The average weekly earnings of an Australian adult worker before tax was $1,542.40 per week in November 2014 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Therefore average annual earnings before tax were $80,204.80 assuming 52 weeks per year. Personal income tax rates published by the Australian Tax Office are reproduced for the 2014-2015 financial year in the table below:
| Taxable income | Tax on this income |
|---|---|
| 0 – $18,200 | Nil |
| $18,201 – $37,000 | 19c for each $1 over $18,200 |
| $37,001 – $80,000 | $3,572 plus 32.5c for each $1 over $37,000 |
| $80,001 – $180,000 | $17,547 plus 37c for each $1 over $80,000 |
| $180,001 and over | $54,547 plus 45c for each $1 over $180,000 |
The above rates do not include the Medicare levy of 2%. Exclude the Medicare levy from your calculations
How much personal income tax would you have to pay per year if you earned $80,204.80 per annum before-tax?
In 2014 the median starting salaries of male and female Australian bachelor degree accounting graduates aged less than 25 years in their first full-time industry job was $50,000 before tax, according to Graduate Careers Australia. See page 9 of this report. Personal income tax rates published by the Australian Tax Office are reproduced for the 2014-2015 financial year in the table below.
| Taxable income | Tax on this income |
|---|---|
| 0 – $18,200 | Nil |
| $18,201 – $37,000 | 19c for each $1 over $18,200 |
| $37,001 – $80,000 | $3,572 plus 32.5c for each $1 over $37,000 |
| $80,001 – $180,000 | $17,547 plus 37c for each $1 over $80,000 |
| $180,001 and over | $54,547 plus 45c for each $1 over $180,000 |
The above rates do not include the Medicare levy of 2%. Exclude the Medicare levy from your calculations
How much personal income tax would you have to pay per year if you earned $50,000 per annum before-tax?
Question 448 franking credit, personal tax on dividends, imputation tax system
A small private company has a single shareholder. This year the firm earned a $100 profit before tax. All of the firm's after tax profits will be paid out as dividends to the owner.
The corporate tax rate is 30% and the sole shareholder's personal marginal tax rate is 45%.
The Australian imputation tax system applies because the company generates all of its income in Australia and pays corporate tax to the Australian Tax Office. Therefore all of the company's dividends are fully franked. The sole shareholder is an Australian for tax purposes and can therefore use the franking credits to offset his personal income tax liability.
What will be the personal tax payable by the shareholder and the corporate tax payable by the company?
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?
Question 443 corporate financial decision theory, investment decision, financing decision, working capital decision, payout policy
Business people make lots of important decisions. Which of the following is the most important long term decision?
Question 445 financing decision, corporate financial decision theory
The financing decision primarily affects which part of a business?
The expression 'cash is king' emphasizes the importance of having enough cash to pay your short term debts to avoid bankruptcy. Which business decision is this expression most closely related to?
The expression 'you have to spend money to make money' relates to which business decision?
Question 767 idiom, corporate financial decision theory, no explanation
The sayings "Don't cry over spilt milk", "Don't regret the things that you can't change" and "What's done is done" are most closely related to which financial concept?
Question 768 accounting terminology, book and market values, no explanation
Accountants and finance professionals have lots of names for the same things which can be quite confusing.
Which of the following groups of items are NOT synonyms?
Question 729 book and market values, balance sheet, no explanation
If a firm makes a profit and pays no dividends, which of the firm’s accounts will increase?
Question 737 financial statement, balance sheet, income statement
Where can a publicly listed firm's book value of equity be found? It can be sourced from the company's:
Question 531 bankruptcy or insolvency, capital structure, risk, limited liability
Who is most in danger of being personally bankrupt? Assume that all of their businesses' assets are highly liquid and can therefore be sold immediately.
Question 524 risk, expected and historical returns, bankruptcy or insolvency, capital structure, corporate financial decision theory, limited liability
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
Which of the following statements about book and market equity is NOT correct?
Calculate the price of a newly issued ten year bond with a face value of $100, a yield of 8% pa and a fixed coupon rate of 6% pa, paid annually. So there's only one coupon per year, paid in arrears every year.
Bonds X and Y are issued by the same US company. Both bonds yield 10% pa, and they have the same face value ($100), maturity, seniority, and payment frequency.
The only difference is that bond X and Y's coupon rates are 8 and 12% pa respectively. Which of the following statements is true?
Which one of the following bonds is trading at a discount?
An investor bought two fixed-coupon bonds issued by the same company, a zero-coupon bond and a 7% pa semi-annual coupon bond. Both bonds have a face value of $1,000, mature in 10 years, and had a yield at the time of purchase of 8% pa.
A few years later, yields fell to 6% pa. Which of the following statements is correct? Note that a capital gain is an increase in price.
"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:
In these tough economic times, central banks around the world have cut interest rates so low that they are practically zero. In some countries, government bond yields are also very close to zero.
A three year government bond with a face value of $100 and a coupon rate of 2% pa paid semi-annually was just issued at a yield of 0%. What is the price of the bond?
A two year Government bond has a face value of $100, a yield of 0.5% and a fixed coupon rate of 0.5%, paid semi-annually. What is its price?
The below screenshot of Commonwealth Bank of Australia's (CBA) details were taken from the Google Finance website on 7 Nov 2014. Some information has been deliberately blanked out.
What was CBA's market capitalisation of equity?
A young lady is trying to decide if she should attend university or not.
The young lady's parents say that she must attend university because otherwise all of her hard work studying and attending school during her childhood was a waste.
What's the correct way to classify this item from a capital budgeting perspective when trying to decide whether to attend university?
The hard work studying at school in her childhood should be classified as:
A man is thinking about taking a day off from his casual painting job to relax.
He just woke up early in the morning and he's about to call his boss to say that he won't be coming in to work.
But he's thinking about the hours that he could work today (in the future) which are:
A man has taken a day off from his casual painting job to relax.
It's the end of the day and he's thinking about the hours that he could have spent working (in the past) which are now:
What is the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of the project detailed in the table below?
Assume that the cash flows shown in the table are paid all at once at the given point in time. All answers are given as effective annual rates.
| Project Cash Flows | |
| Time (yrs) | Cash flow ($) |
| 0 | -100 |
| 1 | 0 |
| 2 | 121 |
You have $100,000 in the bank. The bank pays interest at 10% pa, given as an effective annual rate.
You wish to consume an equal amount now (t=0) and in one year (t=1) and have nothing left in the bank at the end (t=1).
How much can you consume at each time?
A European company just issued two bonds, a
- 3 year zero coupon bond at a yield of 6% pa, and a
- 4 year zero coupon bond at a yield of 6.5% pa.
What is the company's forward rate over the fourth year (from t=3 to t=4)? Give your answer as an effective annual rate, which is how the above bond yields are quoted.
Question 25 bond pricing, zero coupon bond, term structure of interest rates, forward interest rate
A European company just issued two bonds, a
- 2 year zero coupon bond at a yield of 8% pa, and a
- 3 year zero coupon bond at a yield of 10% pa.
What is the company's forward rate over the third year (from t=2 to t=3)? Give your answer as an effective annual rate, which is how the above bond yields are quoted.
Question 35 bond pricing, zero coupon bond, term structure of interest rates, forward interest rate
A European company just issued two bonds, a
- 1 year zero coupon bond at a yield of 8% pa, and a
- 2 year zero coupon bond at a yield of 10% pa.
What is the company's forward rate over the second year (from t=1 to t=2)? Give your answer as an effective annual rate, which is how the above bond yields are quoted.
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.
Question 108 bond pricing, zero coupon bond, term structure of interest rates, forward interest rate
An Australian company just issued two bonds:
- A 1 year zero coupon bond at a yield of 10% pa, and
- A 2 year zero coupon bond at a yield of 8% pa.
What is the forward rate on the company's debt from years 1 to 2? Give your answer as an APR compounding every 6 months, which is how the above bond yields are quoted.
You want to buy an apartment priced at $300,000. You have saved a deposit of $30,000. The bank has agreed to lend you the $270,000 as a fully amortising loan with a term of 25 years. The interest rate is 12% pa and is not expected to change.
What will be your monthly payments? Remember that mortgage loan payments are paid in arrears (at the end of the month).
A share was bought for $20 (at t=0) and paid its annual dividend of $3 one year later (at t=1). Just after the dividend was paid, the share price was $16 (at t=1). What was the total return, capital return and income return? Calculate your answers as effective annual rates.
The choices are given in the same order: ## r_\text{total},r_\text{capital},r_\text{income} ##.
Which of the following statements about an asset’s standard deviation of returns is NOT correct? All other things remaining equal, the higher the asset’s standard deviation of returns:
The following table shows a sample of historical total returns of shares in two different companies A and B.
| Stock Returns | ||
| Total effective annual returns | ||
| Year | ##r_A## | ##r_B## |
| 2007 | 0.2 | 0.4 |
| 2008 | 0.04 | -0.2 |
| 2009 | -0.1 | -0.3 |
| 2010 | 0.18 | 0.5 |
What is the historical sample covariance (##\hat{\sigma}_{A,B}##) and correlation (##\rho_{A,B}##) of stock A and B's total effective annual returns?
| Portfolio Details | ||||||
| Stock | Expected return |
Standard deviation |
Correlation | Dollars invested |
||
| A | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 60 | ||
| B | 0.2 | 0.6 | 140 | |||
What is the expected return of the above portfolio?
Diversification in a portfolio of two assets works best when the correlation between their returns is:
| Portfolio Details | ||||||
| Stock | Expected return |
Standard deviation |
Covariance ##(\sigma_{A,B})## | Beta | Dollars invested |
|
| A | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.12 | 0.5 | 40 | |
| B | 0.3 | 0.8 | 1.5 | 80 | ||
What is the standard deviation (not variance) of the above portfolio? Note that the stocks' covariance is given, not correlation.
Your neighbour asks you for a loan of $100 and offers to pay you back $120 in one year.
You don't actually have any money right now, but you can borrow and lend from the bank at a rate of 10% pa. Rates are given as effective annual rates.
Assume that your neighbour will definitely pay you back. Ignore interest tax shields and transaction costs.
The Net Present Value (NPV) of lending to your neighbour is $9.09. Describe what you would do to actually receive a $9.09 cash flow right now with zero net cash flows in the future.
If a project's net present value (NPV) is zero, then its internal rate of return (IRR) will be:
A project has the following cash flows:
| Project Cash Flows | |
| Time (yrs) | Cash flow ($) |
| 0 | -400 |
| 1 | 0 |
| 2 | 500 |
What is the payback period of the project in years?
Normally cash flows are assumed to happen at the given time. But here, assume that the cash flows are received smoothly over the year. So the $500 at time 2 is actually earned smoothly from t=1 to t=2.
Treasury bonds currently have a return of 5% pa. A stock has a beta of 0.5 and the market return is 10% pa. What is the expected return of the stock?
A stock has a beta of 0.5. Its next dividend is expected to be $3, paid one year from now. Dividends are expected to be paid annually and grow by 2% pa forever. Treasury bonds yield 5% pa and the market portfolio's expected return is 10% pa. All returns are effective annual rates.
What is the price of the stock now?
According to the theory of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), total variance can be broken into two components, systematic variance and idiosyncratic variance. Which of the following events would be considered the most diversifiable according to the theory of the CAPM?
A stock's required total return will increase when its:
A stock has a beta of 1.5. The market's expected total return is 10% pa and the risk free rate is 5% pa, both given as effective annual rates.
What do you think will be the stock's expected return over the next year, given as an effective annual rate?
Question 807 market efficiency, expected and historical returns, CAPM, beta, systematic risk, no explanation
You work in Asia and just woke up. It looked like a nice day but then you read the news and found out that last night the American share market fell by 10% while you were asleep due to surprisingly poor macro-economic world news. You own a portfolio of liquid stocks listed in Asia with a beta of 1.6. When the Asian equity markets open, what do you expect to happen to your share portfolio? Assume that the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is correct and that the market portfolio contains all shares in the world, of which American shares are a big part. Your portfolio beta is measured against this world market portfolio.
When the Asian equity market opens for trade, you would expect your portfolio value to:
Diversification is achieved by investing in a large amount of stocks. What type of risk is reduced by diversification?
To receive the dividend you must own the stock when the market closes on which date?
On which date would the stock price increase if the dividend and earnings are higher than expected?
A company announces that it will pay a dividend, as the market expected. The company's shares trade on the stock exchange which is open from 10am in the morning to 4pm in the afternoon each weekday. When would the share price be expected to fall by the amount of the dividend? Ignore taxes.
The share price is expected to fall during the:
A company conducts a 4 for 3 stock split. What is the percentage change in the stock price and the number of shares outstanding? The answers are given in the same order.
A firm conducts a two-for-one stock split. Which of the following consequences would NOT be expected?
Question 625 dividend re-investment plan, capital raising
Which of the following statements about dividend re-investment plans (DRP's) is NOT correct?
Question 455 income and capital returns, payout policy, DDM, market efficiency
A fairly priced unlevered firm plans to pay a dividend of $1 next year (t=1) which is expected to grow by 3% pa every year after that. The firm's required return on equity is 8% pa.
The firm is thinking about reducing its future dividend payments by 10% so that it can use the extra cash to invest in more projects which are expected to return 8% pa, and have the same risk as the existing projects. Therefore, next year's dividend will be $0.90. No new equity or debt will be issued to fund the new projects, they'll all be funded by the cut in dividends.
What will be the stock's new annual capital return (proportional increase in price per year) if the change in payout policy goes ahead?
Assume that payout policy is irrelevant to firm value (so there's no signalling effects) and that all rates are effective annual rates.
The market's expected total return is 10% pa and the risk free rate is 5% pa, both given as effective annual rates.
A stock has a beta of 0.7.
What do you think will be the stock's expected return over the next year, given as an effective annual rate?
The market's expected total return is 10% pa and the risk free rate is 5% pa, both given as effective annual rates.
A stock has a beta of 0.7.
In the last 5 minutes, bad economic news was released showing a higher chance of recession. Over this time the share market fell by 2%. The risk free rate was unchanged. What do you think was the stock's historical return over the last 5 minutes, given as an effective 5 minute rate?
A common phrase heard in financial markets is that ‘high risk investments deserve high returns’. To make this statement consistent with the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), a high amount of what specific type of risk deserves a high return?
Investors deserve high returns when they buy assets with high:
A stock has a beta of 1.2. Its next dividend is expected to be $20, paid one year from now.
Dividends are expected to be paid annually and grow by 1.5% pa forever.
Treasury bonds yield 3% pa and the market portfolio's expected return is 7% pa. All returns are effective annual rates.
What is the price of the stock now?
You work for XYZ company and you’ve been asked to evaluate a new project which has double the systematic risk of the company’s other projects.
You use the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) formula and input the treasury yield ##(r_f )##, market risk premium ##(r_m-r_f )## and the company’s asset beta risk factor ##(\beta_{XYZ} )## into the CAPM formula which outputs a return.
This return that you’ve just found is:
In the dividend discount model (DDM), share prices fall when dividends are paid. Let the high price before the fall be called the peak, and the low price after the fall be called the trough.
###P_0=\dfrac{C_1}{r-g}###
Which of the following statements about the DDM is NOT correct?
For certain shares, the forward-looking Price-Earnings Ratio (##P_0/EPS_1##) is equal to the inverse of the share's total expected return (##1/r_\text{total}##). For what shares is this true?
Use the general accounting definition of 'payout ratio' which is dividends per share (DPS) divided by earnings per share (EPS) and assume that all cash flows, earnings and rates are real rather than nominal.
A company's forward-looking PE ratio will be the inverse of its total expected return on equity when it has a:
Question 469 franking credit, personal tax on dividends, imputation tax system, no explanation
A firm pays a fully franked cash dividend of $70 to one of its Australian shareholders who has a personal marginal tax rate of 45%. The corporate tax rate is 30%.
What will be the shareholder's personal tax payable due to the dividend payment?
You deposit money into a bank. Which of the following statements is NOT correct? You:
You bought a house, primarily funded using a home loan from a bank. Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
Question 771 debt terminology, interest expense, interest tax shield, credit risk, no explanation
You deposit money into a bank account. Which of the following statements about this deposit is NOT correct?
By convention, money market securities' yields are always quoted as:
Which of the following statements is NOT correct? Money market securities are:
A 180-day Bank Accepted Bill has a face value of $1,000,000. The interest rate is 8% pa and there are 365 days in the year. What is its price now?
A 90-day Bank Accepted Bill (BAB) has a face value of $1,000,000. The simple interest rate is 10% pa and there are 365 days in the year. What is its price now?
Question 327 bill pricing, simple interest rate, no explanation
On 27/09/13, three month Swiss government bills traded at a yield of -0.2%, given as a simple annual yield. That is, interest rates were negative.
If the face value of one of these 90 day bills is CHF1,000,000 (CHF represents Swiss Francs, the Swiss currency), what is the price of one of these bills?
A bank bill was bought for $99,000 and sold for $100,000 thirty (30) days later. There are 365 days in the year. Which of the following formulas gives the simple interest rate per annum over those 30 days?
Note: To help you identify which is the correct answer without doing any calculations yourself, the formulas used to calculate the numbers are given.
A 90 day bank bill has a face value of $100,000.
Investor A bought the bill when it was first issued at a simple yield to maturity of 3% pa and sold it 20 days later to Investor B who expected to earn a simple yield to maturity of 5% pa. Investor B held it until maturity.
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
You want to buy an apartment worth $500,000. You have saved a deposit of $50,000. The bank has agreed to lend you the $450,000 as a fully amortising mortgage loan with a term of 25 years. The interest rate is 6% pa and is not expected to change.
What will be your monthly payments?
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?
You want to buy an apartment priced at $500,000. You have saved a deposit of $50,000. The bank has agreed to lend you the $450,000 as a fully amortising 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?
You just signed up for a 30 year fully amortising mortgage loan with monthly payments of $2,000 per month. The interest rate is 9% pa which is not expected to change.
How much did you borrow? After 5 years, how much will be owing on the mortgage? The interest rate is still 9% and is not expected to change.
You just signed up for a 30 year fully amortising mortgage with monthly payments of $1,000 per month. The interest rate is 6% pa which is not expected to change.
How much did you borrow? After 20 years, how much will be owing on the mortgage? The interest rate is still 6% and is not expected to change.
You want to buy an apartment priced at $500,000. You have saved a deposit of $50,000. The bank has agreed to lend you the $450,000 as an interest only 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?
Many Australian home loans that are interest-only actually require payments to be made on a fully amortising basis after a number of years.
You decide to borrow $600,000 from the bank at an interest rate of 4.25% pa for 25 years. The payments will be interest-only for the first 10 years (t=0 to 10 years), then they will have to be paid on a fully amortising basis for the last 15 years (t=10 to 25 years).
Assuming that interest rates will remain constant, what will be your monthly payments over the first 10 years from now, and then the next 15 years after that? The answer options are given in the same order.
A prospective home buyer can afford to pay $2,000 per month in mortgage loan repayments. The central bank recently lowered its policy rate by 0.25%, and residential home lenders cut their mortgage loan rates from 4.74% to 4.49%.
How much more can the prospective home buyer borrow now that interest rates are 4.49% rather than 4.74%? Give your answer as a proportional increase over the original amount he could borrow (##V_\text{before}##), so:
###\text{Proportional increase} = \frac{V_\text{after}-V_\text{before}}{V_\text{before}} ###Assume that:
- Interest rates are expected to be constant over the life of the loan.
- Loans are interest-only and have a life of 30 years.
- Mortgage loan payments are made every month in arrears and all interest rates are given as annualised percentage rates compounding per month.