SOAL
SOAL
SOAL
SOAL
1.
Financial engineering has been disparaged as nothing more than paper shuffling. Critics argue
that resources used for rearranging wealth (that is, bundling and unbundling financial assets)
might be better spent on creating wealth (that is, creating real assets). Evaluate this criticism.
Are any benefits realized by creating an array of derivative securities from various primary
securities?
2.
3.
How do margin trades magnify both the upside potential and the downside risk of an
investment position?
4.
Balanced funds, life-cycle funds, and asset allocation funds all invest in both the stock and
bond markets. What are the differences among these types of funds?
5.
Use Figure 5.1 in the text to analyze the effect of the following on the level of real interest
rates:
a. Businesses become more pessimistic about future demand for their products and
decide to reduce their capital spending.
b. Households are induced to save more because of increased uncertainty about their
future Social Security benefits.
c. The Federal Reserve Board undertakes open-market purchases of U.S. Treasury
securities in order to increase the supply of money.
6.
Draw the indifference curve in the expected returnstandard deviation plane corresponding to
a utility level of .05 for an investor with a risk aversion coefficient of 3. ( Hint: Choose several
possible standard deviations, ranging from 0 to .25, and find the expected rates of return
providing a utility level of .05. Then plot the expected returnstandard deviation points so
derived.)
7.
Solve numerically for the proportions of each asset and for the expected return and standard
deviation of the optimal risky portfolio.
8.
Consider the two (excess return) index model regression results for A and B:
R A 5 1% 1 1.2 R M
R -square 5 .576
Residual standard deviation 5 10.3%
R B 5 2 2% 1 .8 R M
R -square 5 .436
Residual standard deviation 5 9.1%sit us at www.mhhe.com/bkm
a. Which stock has more firm-specific risk?
b. Which has greater market risk?
c. For which stock does market movement explain a greater fraction of return variability?
d. If r f were constant at 6% and the regression had been run using total rather than
excess returns, what would have been the regression intercept for stock A ?
9.
Consider the following table, which gives a security analysts expected return on two stocks for
two particular market returns:
Market Return
5%
25
a.
b.
c.
d.
Aggressive Stock
-2%
38
Defensive Stock
6%
12
e.
What hurdle rate should be used by the management of the aggressive firm for a
project with the risk characteristics of the defensive firms stock?
2
E(r)
0.00
0.0000 0.05000
0.05
0.0025 0.05375
0.10
0.0100 0.06500
0.15
0.0225 0.08375
0.20
0.0400 0.11000
0.25
0.0625 0.14375
7.
a.
b.
Firm-specific risk is measured by the residual standard deviation. Thus, stock A has more
firm-specific risk: 10.3% > 9.1%
Market risk is measured by beta, the slope coefficient of the regression. A has a larger beta
coefficient: 1.2 > 0.8
c.
R2 measures the fraction of total variance of return explained by the market return. As R 2 is
larger than Bs: 0.576 > 0.436
d. Rewriting the SCL equation in terms of total return (r) rather than excess return (R):
rA rf = + (rM rf ) rA = + rf (1 ) + r M
The intercept is now equal to:
+ rf (1 ) = 1 + rf (l 1.2)
Since rf = 6%, the intercept would be: 1 1.2 = 0.2%
9 a.
b. With the two scenarios equally likely, the expected return is an average of the two possible
outcomes:
E(rA ) = 0.5 (2 + 38) = 18%
E(rD ) = 0.5 (6 + 12) = 9%
c. The SML is determined by the market expected return of [0.5(25 + 5)] = 15%, with a beta of 1, and
the T-bill return of 6% with a beta of zero. See the following graph.
e.
The hurdle rate is determined by the project beta (0.3), not the firms beta. The correct
discount rate is 8.7%, the fair rate of return for stock D.