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##.
Question 143 bond pricing, zero coupon bond, term structure of interest rates, forward interest rate
An Australian company just issued two bonds:
- A 6-month zero coupon bond at a yield of 6% pa, and
- A 12 month zero coupon bond at a yield of 7% pa.
What is the company's forward rate from 6 to 12 months? Give your answer as an APR compounding every 6 months, which is how the above bond yields are quoted.
A very low-risk stock just paid its semi-annual dividend of $0.14, as it has for the last 5 years. You conservatively estimate that from now on the dividend will fall at a rate of 1% every 6 months.
If the stock currently sells for $3 per share, what must be its required total return as an effective annual rate?
If risk free government bonds are trading at a yield of 4% pa, given as an effective annual rate, would you consider buying or selling the stock?
The stock's required total return is:
The cheapest mobile phones available tend to be those that are 'locked' into a cell phone operator's network. Locked phones can not be used with other cell phone operators' networks.
Locked mobile phones are cheaper than unlocked phones because the locked-in network operator helps create a monopoly by:
Discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation prices assets by finding the present value of the asset's future cash flows. The single cash flow, annuity, and perpetuity equations are very useful for this.
Which of the following equations is the 'perpetuity with growth' equation?
A company advertises an investment costing $1,000 which they say is underpriced. They say that it has an expected total return of 15% pa, but a required return of only 10% pa. Of the 15% pa total expected return, the dividend yield is expected to always be 7% pa and rest is the capital yield.
Assuming that the company's statements are correct, what is the NPV of buying the investment if the 15% total return lasts for the next 100 years (t=0 to 100), then reverts to 10% after that time? Also, what is the NPV of the investment if the 15% return lasts forever?
In both cases, assume that the required return of 10% remains constant, the dividends can only be re-invested at 10% pa and all returns are given as effective annual rates.
The answer choices below are given in the same order (15% for 100 years, and 15% forever):
Question 821 option, option profit, option payoff at maturity, no explanation
You just paid $4 for a 3 month European style call option on a stock currently priced at $47 with a strike price of $50. The stock’s next dividend will be $1 in 4 months’ time. Note that the dividend is paid after the option matures. Which of the below statements is NOT correct?
A one year European-style call option has a strike price of $4.
The option's underlying stock currently trades at $5, pays no dividends and its standard deviation of continuously compounded returns is 47% pa.
The risk-free interest rate is 10% pa continuously compounded.
Use the Black-Scholes-Merton formula to calculate the option price. The call option price now is:
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?