CFA Institute CFA-Level-II Exam Dumps

William Rogers, a fixed-income portfolio manager, needs to eliminate a large cash position in his portfolio. He would like to purchase some corporate bonds. Two bonds that he is evaluating are shown in Exhibit I. These two bonds are from the same issuer, and the current call price for the callable bond is 100. Assume that the issuer will call if the bond price exceeds the call price.

Rogers is also concerned about increases in interest rates and is considering the purchase of a putable bond. He ants to determine how assumed increases or decreases in interest rate volatility affect the value of the straight bonds and bonds with embedded options. After Rogers performs some analysis, he and his supervisor, Sigourney Walters, discuss the relative price movement between the two bonds in Exhibit 1 when interest rates change significantly

During the discussions, Rogers makes the following statements:

Statement 1: If the volatility of interest rates decreases, the value of the callable bond will increase.

Statement 2: The noncallable bond will not be affected by a change in the volatility or level of interest rates.

Statement 3: When interest rates decrease, the value of the noncallable bond increases by more than the callable bond.

Statement4: If the volatility of interest rates increases, the value of the putable bond will increase.

Walters mentors Rogers on bond concepts and then asks him to consider the pricing of a third bond. The third bond has five years to maturity, a 6% annual coupon, and pays interest semiannually. The bond is both callable and putable at 100 at any time. Walters indicates that the holders of the bond's embedded options will exercise if the option is in-the-money.

Rogers obtained the prices shown in Exhibit b using software that generates an interest rate lattice. He uses his software to generate the interest rate lattice shown in Exhibit 2.

Exhibit 2: Interest Rate Lattice (Annualized Interest Rates)

For this question only, ignore the information from Exhibit 1 and any other calculations in other questions. Rather, assume that the interest rate lattice provided in Exhibit 2 is constructed to be arbitrage-free. However, when Rogers calculates the price of the callable bond using the interest rates in the lattice, he gets a value higher than the market price of the bond.

Is the price of the third callable and putable bond likely to be less than, equal to, or greater than 100%, and is the option-adjusted spread (OAS) on the callable bond likely to be zero, positive, or negative?

Price of third bond OAS of callable bond

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Jane Bowman, CFA, and Frank Shrum, CFA, are analysts for Brookstonc Advisors. Brookstone recommends investments in United States and global markets. Bowman and Shrum are responsible for analyzing investments and conducting cyclical analysis in developed and emerging markets.

Bowman is examining the country of Waltonia for a possible investment. Currently, the country's economy is beginning to recover from a recession. Businesses have increasing confidence in the economy, inflation is falling, the government is stimulating the economy, and the economy has just started to expand. Bowman identifies this is as the recovery stage of the business cycle and states that since inflation is falling, investors should put their money in bonds.

In terms of the business cycle, Waltonia has grown slower than its neighboring country of Bergamo, where the economy is in the early stages of an upswing. Bergamese businesses are confident and inventories are increasing. Bowman states that an investment in commodities or stocks would be advised because when the economy grows, these assets will rise in price.

Shrum is examining the value of a company in the United States using the franchise value model. In it, he will generate an intrinsic P/E ratio that can be multiplied against the firm's projected earnings to derive a value for the company. The intrinsic P/E value consists of the tangible P/E value, which represents the firm's static value, and a franchise P/E value which represents the firm's growth value. The franchise P/E value then consists of the franchise factor, which incorporates the required return on new investments, and the growth factor, which factors in the present value of the excess return from new investments. He applies this analysis to the firm of Salisbury Materials, which has the following characteristics:

Return on Equity 20%

Dividend Payout Ratio 40%

Required Return on Equity 16%

In light of the increased inflation in the United States due to increased commodity prices. Bowman is examining the effect of inflation on the P/E ratio. She states that when there is not full-flow-through of inflation, a firm in a low inflation country will have a higher P/E ratio than one in a high inflation country. She provides the following example of inflation flow-through. If the real required return is 9%, inflation is 4%, and the inflation flow-through rate is 80%, then the P/E ratio will be 10.2.

Shrum states that when valuing an emerging market, an investor should adjust their projections for the higher inflation risk. He states that the analyst should adjust the cash flows rather than the discount rate for the increased risks from emerging markets, such as political risk and macroeconomic risk. Bowman adds that there are several arguments that can be made and makes the following statements.

Statement 1: One argument is that companies respond differently to the risk in their country. For example, exporters would benefit from a weaker local currency but importers would be hurt by a depreciating local currency. Adjusting the discount rate by the same amount for all companies within a country would misstate the influence of country risk on each company.

Statement 2: Additionally, country risk is one-sided and asymmetric in that the country risk to foreign investors is much greater than that to local investors. So if a single discount rate were used to discount cash flows, then the valuations would be inaccurate for either the foreign investors or the local investors.

Shrum follows up with Bowman's analysis. He states that an alternative to adjusting the cash flows is to calculate a weighted average cost of capital for the emerging country firm and add a country risk premium to it. This discount rate would then be applied against unadjusted cash flows to value the emerging market firm. Regarding this analysis, he makes the following statements.

Statement 3: When estimating the percent of debt and equity in the capital structure, the market value of the firm's debt and equity should be used, not the book value.

Statement 4: The beta will be needed to obtain the cost of equity capital in the CAPM. The beta should be estimated for the company by regressing the company's returns against a well diversified global index, not the local market index.

Regarding Bowman's justifications for adjusting emerging market country risk by the cash flows, are both Statements 1 and 2 correct?

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Theresa Ponder and Rod Owens are analysts for a multinational investment bank, Datko Bank, based in Canada. Datko's clients have been advised to diversify globally, due to a decrease in expected long-term growth for North American economies.

As part of her analysis of global stocks, Ponder uses the domestic CAPM and the international CAPM to value stocks. She makes the following statements regarding the extension of the domestic capital asset pricing model (CAPM);

Statement 1: To extend the domestic CAPM to international asset pricing using the extended CAPM, one must make two additional assumptions. First, that global investors have identical consumption baskets and second, that interest rate parity holds throughout the world.

Statement 2: The extended CAPM assumes that exchange rate changes are predictable so that there is no real exchange rate risk.

As the primary analyst for European securities, Owens analyzes the stocks in the countries of Catonia and Arbutia. Catonia and Arbutia arc not currently members of the European Union, but have a timetable for joining by the end of the decade.

To evaluate Caionian stocks, he uses the international CAPM. Owens mentions that a foreign currency risk premium must be added in this model, and that the risk premium depends on various parity conditions. He finds that the foreign exchange expectation relation and interest rate parity hold between Canada and Catonia. The interest rate in Canada is 2%, and the interest rate in Catonia is 5%.

One of the companies Owens follows in Arbutia is Diversified Metal Finishers. Diversified produces customized sheet metal applications for manufacturers throughout the world. The firm enjoys a competitive advantage because Arbutia is a commodity-rich country which allows Diversified to source its inputs locally. Owens has found that when the Arbutian currency changes by 10%, the value of the Diversified stock generally changes by 6%.

Ponder is also analyzing stocks in the nations of Bisharov and Dineva. She is estimating the expected return using the international CAPM (ICAPM) for Ivanova Metals, located in Dineva. The data for Canada, Dineva, and lvanova are shown in the following. The foreign currency is denoted as the local currency (LC).

Canadian risk-free rate 2.00%

Dineva risk-free rate 8.00%

World market risk premium 6.00%

Dineva index beta to world market index 1.40

Dineva local market risk premium 7.50%

Ivanova beta to local index 1.30

Foreign currency risk premium 3.00%

Dineva sensitivity of LC stock returns to LC 0.70

Owens examines Ponder's analysis and makes the following statements:

Statement 1: To protect the growing economy and prevent capital flight, the Bisharov government taxes foreign investors at higher rates and has placed limits on currency convertibility. In Dineva, the government has taken a more hands-off approach and does not regulate .foreign investment. If the world were to consist entirely of countries like Bisharov, then the ICAPM cannot be applied.

Statement 2; Furthermore, inflation is often a concern in emerging market countries. To measure an exchange rate between Canada and an emerging market currency that is adjusted for inflation, a real exchange rate should be calculated. Assuming no change in the real exchange rate, the change in an emerging market's asset values in domestic currency will just reflect the emerging market's asset returns in local currency and the difference between inflation rates in the domestic and foreign countries.

What is the expected return using the ICAPM for Ivanova in Ponder's analysis?

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Natalia Berg, CFA, has estimated the key rate durations for several maturities in three of her $25 million bond portfolios, as shown in Exhibit 1.

At a fixed-income conference in London, Berg hears a presentation by a university professor on the increasing use of the swap rate curve as a benchmark instead of the government bond yield curve. When Berg returns from the conference, she realizes she has left her notes from the presentation on the airplane. However, she is very interested in learning more about whether she should consider using the swap rate curve in her work.

As she tries to reconstruct what was said at the conference, she writes down two advantages to using the swap rate curve:

Statement 1: The swap rate curve typically has yield quotes at 11 maturities between 2 and 30 years. The U .S . government bond yield curve, however, has fewer on-the-run issues trading at maturities of at least two years.

Statement 2: Swap curves across countries are more comparable than government bond curves because they reflect similar levels of credit risk.

Berg also estimates the nominal spread, Z-spread, and option-adjusted spread (OAS) for the Steigers Corporation callable bonds in Portfolio 2. The OAS is estimated from a binomial interest rate tree. The results are shown in Exhibit 2.

Berg determines that to obtain an accurate estimate of the effective duration and effective convexity of a callable bond using a binomial model, the specified change in yield (i.e., Ay) must be equal to the OAS.

Berg also observes that the current Treasury bond yield curve is upward sloping. Based on this observation, Berg forecasts that short-term interest rates will increase.

Are the two observations Berg writes down after the fixed income conference advantages to using the swap rate curve as a benchmark instead of a government bond curve?

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Mark Taber, CFA, is the Chief Investment Officer of the Taber Emerging Markets Fund, (TEMF). Taber uses a top-down approach to investing in countries. By interviewing government officials and the managements of foreign companies, Taber often gains economic and investment insights not yet fully understood by the foreign market. Taber is currently researching a potential investment in the emerging market country of Alphia. Taber travels to Ullom, the capital of Alphia, to discuss past, present, and future economic growth theory development with Dr. Raman Satish, managing director of the Alphia Economic Development Agency (AEDA).

Dr. Satish starts the conversation with Taber by discussing the three great growth cycles that the Alphian economy has experienced over the past 120 years: (1) the classical growth era, (2) the neoclassical growth era, and (3) the new growth era. Taber takes down the following statements from the meeting with Dr. Satish's meeting.

1. The Classical Growth Era of Alphia (1850-1950)

This hundred-year era was noted for periodic high levels of population growth and the sporadic introductions of technology. The average Alphianian's income was very modest and the standard of living remained almost the same over the 100-ycar period, except when new technology was introduced. Dr. Satish cites the example of the one-time introduction of electricity to the Alphian economy from 1947 to 1950. E

2. The Neoclassical Growth Era o/Alphia (1951-1990)

During the neoclassical growth period, Alphia experienced a period of great economic growth. For example, from 1986 to 1990, Alphia's capital per hour of labor grew at a 9% annual rate, while real GDP grew at 7% per annum.

Also, Alphia was able to achieve economic growth rates and income levels comparable with many of its neighboring countries during the neoclassical growth period. Alphian scientists, together with the engineering department of the University of Ullom, provided access to the finest technology in the world. In addition, Alphia opened up its equity markets to outside investors and allowed its currency to float. Dr. Satish believes that, given time, these capital market improvements should allow the Alphian economy to achieve an economic growth rate and per capita income level comparable to any country in the world.

To understand the role of technology in the growth of the Alphian economy (using neoclassical growth theory assumptions), the following table was developed to show the increased productivity of Alphian farmers using disease resistant grains. Assume new disease resistant grain technology was introduced into the Alphian farm economy at Point A .

3. The New Growth Era (1991-Today)

Since the Alphian energy crises of the late 1980s, the economy has been in transition. The AEDA goal is to have more than 50% of Alphian GDP coming from what we now call knowledge capital based industries by the year 2020. Given the large and growing population and their constant need for health care, the pharmaceutical industry was Alphia's first knowledge capital based industry. Dr. Satish believes that a focus on knowledge capital will enhance the long term growth prospects of Alphia's economy.

According to classical growth theory, what is the real wage rate for Alphiain 1950?

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