Formula sheets, the key method steps for every topic and 20 practice problems, with full solutions at the back.
You invest €2 000 at a nominal rate of 4% per year, compounded quarterly. Find the value FV of the investment after 2 years.
A loan of €10 000 is repaid with equal monthly payments over 6 years at 7.2% per year, compounded monthly. How much interest I is paid in total over the life of the loan?
A machine costs €40 000 today. It generates €6 000 at the end of each year for 8 years and can then be sold for €8 000. The cost of capital is 8%. Find the net present value NPV.
An investment of €20 000 returns €9 500 at the end of each year for 3 years. Find its internal rate of return IRR in percent.
A bond with a face value of €1 000 pays a 5% annual coupon in two half-yearly payments and matures in 4 years. The yield to maturity is 6% per year. Find the price P of the bond.
A bond with a face value of €1 000 pays a 4% annual coupon in two half-yearly payments and matures in 6 years. It sells for €924. Find its yield to maturity YTM as an annual rate (twice the half-yearly yield), in percent.
A company has equity worth €5 000 000 and debt worth €2 000 000. Its cost of equity is 11%, its pre-tax cost of debt is 6% and the tax rate is 25.8%. Find the WACC.
A company has 2 000 000 shares trading at €44.50; the book value of its equity is €53 400 000. It just paid a dividend of €2.70 per share, and dividends grow by 3% per year. Its debt has a market value of €44 500 000 and a pre-tax cost of 4.5%. The tax rate is 25%. Find the WACC, using the dividend growth model for the cost of equity.
Find the sample standard deviation s of the data: 10, 19, 50, 39, 19, 43, 32.
A quantity is normally distributed with mean 170 and standard deviation 10. What proportion P of values is below 180?
A fair die is rolled 4 times. What is the probability P of getting at least one six?
A game costs €5 to play. You win €20 with probability 0.3 and €50 with probability 0.05; otherwise you win nothing. The stake is not returned. Find the expected net gain E(G) per game.
The bag weights are normally distributed with mean 250 g and standard deviation 5 g. What fraction lies between 250.25 and 260 g? Give P as a decimal.
The delivery times are normally distributed with mean 32 min and standard deviation 6 min. Find the value x below which 95% of them lie (the 95th percentile).
The blood pressure of 10 patients is measured before and after a treatment. The differences d = before − after (mmHg) have mean 3.7 and standard deviation 6.8. Find the lower limit of the 99% confidence interval for the mean difference.
The population standard deviation is 17. How large a sample n do you need so that a 90% confidence interval for the mean has a margin of error of at most 4?
A sample of 25 students has a mean score of 122.9 and a sample standard deviation of 5. Find the test statistic t for H₀: μ = 120.
A sample of 64 measurements has mean 120.8. The population standard deviation is 8. Find the lower limit L of the 99% confidence interval for the mean.
The table gives 5 paired observations of x = temperature in °C and y = ice creams sold. Their sums are given. Find Pearson's correlation coefficient r from these sums.
The table gives 6 paired observations of x = car age in years and y = price in k€. Use the least-squares line ŷ = a + b·x. For which value x does the line predict ŷ = 17?
Answer: FV = 2166 €
Time value of money: money today is worth more than the same amount later, because it can earn interest. With interest rate i per period, an amount grows as FV = PV·(1 + i)n. A series of equal payments (an annuity) is valued by adding up each payment, which gives the annuity formulas.
Answer: I = 2345 €
Time value of money: money today is worth more than the same amount later, because it can earn interest. With interest rate i per period, an amount grows as FV = PV·(1 + i)n. A series of equal payments (an annuity) is valued by adding up each payment, which gives the annuity formulas.
Answer: NPV = −1198 €
Net present value: discount every cash flow back to today with the required rate of return r, then add them up: NPV = Σ CFₜ/(1 + r)ᵗ. A project with NPV > 0 earns more than r and adds value. The internal rate of return (IRR) is the rate at which NPV = 0.
Answer: IRR = 20.04 %
Net present value: discount every cash flow back to today with the required rate of return r, then add them up: NPV = Σ CFₜ/(1 + r)ᵗ. A project with NPV > 0 earns more than r and adds value. The internal rate of return (IRR) is the rate at which NPV = 0.
The annuity factor falls as the rate rises; bracket the rate and narrow down.
Answer: P = 964.9 €
Bond pricing: a bond’s price is the present value of its cash flows, discounted at the yield to maturity (YTM): the coupons form an annuity and the face value is paid back at maturity. P = C·(1 − (1 + y)⁻ⁿ)/y + F/(1 + y)ⁿ. When the yield is above the coupon rate the bond trades below face value, and the other way round.
The yield is above the coupon rate, so the bond sells at a discount.
Answer: YTM = 5.505 %
Bond pricing: a bond’s price is the present value of its cash flows, discounted at the yield to maturity (YTM): the coupons form an annuity and the face value is paid back at maturity. P = C·(1 − (1 + y)⁻ⁿ)/y + F/(1 + y)ⁿ. When the yield is above the coupon rate the bond trades below face value, and the other way round.
Answer: WACC = 9.129 %
Cost of capital: CAPM gives the return shareholders require: re = rf + β·(rm − rf). The weighted average cost of capital mixes equity and debt by their market values: WACC = E/V·re + D/V·rd·(1 − T), with V = E + D. Interest is tax-deductible, hence the (1 − T).
Answer: WACC = 7.291 %
Cost of capital: CAPM gives the return shareholders require: re = rf + β·(rm − rf). The weighted average cost of capital mixes equity and debt by their market values: WACC = E/V·re + D/V·rd·(1 − T), with V = E + D. Interest is tax-deductible, hence the (1 − T).
Answer: s = 14.69
Descriptive statistics: the mean is the sum divided by n; the median is the middle value of the sorted data (the average of the two middle values when n is even). The sample standard deviation is s = √(Σ(x − x̄)²/(n − 1)). A z-score z = (x − μ)/σ says how many standard deviations a value lies from the mean.
Answer: P = 0.8413
Descriptive statistics: the mean is the sum divided by n; the median is the middle value of the sorted data (the average of the two middle values when n is even). The sample standard deviation is s = √(Σ(x − x̄)²/(n − 1)). A z-score z = (x − μ)/σ says how many standard deviations a value lies from the mean.
Answer: P = 0.5177
Probability: with equally likely outcomes, P(A) = favourable/total. For independent events multiply: P(A and B) = P(A)·P(B). The complement often helps: P(at least one) = 1 − P(none). Binomial: in n independent trials with success probability p, P(X = k) = C(n, k)·pᵏ·(1 − p)ⁿ⁻ᵏ.
Answer: E(G) = 3.5 €
Discrete random variables: a probability distribution lists every value x a variable can take with its probability p(x); the probabilities are between 0 and 1 and add up to 1. The expected value (mean) is E(X) = Σx·p(x), the long-run average. The variance is Var(X) = Σ(x − μ)²·p(x) = E(X²) − μ², and the standard deviation σ = √Var(X). For a linear change Y = aX + b: E(Y) = a·E(X) + b, Var(Y) = a²·Var(X) and σY = |a|·σX; adding a constant does not change the spread.
A positive value means you win money on average.
Answer: P = 0.4573
Normal distribution: convert a value x to a z-score, z = (x − μ)/σ, which counts standard deviations from the mean. A z-table (or Φ(z)) gives the area to the left of z, which is P(X < x). The area to the right is 1 − Φ(z), and the area between two values is the difference of their two areas.
Answer: x = 41.87 min
Normal distribution: convert a value x to a z-score, z = (x − μ)/σ, which counts standard deviations from the mean. A z-table (or Φ(z)) gives the area to the left of z, which is P(X < x). The area to the right is 1 − Φ(z), and the area between two values is the difference of their two areas.
Answer: lower limit = −3.289 mmHg
Interval for a difference: estimate ± critical value × standard error. For two independent means with known σ: SE = √(σ₁²/n₁ + σ₂²/n₂) and z. With equal unknown variances: pooled s_p and t with n₁ + n₂ − 2 degrees of freedom. For paired data, work with the differences: d̄ ± t·s_d/√n.
Answer: n = 49
Confidence interval for a mean: x̄ ± margin of error. With a known population σ the margin is z·σ/√n; with only the sample standard deviation s, use t with n − 1 degrees of freedom: t·s/√n. Critical values: z = 1.645 (90%), 1.96 (95%), 2.576 (99%). To get a margin E or smaller, you need n ≥ (z·σ/E)², rounded up.
A sample size is a whole number, and rounding down would make the margin too large.
Answer: t = 2.9
Testing a mean: the test statistic measures how many standard errors the sample mean lies from the value claimed in H₀: z = (x̄ − μ₀)/(σ/√n) when σ is known, t = (x̄ − μ₀)/(s/√n) when it is estimated from the sample. A confidence interval is x̄ ± (critical value)·(standard error).
|t| > 2.064, so H₀ is rejected at the 5% level (two-sided).
Answer: L = 118.2
Testing a mean: the test statistic measures how many standard errors the sample mean lies from the value claimed in H₀: z = (x̄ − μ₀)/(σ/√n) when σ is known, t = (x̄ − μ₀)/(s/√n) when it is estimated from the sample. A confidence interval is x̄ ± (critical value)·(standard error).
Answer: r = 0.9443
Least-squares regression: with x̄ and ȳ the means, Sxx = Σ(x − x̄)², Syy = Σ(y − ȳ)² and Sxy = Σ(x − x̄)(y − ȳ), the line ŷ = a + b·x has slope b = Sxy/Sxx and intercept a = ȳ − b·x̄, so it always passes through (x̄, ȳ). Pearson's correlation coefficient r = Sxy/√(Sxx·Syy) lies between −1 and 1; r² is the fraction of the variation in y explained by the line.
Answer: x = 3.976
Least-squares regression: with x̄ and ȳ the means, Sxx = Σ(x − x̄)², Syy = Σ(y − ȳ)² and Sxy = Σ(x − x̄)(y − ȳ), the line ŷ = a + b·x has slope b = Sxy/Sxx and intercept a = ȳ − b·x̄, so it always passes through (x̄, ȳ). Pearson's correlation coefficient r = Sxy/√(Sxx·Syy) lies between −1 and 1; r² is the fraction of the variation in y explained by the line.
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