Fight Finance

Question 94  leverage, capital structure, real estate

Your friend just bought a house for $400,000. He financed it using a $320,000 mortgage loan and a deposit of $80,000.

In the context of residential housing and mortgages, the 'equity' tied up in the value of a person's house is the value of the house less the value of the mortgage. So the initial equity your friend has in his house is $80,000. Let this amount be E, let the value of the mortgage be D and the value of the house be V. So ##V=D+E##.

If house prices suddenly fall by 10%, what would be your friend's percentage change in equity (E)? Assume that the value of the mortgage is unchanged and that no income (rent) was received from the house during the short time over which house prices fell.

Remember:

### r_{0\rightarrow1}=\frac{p_1-p_0+c_1}{p_0} ###

where ##r_{0-1}## is the return (percentage change) of an asset with price ##p_0## initially, ##p_1## one period later, and paying a cash flow of ##c_1## at time ##t=1##.

(a) -100%

(b) -50%

(c) -12.5%

(d) -10%

(e) -8%

Question 134  fully amortising loan, APR

You want to buy an apartment worth $400,000. You have saved a deposit of $80,000. The bank has agreed to lend you the $320,000 as a fully amortising 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) $888.89

(b) $1,600.00

(c) $1,885.99

(d) $1,918.56

(e) $23,247.65

Question 136  income and capital returns

A stock was bought for $8 and paid a dividend of $0.50 one year later (at t=1 year). Just after the dividend was paid, the stock price was $7 (at t=1 year).

What were the total, capital and dividend returns given as effective annual rates? The choices are given in the same order:

##r_\text{total}##, ##r_\text{capital}##, ##r_\text{dividend}##.

(a) 0.0625, -0.0625, -0.125.

(b) 0.0625, 0.125, -0.0625.

(c) -0.0625, 0.0625, -0.125.

(d) -0.0625, -0.125, 0.0625.

(e) -0.125, -0.1875, 0.0625.

Question 156  APR, effective rate

A 2 year government bond yields 5% pa with a coupon rate of 6% pa, paid semi-annually.

Find the effective six month rate, effective annual rate and the effective daily rate. Assume that each month has 30 days and that there are 360 days in a year.

All answers are given in the same order:

##r_\text{eff semi-annual}##, ##r_\text{eff yrly}##, ##r_\text{eff daily}##.

(a) 0.024695, 0.05, 0.000136.

(b) 0.025, 0.050625, 0.000137.

(c) 0.029563, 0.06, 0.000162.

(d) 0.03, 0.06, 0.000167.

(e) 0.03, 0.0609, 0.000164.

Question 282  expected and historical returns, income and capital returns

You're the boss of an investment bank's equities research team. Your five analysts are each trying to find the expected total return over the next year of shares in a mining company. The mining firm:

• Is regarded as a mature company since it's quite stable in size and was floated around 30 years ago. It is not a high-growth company;
• Share price is very sensitive to changes in the price of the market portfolio, economic growth, the exchange rate and commodities prices. Due to this, its standard deviation of total returns is much higher than that of the market index;
• Experienced tough times in the last 10 years due to unexpected falls in commodity prices.
• Shares are traded in an active liquid market.

Your team of analysts present their findings, and everyone has different views. While there's no definitive true answer, whose calculation of the expected total return is the most plausible? Assume that:

• The analysts' source data is correct and true, but their inferences might be wrong;
• All returns and yields are given as effective annual nominal rates.

(a) Alice says 5% pa since she calculated that this was the average total yield on government bonds over the last 10 years. She says that this is also the expected total yield implied by current prices on one year government bonds.

(b) Bob says 4% pa since he calculated that this was the average total return on the mining stock over the last 10 years.

(c) Cate says 3% pa since she calculated that this was the average growth rate of the share price over the last 10 years.

(d) Dave says 6% pa since he calculated that this was the average growth rate of the share market price index (not the accumulation index) over the last 10 years.

(e) Eve says 15% pa since she calculated that this was the discount rate implied by the dividend discount model using the current share price, forecast dividend in one year and a 3% growth rate in dividends thereafter, which is the expected long term inflation rate.

Question 359  CFFA

Which one of the following will have no effect on net income (NI) but decrease cash flow from assets (CFFA or FFCF) 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 increase in rent expense (a type of recurring fixed cost, FC).

(c) An increase in depreciation expense (Depr).

(d) An increase in inventories (a current asset).

(e) An decrease in interest expense (IntExp).

Question 494  franking credit, personal tax on dividends, imputation tax system

A firm pays a fully franked cash dividend of $100 to one of its Australian shareholders who has a personal marginal tax rate of 15%. The corporate tax rate is 30%.

What will be the shareholder's personal tax payable due to the dividend payment?

(a) -$21.4286

(b) -$7.563

(c) $15

(d) $21.4286

(e) $78.5714

Question 591  short selling, future, option

After doing extensive fundamental analysis of a company, you believe that their shares are overpriced and will soon fall significantly. The market believes that there will be no such fall.

Which of the following strategies is NOT a good idea, assuming that your prediction is true?

(a) Sell any of the firm's shares that you already own.

(b) Short-sell the firm's shares.

(c) Sell futures written on the shares.

(d) Buy put options written on the shares.

(e) Buy call options written on the shares.

Question 695  utility, risk aversion, utility function

Mr Blue, Miss Red and Mrs Green are people with different utility functions. Which of the statements about the 3 utility functions is NOT correct?

(a) All rational people prefer more wealth to less.

(b) Mr Blue is risk averse.

(c) Miss Red is risk neutral.

(d) Mrs Green is risk averse.

(e) Mrs Green may enjoy gambling.

Question 798  idiom, diversification, market efficiency, sunk cost, no explanation

The following quotes are most closely related to which financial concept?

• “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work” -Thomas Edison
• “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary” -Vidal Sassoon
• “The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket” - Kin Hubbard

(a) The efficient markets hypothesis.

(b) Time value of money.

(c) Separation of the investment and financing decisions.

(d) Diversification.

(e) Sunk costs.