Question 948 VaR, expected shortfall
Below is a historical sample of returns on the S&P500 capital index.
| S&P500 Capital Index Daily Returns Ranked from Best to Worst |
||
| 10,000 trading days from 4th August 1977 to 24 March 2017 based on closing prices. |
||
| Rank | Date (DD-MM-YY) |
Continuously compounded daily return (% per day) |
| 1 | 21-10-87 | 9.23 |
| 2 | 08-03-83 | 8.97 |
| 3 | 13-11-08 | 8.3 |
| 4 | 30-09-08 | 8.09 |
| 5 | 28-10-08 | 8.01 |
| 6 | 29-10-87 | 7.28 |
| … | … | … |
| 9980 | 11-12-08 | -5.51 |
| 9981 | 22-10-08 | -5.51 |
| 9982 | 08-08-11 | -5.54 |
| 9983 | 22-09-08 | -5.64 |
| 9984 | 11-09-86 | -5.69 |
| 9985 | 30-11-87 | -5.88 |
| 9986 | 14-04-00 | -5.99 |
| 9987 | 07-10-98 | -6.06 |
| 9988 | 08-01-88 | -6.51 |
| 9989 | 27-10-97 | -6.55 |
| 9990 | 13-10-89 | -6.62 |
| 9991 | 15-10-08 | -6.71 |
| 9992 | 29-09-08 | -6.85 |
| 9993 | 07-10-08 | -6.91 |
| 9994 | 14-11-08 | -7.64 |
| 9995 | 01-12-08 | -7.79 |
| 9996 | 29-10-08 | -8.05 |
| 9997 | 26-10-87 | -8.4 |
| 9998 | 31-08-98 | -8.45 |
| 9999 | 09-10-08 | -12.9 |
| 10000 | 19-10-87 | -23.36 |
| Mean of all 10,000: | 0.0354 | |
| Sample standard deviation of all 10,000: | 1.2062 | |
| Sources: Bloomberg and S&P. | ||
Assume that the one-tail Z-statistic corresponding to a probability of 99.9% is exactly 3.09. Which of the following statements is NOT correct? Based on the historical data, the 99.9% daily:
Question 862 yield curve, bond pricing, bill pricing, monetary policy, no explanation
Refer to the below graph when answering the questions.
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
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 319 foreign exchange rate, monetary policy, American and European terms
Investors expect the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to keep the policy rate steady at their next meeting.
Then unexpectedly, the RBA announce that they will increase the policy rate by 25 basis points due to fears that the economy is growing too fast and that inflation will be above their target rate of 2 to 3 per cent.
What do you expect to happen to Australia's exchange rate in the short term? The Australian dollar is likely to:
Question 321 foreign exchange rate, monetary policy, American and European terms
The market expects the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to increase the policy rate by 25 basis points at their next meeting.
Then unexpectedly, the RBA announce that they will increase the policy rate by 50 basis points due to high future GDP and inflation forecasts.
What do you expect to happen to Australia's exchange rate in the short term? The Australian dollar will:
Which of the following statements about futures and forward contracts is NOT correct?
Question 96 bond pricing, zero coupon bond, term structure of interest rates, forward interest rate
An Australian company just issued two bonds paying semi-annual coupons:
- 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 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.
Question 693 boot strapping zero coupon yield, forward interest rate, term structure of interest rates
Information about three risk free Government bonds is given in the table below.
| Federal Treasury Bond Data | ||||
| Maturity | Yield to maturity | Coupon rate | Face value | Price |
| (years) | (pa, compounding semi-annually) | (pa, paid semi-annually) | ($) | ($) |
| 0.5 | 3% | 4% | 100 | 100.4926 |
| 1 | 4% | 4% | 100 | 100.0000 |
| 1.5 | 5% | 4% | 100 | 98.5720 |
Based on the above government bonds' yields to maturity, which of the below statements about the spot zero rates and forward zero rates is NOT correct?
Question 851 labour force, no explanation
Below is a table showing some figures about the Australian labour force.
| Australian Labour Force and Employment Data | |
| April 2017 Seasonally Adjusted figures | |
| Employed persons ('000) | 12 061.9 |
| Unemployed persons ('000) | 751.4 |
| Unemployment rate (%) | 5.9 |
| Participation rate (%) | 64.8 |
Source: ABS 6202.0 Labour Force, Australia, Apr 2017
What do you estimate is the size of working age population in thousands (‘000)?
Question 802 negative gearing, leverage, capital structure, no explanation
Which of the following statements about ‘negative gearing’ is NOT correct?
Question 941 negative gearing, leverage, capital structure, interest tax shield, real estate
Last year, two friends Lev and Nolev each bought similar investment properties for $1 million. Both earned net rents of $30,000 pa over the past year. They funded their purchases in different ways:
- Lev used $200,000 of his own money and borrowed $800,000 from the bank in the form of an interest-only loan with an interest rate of 5% pa.
- Nolev used $1,000,000 of his own money, he has no mortgage loan on his property.
Both Lev and Nolev also work in high-paying jobs and are subject personal marginal tax rates of 45%.
Which of the below statements about the past year is NOT correct?
Which one of the following statements is NOT correct? A 1-for-4 bonus issue:
Below is a table of the 'Risk-weights for residential mortgages' as shown in APRA Basel 3 Prudential Standard APS 112 Capital Adequacy: Standardised Approach to Credit Risk January 2013.
| LVR (%) |
Standard eligible mortgages |
Non-standard eligible mortgages |
||
|
|
Risk-weight (no mortgage insurance) % |
Risk-weight (with at least 40% of the mortgage insured by an acceptable LMI) % |
Risk-weight (no mortgage insurance) % |
Risk-weight (with at least 40% of the mortgage insured by an acceptable LMI) % |
| 0 – 60 |
35 |
35 |
50 |
35 |
| 60.01 – 80 |
35 |
35 |
75 |
50 |
| 80.01 – 90 |
50 |
35 |
100 |
75 |
| 90.01 – 100 |
75 |
50 |
100 |
75 |
| > 100.01 |
100 |
75 |
100 |
100 |
A bank is considering granting a home loan to a man to buy a house worth $1.25 million using his own funds and the loan. The loan would be standard with no lenders mortgage insurance (LMI) and an LVR of 80%.
What is the minimum regulatory capital that the bank requires to grant the home loan under the Basel 3 Accord? Ignore the capital conservation buffer.
The below graph from the RBA shows the phase-in of the Basel 3 minimum regulatory capital requirements under the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) on the left panel and in Australia under the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) on the right panel.
Which of the following statements about the Basel 3 minimum regulatory capital requirements as at 2019 is NOT correct? All minimum amounts exclude the 2.5% counter-cyclical buffer.
The Basel 3 minimum regulatory capital requirement as a percent of Risk Weighted Assets (RWA) is:
Which of the following statements about the Basel 3 minimum capital requirements is NOT correct? Common equity tier 1 (CET1) comprises the highest quality components of capital that fully satisfy all of the following characteristics:
Question 490 expected and historical returns, accounting ratio
Which of the following is NOT a synonym of 'required return'?
The DuPont formula is:
###\dfrac{\text{Net Profit}}{\text{Sales}} \times \dfrac{\text{Sales}}{\text{Total Assets}} \times \dfrac{\text{Total Assets}}{\text{Owners' Equity}}###
Which of the following statements about the DuPont formula is NOT correct?
Question 738 financial statement, balance sheet, income statement
Where can a private firm's market value of equity be found? It can be sourced from the company's:
Question 990 Multiples valuation, EV to EBITDA ratio, enterprise value
A firm has:
2 million shares;
$200 million EBITDA expected over the next year;
$100 million in cash (not included in EV);
1/3 market debt-to-assets ratio is (market assets = EV + cash);
4% pa expected dividend yield over the next year, paid annually with the next dividend expected in one year;
2% pa expected dividend growth rate;
40% expected payout ratio over the next year;10 times EV/EBITDA ratio.
30% corporate tax rate.
The stock can be valued using the EV/EBITDA multiple, dividend discount model, Gordon growth model or PE multiple. Which of the below statements is NOT correct based on an EV/EBITDA multiple valuation?
Which of the following is NOT a valid method for estimating the beta of a company's stock? Assume that markets are efficient, a long history of past data is available, the stock possesses idiosyncratic and market risk. The variances and standard deviations below denote total risks.
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.
In the last 5 minutes, bad economic news was released showing a higher chance of recession. Over this time the share market fell by 1%. 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?
Question 776 market efficiency, systematic and idiosyncratic risk, beta, income and capital returns
Which of the following statements about returns is NOT correct? A stock's:
Which of the following investable assets are NOT suitable for valuation using PE multiples techniques?
Which of the following investable assets are NOT suitable for valuation using PE multiples techniques?
Private equity firms are known to buy medium sized private companies operating in the same industry, merge them together into a larger company, and then sell it off in a public float (initial public offering, IPO).
If medium-sized private companies trade at PE ratios of 5 and larger listed companies trade at PE ratios of 15, what return can be achieved from this strategy?
Assume that:
- The medium-sized companies can be bought, merged and sold in an IPO instantaneously.
- There are no costs of finding, valuing, merging and restructuring the medium sized companies. Also, there is no competition to buy the medium-sized companies from other private equity firms.
- The large merged firm's earnings are the sum of the medium firms' earnings.
- The only reason for the difference in medium and large firm's PE ratios is due to the illiquidity of the medium firms' shares.
- Return is defined as: ##r_{0→1} = (p_1-p_0+c_1)/p_0## , where time zero is just before the merger and time one is just after.
Question 547 PE ratio, Multiples valuation, DDM, income and capital returns, no explanation
A firm pays out all of its earnings as dividends. Because of this, the firm has no real growth in earnings, dividends or stock price since there is no re-investment back into the firm to buy new assets and make higher earnings. The dividend discount model is suitable to value this company.
The firm's revenues and costs are expected to increase by inflation in the foreseeable future. The firm has no debt. It operates in the services industry and has few physical assets so there is negligible depreciation expense and negligible net working capital required.
Which of the following statements about this firm's PE ratio is NOT correct? The PE ratio should:
Note: The inverse of x is 1/x.
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:
A mature firm has constant expected future earnings and dividends. Both amounts are equal. So earnings and dividends are expected to be equal and unchanging.
Which of the following statements is NOT correct?
The below screenshot of Microsoft's (MSFT) details were taken from the Google Finance website on 28 Nov 2014. Some information has been deliberately blanked out.
What was MSFT's backwards-looking price-earnings ratio?
A firm has 2m shares and a market capitalisation of equity of $30m. The firm just announced earnings of $5m and paid an annual dividend of $0.75 per share.
What is the firm's (backward looking) price/earnings (PE) ratio?
Question 69 interest tax shield, capital structure, leverage, WACC
Which statement about risk, required return and capital structure is the most correct?
A firm can issue 5 year annual coupon bonds at a yield of 8% pa and a coupon rate of 12% pa.
The beta of its levered equity is 1. Five year government bonds yield 5% pa with a coupon rate of 6% pa. The market's expected dividend return is 4% pa and its expected capital return is 6% pa.
The firm's debt-to-equity ratio is 2:1. The corporate tax rate is 30%.
What is the firm's after-tax WACC? Assume a classical tax system.
A company has:
- 100 million ordinary shares outstanding which are trading at a price of $5 each. Market analysts estimated that the company's ordinary stock has a beta of 1.5. The risk-free rate is 5% and the market return is 10%.
- 1 million preferred shares which have a face (or par) value of $100 and pay a constant annual dividend of 9% of par. The next dividend will be paid in one year. Assume that all preference dividends will be paid when promised. They currently trade at a price of $90 each.
- Debentures that have a total face value of $200 million and a yield to maturity of 6% per annum. They are publicly traded and their market price is equal to 110% of their face value.
The corporate tax rate is 30%. All returns and yields are given as effective annual rates.
What is the company's after-tax Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)? Assume a classical tax system.
Question 237 WACC, Miller and Modigliani, interest tax shield
Which of the following discount rates should be the highest for a levered company? Ignore the costs of financial distress.