists who analyse company financial reports and news announcements (but who don't have inside information) will make positive abnormal returns if:

(a) Markets are weak and semi-strong form efficient but strong-form inefficient.

(b) Markets are weak form efficient but semi-strong and strong-form inefficient.

(c) Chartists make negative excess returns.

(d) Insiders make positive excess returns.

(e) Insiders make negative excess returns.

Question 294  short selling, portfolio weights

Which of the following statements about short-selling is NOT true?

(a) Short sellers benefit from price falls.

(b) To short sell, you must borrow the asset from person A and sell it to person B, then later on buy an identical asset from person C and return it to person A.

(c) Short selling only works for assets that are 'fungible' which means that there are many that are identical and substitutable, such as shares and bonds and unlike real estate.

(d) An investor who short-sells an asset has a negative weight in that asset.

(e) An investor who short-sells an asset is said to be 'long' that asset.

Question 451  DDM

The first payment of a constant perpetual annual cash flow is received at time 5. Let this cash flow be ##C_5## and the required return be ##r##.

So there will be equal annual cash flows at time 5, 6, 7 and so on forever, and all of the cash flows will be equal so ##C_5 = C_6 = C_7 = ...##

When the perpetuity formula is used to value this stream of cash flows, it will give a value (V) at time:

(a) 0, so ##V_0=\dfrac{C_5}{r}##

(b) 1, so ##V_1=\dfrac{C_5}{r}##

(c) 4, so ##V_4=\dfrac{C_5}{r}##

(d) 5, so ##V_5=\dfrac{C_5}{r}##

(e) 6, so ##V_6=\dfrac{C_5}{r}##

Question 505  equivalent annual cash flow

A low-quality second-hand car can be bought now for $1,000 and will last for 1 year before it will be scrapped for nothing.

A high-quality second-hand car can be bought now for $4,900 and it will last for 5 years before it will be scrapped for nothing.

What is the equivalent annual cost of each car? Assume a discount rate of 10% pa, given as an effective annual rate.

The answer choices are given as the equivalent annual cost of the low-quality car and then the high quality car.

(a) $100,   $490

(b) $909.09,   $608.5

(c) $1,000,   $980

(d) $1,000,   $1578.3

(e) $1,100,   $1,292.61

Question 584  option, option payoff at maturity, option profit

Which of the following statements about European call options on non-dividend paying stocks is NOT correct?

(a) A long call option's payoff at maturity is equal to the maximum of zero or the underlying asset price at maturity minus the exercise price. ##f_\text{T,LC} = max(S_T - K, 0)##

(b) A long call option's profit is equal to the payoff at maturity less the initial option price. ##\pi_\text{LC} = max(S_T - K, 0) - c_0##

(c) The breakeven price is the underlying asset price at which a long option contract gives zero profit. When ##max(S_T - K, 0) - c_0 = 0##, then ##S_T = K+c_0##.

(d) A call option's break-even price is always more than its strike price.

(e) Call options should only be exercised at maturity if the underlying asset price is above the break-even price.

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 884  monetary policy, impossible trinity, foreign exchange rate, no explanation

According to the impossible trinity, a currency can only have two of these three desirable traits: be fixed against the USD; convertible to and from USD for traders and investors so there are open goods, services and capital markets; and allow independent monetary policy set by the country’s central bank, independent of the US central bank.

Which of the following exchange rate regimes sacrifices fixing the exchange rate to the USD? In other words, which regime uses a floating exchange rate?

(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.