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Both a wife and her husband work in the airline industry. They are in their 40s, and they have a high tax bracket and are concerned about their after-tax rate of return. A meeting with their financial planner reveals that they are primarily focused on long-term capital gains and will need at least a 9% to 11% average rate of return to meet their retirement goals. They desire a diversified portfolio, and liquidity is not currently a major concern. Which of the following asset allocations seems to best fit their situation?

A.

10% money market; 40% long-term bonds; 10% commodities; 40% high-dividend-paying stocks

B.

0% money market; 60% long-term bonds; 40% stocks

C.

10% money market; 30% long-term bonds; 10% commodities; 50% high-dividend-paying stocks

D.

5% money market; 30% long-term bonds; 5% commodities; 60% stocks, most with low dividends and high growth prospects

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Keith Leannon
Keith LeannonLv2
29 Sep 2019

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Can you tell me What does this article tell us about the bond markets performance and the interest rate environment?

Long-Term Government Bonds Shine as Fed Goes Slow

Pimco, Vanguard funds with focus on long-term debt beat out other bond funds in the 1st quarter

For investors, one of the best bets of 2016 has been a wager via U.S. Treasurys on falling interest rates.

A Pimco long-term government-bond fund was the best performer among bond funds in the first quarter. Above, Pimco offices in Newport Beach, Calif. PHOTO: MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS

The $460 million Pimco Extended Duration Fund posted a total return of 11.8% in the first quarter, making it the best performer among 2,015 U.S.-based bond mutual funds, according to data from Morningstar. Total return reflects price gains plus periodic payments.

The runner-up was $1.3 billion Vanguard Extended Duration Treasury Index Fund, which returned 11.7% during the quarter, according to Morningstar.

Both funds posted their best returns since the last quarter of 2014 and have extended those gains in the early days of the second quarter. Duration refers to a fund’s exposure to interest-rate risk, meaning its prices will rise more when rates fall and fall more when rates rise.

Analysts have warned repeatedly that bets on duration are risky, given the long decline in interest rates over recent years. The gains are striking at a time when stocks and other riskier assets have rebounded from an early-year selloff that at one point left the Dow industrials down 10%. The Dow fell 20.55 points, or 0.1%, on Monday, but is up 0.8% for the year.

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While safer securities such as U.S. Treasurys and German bunds tend to decline in price when stocks and low-rated corporate bonds rally, many analysts say the simultaneous rise of safer and riskier assets this spring is tied to the unexpectedly slow pace of policy tightening by the Federal Reserve, along with signs the global economy continues its slow healing.

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By One Measure, U.S. Rates Are Already Negative

At the same time, many investors are concerned that the rally in stocks, bonds and commodities off Feb. 11 lows may have gone too far too fast.

“We are still stuck in low growth,’’ Jack Flaherty,portfolio manager at money manager GAM, which has over $119 billion in global assets under management. “It may be time to lighten up a bit and pause” on purchases of riskier assets, he said.

The uncertainty is why many investors are buying long-term U.S. government bonds, even though analysts have warned that slim yields leave bondholders vulnerable to potentially large capital losses if interest rates do rise.

The average U.S. equity mutual fund posted a total return of minus-0.4% between January and March, according to Morningstar. The average return for all U.S.-based bond funds tracked by Morningstar was 2.1% for the period. Quarter-end data for all funds are typically finalized in the early days of the following period.

“It has been a good start for bond funds,’’ said Jeff Tjornehoj, head of Americas research at Lipper. That performance “may be hard to repeat this quarter.”

Stock funds on average returned 4.4% in the fourth quarter last year, according to Morningstar. Bond funds posted a negative 0.1% return in the final quarter of 2015.

U.S. Treasury bonds overall have posted a total return of 3.6% this year through Friday, according to data from Barclays. U.S. bonds sold by lower-rated firms, or junk bonds, have returned 3.8% over the same period. S&P 500 has returned 0.8%, according to FactSet.

The Vanguard fund passively tracks an index of long-term Treasury bonds. The fund “will tend to have extreme results—both on the up and down side’’ given its focus on buying government bonds with very long-term maturity, said a representative of Vanguard in a written statement.

The Pimco fund is actively managed by three fund managers at Pacific Investment Management Co.: Stephen Rodosky, Michael Cudzil and Josh Thimons. A representative at Pimco declined to comment.

The Pimco fund attracted $19.7 million of new cash between January and February, topping the $11.9 million it obtained for the whole year of 2015, according to the latest data from fund tracker Lipper.

The Vanguard fund attracted $20.4 million of new cash during the first two months of the year, after suffering a net withdrawal of $115.7 million in 2015, according to Lipper.

The Vanguard fund posted a loss of 20.9% in 2013, according to Morningstar, when worries about the Fed reducing bond purchases rattled the bond market. The Pimco fund lost 21.2% that year.

But U.S. bond yields have largely been on a downward trend since the financial crisis. The two funds both posted an annualized return of about 17% on average over the past five years through Friday, according to Morningstar.

1. Allison Engines Corporation has established a target capital structure of 40% debt and 60% common equity. The current market price of the firm's stock is P0 = $36; its last dividend was D0 = $2.80, and its expected dividend growth rate is 8%. Allison must issue new common stock at a flotation cost of 10%. Tax rate is 40%.

Find: 1. What is Allison's cost of new outside equity capital, i.e., cost of new equity?

2. Given a cost of new debt of 8%, find Allison's WACC.

hint: use constant growth formula to find Rs

2.

Clark Communications has a capital structure that consists of 70% common stock and 30% long-term debt. In order to calculate Clark's WACC, an analyst has accumulated the following information:

The company currently has a 30-year bond issue outstanding, 15-years old, 8% annual coupon bonds that have a face value of $1,000 and sell for $1,075.

The risk-free rate is 5%.

The market risk premium is 4%.

The beta on Clark's common stock is 1.1.

The company's retained earnings are sufficient so that they do not have to issue any new common stock to fund capital projects.

The company's tax rate is 38%.

Given this information, what is Clark's WACC? (hints: find bond's YTM; use CAPM for stock return)

Hi guys could someone help me and explain in detail the two fundamental principles of investments – the risk/return tradeoff and diversification. Also, describe how asset allocation and the correlation of various securities within asset classes impact the riskiness of an investor’s portfolio.

I found an answer but it seems to me very long and not sure about it so can you help me out guys

ANS:

Risk /Return Tradeoff

Risk, return and liquidity are three dimensions of investment decision. Risk/Return trade off considers two dimension ie risk and return. As risk of an investment increases , its expected return will decrease. Risk is measured by volatility of return which can be statistically obtained by standard deviation of return. Higher the standard deviation, higher will be volatility of return and higher the risk

Risk can be also measured as a relative risk compared to the market. This is measured by stock beta with reference to a market index. Higher the beta, higher the value of stock Beta, higher will be the risk .

Investors seeking higher return will need to take higher risks.

Treasury bonds are almost risk free assets. This has the lowest rate of return. Stocks have higher risk , hence have higher expected return. High beta stocks will have higher risk and higher returns.

An investor should understand his risk taking ability and will have to make a trade off between risk and return depending on his risk apetite.

Diversification:

There is a saying, do not put all your eggs in one basket. The reason is that it has higher risk if all eggs are in one basket. If the eggs are distributed in different basket, risk of loss decreases.

Same principle is applied in investment. Diversification reduces risk.

If one invests in different classes of assets like bonds, stock, commodities and properties –his risk is likely to reduce. Reduction in return in one asset is likely to be compensated by return in other asset.

Within one class of asset also, there should be diversification to reduce risk.

For example one stock “A “may have expected return of 10% and standard deviation of 5%.This risk can be reduced by diversification in number of assets and the ratio of Risk/return can be decreased.

If we diversify and instead of investing 100% in stock A, we invest 60% in “A” and 40% in another stock “B” having expected return15% and standard deviation of 8%.assume the correlation between the two assets are 0.5

Portfolio return=wa*Ra+wb*Rb

Wa=Weight of asset A=0.6

Wb=Weight of asset B=0.4

Ra=Return of A=10%

Rb=Return of B=15%

Sa=Standard deviation of A=5%

Sb=Standard deviation of B=8%

Corr(a,b)=Correlation of A & B=0.2

Portfolio return=0.6*10+0.4*15=12%

Portfolio Variance=(wa^2)*(Sa^2)+(wb^2)*(Sb^2)+2wa*wb*Cov(a,b)

Cov(a,b)=Corr(a,b)*Sa*Sb=0.1*5*8=4

Portfolio Variance=(0.6^2)*(5^2)+(0.4^2)*(8^2)+2*0.6*0.8*4=23.08

Portfolio standard deviation=Square root of Variance=(23.08^0.5)=4.8%

The diversification has increased return and reduced risk

Stock A was giving 10% return with 5% standard deviation. With diversification of portfolio we have 12% return and 4.8% standard deviation. Risk return ratio is decreased.

It may be noted that, higher the correlation between assets in the portfolio, higher will be risk in terms of standard deviation. Hence it is better to diversify with uncorrelated assets.

Diversification reduces unsystematic risk,but it cannot reduce systematic risk of overall market or economy

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