PRMIA Exam I: Finance Theory, Financial Instruments, Financial Markets – 2015 Edition Exam Questions

Given covered interest parity, the currency with a lower interest rate will trade at a forward premium. Choice 'b' is the correct answer.

For an intuitive reasoning, consider a currency forward contract that matures in 3 months. The seller has agreed to sell, say JPY 1,000,000 in exchange for USD 10,000 in the future. In order to cover himself, he borrows the USD right now and converts it to JPY at spot which he puts in a JPY deposit. Assuming JPY interest rates are less than USD interest rates, he pays more on his USD borrowing than he receives on his JPY deposit. Therefore he has to price the forward contract at a premium to spot to cover the interest rate differential.

The correct answer is the index value times the contract size, in this case 1500 x 50.

One way to think about index futures is this: Consider equity index trading as trading in the shares of a company whose share price is equal to a number of dollars which is the same as the index. If the 'contract multiplier' for a index futures contract is 50, that means the futures contract is for 50 shares of such a fictitious company. Therefore the notional value of the contract will be 15000 x 50, and Choice 'a' is the correct answer.

Futures contracts carry no gamma. Only options have gamma. Choice 'a' is the correct answer. Any instrument whose price varies in a linear fashion with respect to the underlying will have gamma equal to zero.

The TED spread is a bet on the spread between treasury bill futures and Eurodollar futures. T-bill rates are lower than Eurodollar rates, as the former carries no risk. Eurodollars deposits, which are interbank deposits between the highest rated banks, carry very little risk as well. Therefore both these instruments generally trade at very narrow spreads. The spread widens, ie the Eurodollar rates rise in comparison to treasury bill rates when the market has credit risk fears.

A trader is said to be 'long' the spread when he benefits from the spread increasing, and 'short' the TED spread when he gains from the spread decreasing. A trader can buy the spread by being long t-bill futures and short Eurodollar futures. Similarly he can be short the spread by being short t-bill futures and long Eurodollar futures.

There are two main theories that explain an upward sloping yield curve. The first is the market expectations hypothesis (called 'pure expectations'). According to this explanation, the yield curve represents investor expectations of future yields, and forward rates are predictors of future interest rates. The yield curve slopes upwards when investors expect interest rates to go up in the future. Thus, statement I is correct. By the same logic, statement II is incorrect.

The second explanation for an upward sloping yield curve is the liquidity preference theory - according to which investors value liquidity and are prepared to pay more for instruments that mature earlier. Having their money tied up in longer maturity instruments increases all kinds of risks, and therefore longer term instruments are priced lower than instruments maturing earlier. Since the price of instruments that mature earlier is higher, their yield is lower than that of longer dated securities, thereby leading to an upward sloping yield curve. Therefore statement III is correct.

Statement IV actually explains why an yield curve may be downward sloping - in fact an inverted yield curve is considered an indicator of an upcoming recession. Therefore statement IV does not explain an upward sloping yield curve, and is therefore not a correct choice for the answer.

Thus statements I and III correctly explain an upward sloping yield curve. Other choices are incorrect.