Topic 4 - Direct Investment - Fixed Interest & Shares Flashcards
What is the definition of indirect investment?
- investing in a fund or a trust
- indirect investing means you invest in something else which itself invests directly in shares, bonds, cash, property or FOREX
- buying units or shares in a fund is an indirect investment
Define the terms bonds and maturity.
How does risk affect the rate of interest on loans?
How do long- and short-term loans differ regarding level of risk?
What are all interest rates based on?
- “bonds” can be used to mean all fixed-interest investments (except for short-term ones)
- “maturity” means the repayment date: a loan matures regardless if it is a bank loan or a bond
- bonds are a more liquid form of debt than bank loans and overdrafts because they are tradeable
- the riskier the borrower is, the higher the interest rate the lender will charge
- the longer into the future the maturity date is, the higher the interest rate will be because the more time there is between borrowing and repayment and the greater the possibility of something going wrong
- a long-term loan is riskier than a short-term loan and therefore has a higher interest rate
- all interest rates are based on the cash rate: the overnight rate for banks lending each other money overnight, including to the central bank
How do we calculate the real cash rate?
- the real rates of anything are nominal rates adjusted by the rate of inflation:
(1 + R nom / 1 + H) - 1 x 100
- remember to convert percentage rates into decimals
What is this graph showing?
Describe it.
- this graph is showing the nominal rates over 20 years in the blue and the corresponding real rates (after accounting for inflation) in the red
- not only are the real rates below the nominal rates, but they have greater amplitudes (more volatile)
- the ups and downs of inflation do not smooth out the ups and downs of the nominal rate, they reinforce them
We do not need to learn the list of authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs).
Authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) in Australia include:
- banks
- credit unions
- non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs)
- hedge funds
- money lenders (if they can get a licence)
How is the money market divided from the capital market?
- the money market is divided from the capital market by the one year fence
- just like current assets are divided from non-current assets by the one year fence in accounts
Describe commercial bills, corporate bonds/debentures and unsecured notes.
- international shipping and freight companies use commercial bills (bills of exchange) as forms of credit (part of current assets) to finance international trade
- a cheque is a form of a bill of exchange: you pay the invoice (draw the cheque on your bank) to the payee
- in financing trade, the person receiving the goods draws some exchange on their bank in favour of the payee
- it is like a deferred cheque because the supplier only gets the cash from the cheque when the customer certifies that the goods have been safely received
- even though commercial bills are part of current assets, they are strictly for financing trade itself and are not stores of wealth
- corporate bonds/debentures are longer-term loans (the buyer of the bond is the lender to the issuing corporation)
- the lender can get rid of credit risk by selling the bond on
- unsecured notes are bonds/debentures not secured by any collateral/deposit/guarantee (like an unsecured bank loan)
- any kind of unsecured loan is riskier than a secured loan and, so, carries a higher interest rate
How are fixed-interest securities/bonds rated?
- the textbook says that credit rating is between AAA and BBB
- any bond not good enough to get BBB is a junk bond
- speculators, day traders and aggressive investors like to play with junk bonds because they offer a higher interest rate
- the ratings are subjective: credit ratings agencies look at a company’s solvency, balance sheet and profit > credit rating
- during the GFC, credit ratings agencies were rating junk bonds as non junk bonds (and got away with it - no fines/jail terms)
- given the history, credit ratings agencies cannot be relied upon
Differentiate between the primary and the secondary market.
- firms issue new bonds/shares into the primary market
- holders of bonds/shares sell them into the secondary market
- same place!
primary market = new bond/share
secondary market = trading an existing bond/share
How does a discount security pay its interest?
- discount securities don’t pay explicit interest, but rather implicit interest
- usually short-term and you receive interest by buying the bond at a discount
e. g. 1 year $1,000 bond and we pay $880 = discount rate of (120/1,000) x 100 = 12%
How do we calculate the yield ratio?
When the bond price goes up, the yield goes down. Why?
- because bonds can be traded, they’re in a market
- where there’s a market, prices can go up or down
- when we’re in the secondary market for bonds, we’re not interested in the rate, just the potential capital gain and the yield
- yield ratio = interest rate / current market price
- if a $1,000 bond has a nominal interest (coupon) rate of 5% and can be bought for $500, then the 5% becomes a 10% yield
- the interest rate is only needed to calculate the yield
- the stated interest rate is always the nominal interest rate
- because the yield is a ratio, it can be just as affected by the denominator as the numerator
- the numerator of the yield doesn’t change because interest is fixed
- the denominator, however, changes daily
- every time the bond price changes, the yield changes in the OPPOSITE direction
- bond price up, yield down, why?
- because the interest itself doesn’t change, just what you’re dividing it by
How do we gain wealth through investing in shares?
What does dividend imputation mean?
- historically, shares offer the highest returns of all direct investments
- strong capital growth means that the share price has gone up
- regular income = regular dividends
- dividend imputation means that you don’t have to pay income tax on your dividend
- this is because dividends are paid out of after-tax profits
- but you still have to declare dividends on your tax return in case individual circumstances prevent tax exemption
Why have the S&P 500 shares risen the most?
What does limited liability on shares mean?
- limited liability on shares means that if a company goes bankrupt, the shareholders can’t be asked to pay more than a fully paid-up share
- limited liability is more important to an investor for small, private companies than for large, public ones
On the stock market, what is the main driver of market forces?
- share prices are determined by supply & demand, but not like other markets!
- because the supply of shares and bonds is limited, the demand varies a lot
- on the stock market, prices are more affected by changes in demand than by changes in supply
- changes in demand are instant, changes in supply are not > demand is the important driver of market forces
- in the long-run (5 years +), over 90% of the value of a share depends on the underlying performance of the firm: long-term movement of stock prices reflects the long-term performance
- therefore, analysing the fundamentals of the firm is the single best guide to assess how the firm’s stock price is going to perform
What are Australian share prices influenced by?
- Australian shares are no more influenced by international capital flows than in Hong Kong or London
- mainly influenced by COMMODITIES
- Australia is a source of metals
- Australia is led by how well commodities do
- like London and Hong Kong, Australian shares follows the New York stock market (dominant)
What does this graph tell us?
Why do investors in Australia like the banks?
resources = commodities
financials = banks/hedge funds
- both commodities & financials doing well
- if the banks can be rescued when they’ve committed crimes and nobody goes to jail, then they’re pretty safe
- not so much downside risk with a bank doing badly and the prospects of sharing in its big profits when it does well is relatively greater (a GFC consequence)
Differentiate between fundamental and technical analysis.
- fundamental analysis is looking at the real facts about the company’s economic circumstances: its competitive position, previous performance, liquidity, capital structure, market valuation & risk analysis
- apply fundamental analysis to decide whether to buy, hold or sell shares
- works in all weak-form efficient and inefficient markets
- technical analysis is the analysis of the PRICE itself over time
- there are patterns in share & bond prices on the stock market that do predict changes
- studying price patterns in an inefficient or weak-form efficient market does pay off
- textbooks assume all markets are strong-form efficient = perfect market = no inside information
- to emulate a perfect market, the legislation makes insider information illegal, but not always implemented
- only the top 5 securities in Australia are semi-strong, e.g. BHP
How do we reduce alpha risk in a perfect market? And in the real world?
- in the context of investment, the only risk that gets measured is the variability of returns: variability = risk
- market risk = beta risk
- company-specific risk = alpha risk
- cannot diversify market (beta) risk
- the more efficient a market is, the less it will reward investors taking on alpha risk because alpha risk should be reduced solely through diversification
- this means that we should seek out investments with a maximum negative correlation with each other to minimise alpha risk
- weak-form efficient markets, however, DO reward alpha risk
- diversification, therefore, reduces but does not eliminate alpha risk in the real world
What does this diagram show us?
- in theory, the more shares you have in the portfolio, the less alpha risk you should have
Why are we not taught technical analysis in class?
- because technical analysis does not work in semi-strong form efficient markets
When you’re buying a share, what does it mean if you’re buying at ‘limit’?
- when you’re buying a share, you either buy it at market price or at ‘limit’ (up or down)
- pre-specified to the broker: “Don’t buy until the price rises to/falls to …)