Money and Banking Test 2
are not
Bonds (are/are not) equities because they represent debt for a firm
increase, increase
If a firm's profits are expected to increase there will be (an increase/a decrease) in demand for that firm's stock and therefore (an increase/ a decrease) in its price.
rises above
A bubble is a situation in which the price of an asset (falls below/rises above) its fundamental value
A. Noise trading
All of the following are concepts from behavioral economics that help us understand how people make choices in financial markets, except: A. noise trading. B. overconfidence. C. loss aversion. D. hindsight bias.
Yes, employees no longer have a guaranteed benefit system.
Are there any reasons why 401(k) plans might be less desirable to employees?
1) the value of a firm's assets minus the value of its liabilities 2) a firm's profits 3) a firm's equity
Buying stock in a company gives an investor a legal claim on _____.
Rather than let banks fail, the FDIC steps in to minimize the amount of money it will have to pay out.
From this perspective, why might there be too few bank failures as the result of deposit insurance?
FDIC protects every dollar a customer has in a bank.
Despite these potential drawbacks, economists and members of Congress overwhelmingly support deposit insurance for all of the following reasons, except:
ROE is equal to ROA multiplied by the ratio of bank assets to bank capital.
How are ROA and ROE related?
1) Finance companies have a small advantage over commercial banks in monitoring the value of collateral, which gives them an advantage in consumer durables, inventories, and business equipment. 2) A lower degree of regulation allows finance companies to provide loans tailored to match the needs of borrowers more closely than do the standard loans that commercial banks provide.
How are finance companies able to compete against commercial banks?
1) Banks can manage credit risk by performing credit risk analysis, requiring borrowers to put up collateral, and using credit rationing. 2) Banks can manage credit risk by diversifying their assets. 3) Banks can manage risk by creating long-term business relationships by which the bank could acquire information about the creditor.
How do banks manage credit risk?
1) Banks manage this risk by keeping some funds very liquid, such as a reverse repurchase agreement. 2) Banks manage this risk by keeping some funds very liquid, such as in the federal funds market. 3) Banks can increase their borrowings to cover liquidity risk.
How do banks manage liquidity risk? (Check all that apply.)
1) Banks can reduce interest-rate risk by making more floating rate loans, or ARMs. 2) Interest-rate swaps can reduce interest-rate risk exposure.
How do banks manage interest-rate risk? (Check all that apply.)
1) By selling stocks when they are above their fundamental values. 2) By buying stocks when they are below their fundamental values.
How might an investor use excess volatility to earn above-average returns?
1) By selling stocks whose returns have recently been high. 2) By buying stocks whose returns have recently been low.
How might an investor use mean reversion to earn above-average returns?
Yes, they can, but doing so will severely impact the financial system because the funds make up a large fraction of the market for commercial paper and because many firms have become heavily dependent on sales of commercial paper to finance their operations.
If money market mutual funds have problems, can't savers just deposit their money in banks?
Yes, investors would have already decreased their demand for this stock causing its price to drop before the announcement was made.
If the decrease in Burberry's profits had not been a surprise, would the effect of the announcement on its stock price have been different?
Underwriting is financial intermediation because the bank brings together savers and the issuers of securities.
In what sense is an investment bank that engages in underwriting acting as a financial intermediary?
FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.
In what sense might deposit insurance be considered a federal subsidy for banks?
Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than salary and wage income.
In what way are capital gains taxed differently than salary and wage income?
They both borrow short and lend long.
In what ways are contractual savings institutions similar to commercial banks?
Investment institutions are different from commercial banks because they do not engage in traditional commercial banking activities, such as taking deposits and making loans.
In what ways are investment banks and commercial banks different?
They both borrow short and lend long.
In what ways are investment institutions similar to commercial banks?
Contractual savings institutions do not accept deposits like traditional commercial banks do.
In what ways contractual savings institutions and commercial banks different?
1) The shadow banking system invests in more risky assets and tends to be highly leveraged than commercial banks. 2) The commercial banking system, unlike the shadow banking system, is heavily regulated by the government. 3) The shadow banking system, unlike the commercial banking system, does not offer traditional banking services such as taking in deposits.
In what ways does the shadow banking system differ from the commercial banking system?
1) An investment bank that buys securities with its own capital is not acting as a financial intermediary. 2) By buying securities with its own capital the bank expects to get profit from the yield or the changes in price.
Is an investment bank that buys securities with its own capital acting as a financial intermediary?
increase, more
Leverage increases the risk of an investment because although borrowing may (increase, decrease) the potential return of an investment, in a market downturn a company may owe (more/less) than the value of the underlying asset.
a bank's consent to provide a borrower with a stated amount of funds during some specified time.
Loan commitment is
a financial contract in which a bank agrees to sell the expected future returns from an underlying bank loan to a third party.
Loan sales is
nominal, without an adjustment
One economic argument for taxing capital gains differently than other income is that investors have to pay taxes on their (nominal/real) gain (with/without) an adjustment for inflation.
a promise by a bank to lend funds, if necessary, to the seller of commercial paper at the time that the commercial paper matures.
Standby letters of credit are
1) ownership of a firm's stock represents partial ownership of the firm. 2) ownership of a firm's stock represents a legal claim on the firm's profits.
Stocks are called equities because (2 reasons):
Should
Suppose that the price of Goldman Sachs stock is currently $142 per share. You expect that the firm will pay a dividend of $1.82 per share at the end of the year, at which time you expect that the stock will be selling for $164 per share. If you require a return of 15% to invest in this stock, you (should/should not) buy the stock.
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
The FDIC stands for
investment banks, sophisticated, could
The financial crisis might have been difficult to foresee, even by people working in high-level positions in the financial system, because policy makers assumed that (investment banks/retail banks) were dealing with (sophisticated/novice) investors who (could/couldn't) look after their own interests.
Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders' Equity.
The key accounting equation on which balance sheets are based is given by
bank deposits
The kind of funding that is obtained from open double quote "various investors who might want their money back within a short period" includes all of the following, except:
Real estate loans and U.S. government/agency securities.
The most important bank assets are:
Small-denomination time deposits and Checkable deposits.
The most important bank liabilities are
sell, decreased, not understanding
This type of funding caused investors to (buy/sell) their investments as the underlying value of the investments (increased/decreased). Primarily, this was due to investors (understanding/not understanding)open double quote"what was going onclose double quote" during that period.
activities that include trading in the futures, options, or swaps market.
Trading activities are
retail, wholesale
Using deposits to finance investments is called _________ funding. Another source of funds is short-term borrowing primarily from other financial firms. This type of financing is called ________ funding.
Invest in index funds.
What alternative strategy might be better for an investor to follow instead of actively buying and selling securities regularly?
DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite
What are the three most important stock market indexes?
Traditional plans are "defined benefit plans" whereas 401(k) plans are "defined contribution plans."
What are "traditional pension plans," and how do they differ from 401(k) plans?
A basket of "covered" services, i.e., specific practices and procedures as outlined by the insurance policy.
What basket of services does a medical insurance policy guarantee?
These indexes are averages of stock prices and indicate the overall performance of the stock market.
What do the stock market indexes do?
markets not subject to the same regulations as commercial banks
What does Bernanke mean by the short-term funding market?
Breaking the buck occurs when a money market mutual fund's share price falls below $1.00.
What does "breaking the buck" mean?
A profit from the sale of an investment.
What is a capital gain?
A high net worth or high income individual.
What is an accredited investor?
A "run" is a rush to withdraw money before everyone else does.
What is a "run"?
A stock exchange is a physical location where trading occurs face-to-face, while over-the-counter markets are virtual markets where dealers are linked by computers to buy and sell stocks.
What is the difference between a stock exchange and an over-the-counter market?
Adaptive expectations assume that investors' expectations are based on past values of a variable, whereas rational expectations assume that investors make forecasts of future values using all available information.
What is the difference between adaptive expectations and rational expectations?
A bank's return on assets (ROA) is the ratio of a bank's after-tax profit to the value of its assets. Return on equity (ROE) is the ratio of the value of a bank's after-tax profit to the value of its capital.
What is the difference between a bank's return on assets (ROA) and its return on equity (ROE)?
A collection of nonbank financial institutions that channel money from savers to borrowers.
What is the shadow banking system?
1) Lehman Brothers debt. 2) Lehman Brothers commercial paper.
What is "Lehman paper"?
The financing of investments by borrowing rather than using capital.
What is leverage?
Underwriting is an activity in which an investment bank guarantees to the issuing corporation the price of a new security and then resells the security for a profit.
What is underwriting?
1) The required rate of return is greater than the dividend growth rate of the stock. 2) Investors receive their first dividend immediately rather than at the end of the year. 3) The growth rate of dividends is constant.
What key assumptions does the Gordon growth model make?
The potential freezing of $1 trillion of positions due to the fund's high leverage posed a systemic risk to the system.
What risks did high leverage pose to the financial system?
Leverage is a double-edged sword: it can increase profits, but it can also magnify losses.
What risks does high leverage pose to the firm?
2008
When was TARP created?
1) Trading activities. 2) Loan sales 3) Loan commitment. 4) Standby letters of credit.
Which from the following are off-balance-sheet activities? (Check all that apply.)
1) Employees have the opportunity to be their own pension managers 2) The employee owns the value of the funds in the plan 3) Employees can make tax deductible contributions to their plan.
Which of the following are reasons why 401(k) plans might be more desirable to employees than traditional pension plans
The money market mutual fund industry is important because many firms rely on the access to commercial paper to meet payroll and other operating costs, and the elimination of this market would hurt access to this source of funding and have severe adverse consequences for the real economy.
Why is the money market mutual fund industry so important?
1) Investors may not exhibit rational behavior when purchasing an overvalued stock. 2) For every overvalued asset, there is always an investor willing to buy the asset at an even higher price. 3) Poor investor psychology, such as herd behavior, may not allow investors to see an asset as overvalued.
Why might bubbles be difficult to identify?
1) Policies must be kept affordable while meeting consumer expectations of the highest standard of care. 2) Cost uncertainties make difficult the determination of appropriate policy premiums.
Why might the fact that medical services are always improving and getting more expensive create difficulties for companies offering medical insurance policies?
1) The FDIC was established in 1934 after a series of bank failures. 2) The FDIC was established to ameliorate bank runs.
Why the FDIC established?
TARP was created to restore the market for mortgage-backed securities and other toxic assets in order to provide relief to financial firms that had trillions of dollars worth of these assets on their balance sheets.
Why was it created?
Lehman brothers went bankrupt which substantially reduced the value of its commercial paper.
Why was the Lehman paper in the fund's portfolio worthless?
Depositors at commercial banks were covered by deposit insurance.
Why was there a panic in the short-term funding market but not a panic among depositors at commercial banks?
It signals that the firm's assets are less secure than anticipated.
Why would one money market fund having broken the buck cause a run on other money market funds?
Pt = Dt x (1+g)/(re-g)
Write the equation for the Gordon growth model.
investment, commercial
_________ banks rely on wholesale funding of their investments as opposed to the retail funding that __________ banks rely on.
Bank capital appears on the right side of the balance sheet, because it is the difference between assets and liabilities.
b. Does a bank's capital appear on the left side of the bank's balance sheet?
No, a loan from the treasury would not be counted as bank capital.
a. Would a loan from the Treasury be counted as part of a bank's capital?
Agree. A fall in interest rates with a positive duration gap will increase a bank's capital.
"A bank that expects interest rates to fall will want the duration of its assets to be greater than the duration of its liabilities - a positive duration gap." Do you agree with this statement?
Disagree. Higher duration of its liabilities will reduce the value of the bank's capital.
"If a bank manager expects interest rates to fall in the future, he should increase the duration of his bank's liabilities." Do you agree with this statement?
activities that do not affect a bank's balance sheet because they do not change either the bank's assets or its liabilities.
Off-balance-sheet activities are