A stock's correlation with the market portfolio increases while its total risk is unchanged. What will happen to the stock's expected return and systematic risk?
A text book publisher is thinking of asking some teachers to write a new textbook at a cost of $100,000, payable now. The book would be written, printed and ready to sell to students in 2 years. It will be ready just before semester begins.
A cash flow of $100 would be made from each book sold, after all costs such as printing and delivery. There are 600 students per semester. Assume that every student buys a new text book. Remember that there are 2 semesters per year and students buy text books at the beginning of the semester.
Assume that text book publishers will sell the books at the same price forever and that the number of students is constant.
If the discount rate is 8% pa, given as an effective annual rate, what is the NPV of the project?
Question 370 capital budgeting, NPV, interest tax shield, WACC, CFFA
| Project Data | ||
| Project life | 2 yrs | |
| Initial investment in equipment | $600k | |
| Depreciation of equipment per year | $250k | |
| Expected sale price of equipment at end of project | $200k | |
| Revenue per job | $12k | |
| Variable cost per job | $4k | |
| Quantity of jobs per year | 120 | |
| Fixed costs per year, paid at the end of each year | $100k | |
| Interest expense in first year (at t=1) | $16.091k | |
| Interest expense in second year (at t=2) | $9.711k | |
| Tax rate | 30% | |
| Government treasury bond yield | 5% | |
| Bank loan debt yield | 6% | |
| Levered cost of equity | 12.5% | |
| Market portfolio return | 10% | |
| Beta of assets | 1.24 | |
| Beta of levered equity | 1.5 | |
| Firm's and project's debt-to-equity ratio | 25% | |
Notes
- The project will require an immediate purchase of $50k of inventory, which will all be sold at cost when the project ends. Current liabilities are negligible so they can be ignored.
Assumptions
- The debt-to-equity ratio will be kept constant throughout the life of the project. The amount of interest expense at the end of each period has been correctly calculated to maintain this constant debt-to-equity ratio. Note that interest expense is different in each year.
- Thousands are represented by 'k' (kilo).
- All cash flows occur at the start or end of the year as appropriate, not in the middle or throughout the year.
- All rates and cash flows are nominal. The inflation rate is 2% pa.
- All rates are given as effective annual rates.
- The 50% capital gains tax discount is not available since the project is undertaken by a firm, not an individual.
What is the net present value (NPV) of the project?
Question 416 real estate, market efficiency, income and capital returns, DDM, CAPM
A residential real estate investor believes that house prices will grow at a rate of 5% pa and that rents will grow by 2% pa forever.
All rates are given as nominal effective annual returns. Assume that:
- His forecast is true.
- Real estate is and always will be fairly priced and the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is true.
- Ignore all costs such as taxes, agent fees, maintenance and so on.
- All rental income cash flow is paid out to the owner, so there is no re-investment and therefore no additions or improvements made to the property.
- The non-monetary benefits of owning real estate and renting remain constant.
Which one of the following statements is NOT correct? Over time:
What is the covariance of a variable X with itself?
The cov(X, X) or ##\sigma_{X,X}## equals:
Question 720 mean and median returns, return distribution, arithmetic and geometric averages, continuously compounding rate
A stock has an arithmetic average continuously compounded return (AALGDR) of 10% pa, a standard deviation of continuously compounded returns (SDLGDR) of 80% pa and current stock price of $1. Assume that stock prices are log-normally distributed.
In 5 years, what do you expect the median and mean prices to be? The answer options are given in the same order.
Question 809 Markowitz portfolio theory, CAPM, Jensens alpha, CML, systematic and idiosyncratic risk
A graph of assets’ expected returns ##(\mu)## versus standard deviations ##(\sigma)## is given in the graph below. The CML is the capital market line.
Which of the following statements about this graph, Markowitz portfolio theory and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) theory is NOT correct?
The famous investor Warren Buffett is one of few portfolio managers who appears to have consistently beaten the market. His company Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) appears to have outperformed the US S&P500 market index, shown in the graph below.
Read the below statements about Warren Buffett and the implications for the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH) theory of Eugene Fama. Assume that the first sentence is true. Analyse the second sentence and select the answer option which is NOT correct. In other words, find the false statement in the second sentence.
Question 825 future, hedging, tailing the hedge, speculation, no explanation
An equity index fund manager controls a USD500 million diversified equity portfolio with a beta of 0.9. The equity manager expects a significant rally in equity prices next year. The market does not think that this will happen. If the fund manager wishes to increase his portfolio beta to 1.5, how many S&P500 futures should he buy?
The US market equity index is the S&P500. One year CME futures on the S&P500 currently trade at 2,155 points and the spot price is 2,180 points. Each point is worth $250.
The number of one year S&P500 futures contracts that the fund manager should buy is:
Question 891 foreign exchange rate, monetary policy, no explanation
Suppose the market expects the Bank of Japan (BoJ) to decrease their short term interest rate by 15 basis points at their next meeting. The current short term interest rate is -0.1% pa and the exchange rate is 100 JPY per USD.
Then unexpectedly, the BoJ announce that they will leave the short term interest rate unchanged.
What do you expect to happen to Japan’s exchange rate on the day when the surprise announcement is made? The Japanese Yen (JPY) is likely to suddenly: