Most Recent CFA Institute CFA-Level-II Exam Dumps

Connor Burton, CFA, is the managing partner for United Partners, a small investment advisory firm that employs three investment professionals and currently has approximately $250 million of assets under management. The client base of United Partners is varied, and accounts range in size from small retirement accounts to a $30 million private school endowment. In addition to Burton's administrative responsibilities as the managing partner at United, he also serves as an investment advisor to several clients. Because United Partners is a small firm, the company does not employ any research analysts but instead obtains its investment research products and services from two national brokerage firms, which in turn execute all client trades for United Partners. The arrangement with the two brokers has enabled United to assure its clients that the firm will always seek the best execution for them by having both brokers competitively bid for United's business.

A prospective client, Harold Crossley, has approached Burton about shifting some of his personal assets under management from MoneyCorp to United Partners. Burton provides Crossley with a packet of marketing information that Burton developed himself. The packet contains five years of historical performance data for the private school endowment, Unitcd's largest client. Burton states that the composite's management style and performance results are representative of the management style and returns that United can be expected to achieve for Crossley. Also included in the information packet are brief bios on each of United's three investment professionals. Crossley notices that all three of United's investment professionals are described as "CFA charterholders," but he is not familiar with the designation. In response to Crossley's inquiry. Burton explains the significance of the program by stating that the designation, which is only awarded after passing three rigorous exams and obtaining the requisite years of work experience, represents a commitment to the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct.

As a condition of moving his account to United Partners, Crossley insists that all of his trades be executed through his brother-in-law, a broker for Security Bank. Security Bank is a large, New York-based broker/dealer but is not one of the two brokerage firms with which United currently does business. Burton contacts Crossley's brother-in-law and determines that Security Bank's trade execution is competitive, but Crossley's account alone would not generate enough volume to warrant any soft dollar arrangement for research materials.

However, Crossley'-s brother-in-law does offer for Security Bank to pay a referral fee to Burton for directing any of United's clients to Security Bank's retail banking division. To bring Crossley on as a client, Burton agrees to the arrangement. Going forward. Burton will use Security Bank to execute all of Crossley's trades but will use research materials provided by the other two brokers to assist in the management of Crossley's account.

Several months later, Burton is invited to a road show for an initial public offering (IPO) for Solution Ware, a software company. Security Bank is serving as lead underwriter on SolutionWare's IPO. Burton attends the meeting, which is led by two investment bankers and one software industry research analyst from Security Bank who covers SolutionWare. Burton notes that the bankers from Security Bank have included detailed financial statements for SolutionWare in the offering prospectus and also disclosed that Security Bank provides a warehouse line of credit to SolutionWare. After the meeting, Burton calls Crossley to recommend the purchase of SolutionWare equity. Crossley heeds Burton's advice and tells him to purchase 5,000 shares. Before placing Crossley's order, Burton reads the SolutionWare marketing materials and performs a detailed analysis of expected future earnings and other key factors for the investment decision. Burton determines that the offering would be a suitable investment for his own retirement portfolio in addition to Crossley's portfolio. United Partners, being a small firm, has no formal written policy regarding trade allocation, employee participation in equity offerings, or established blackout periods for employee trading. Burton adds his order to Crossley's order and places a purchase order for the combined number of shares with Security Bank. Burton is later notified that the offering was oversubscribed, and United Partners was only able to obtain roughly 75% of the desired number of shares. To be fair. Burton allocates the shares on a pro rata basis between Crossley's account and his own retirement account. When Burton notifies Crossley of the situation, Crossley is nonetheless pleased to have a position, though smaller than requested, in such a "hot" offering.

With respect to the road show meeting regarding the initial public offering of Solution Ware, did Security Bank comply with the requirements and recommendations of the CFA Institute Research Objectivity Standards?

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Matthew Emery, CFA, is responsible for analyzing companies in the retail industry. He is currently reviewing the status of Ferguson Department Stores, Inc. (FDS). FDS has recently gone through extensive restructuring in the wake of a slowdown in the economy that has made retailing particularly challenging. As part of his analysis, Emery has gathered information from a number of sources.

Ferguson Department Stores, Inc.

FDS went public in 1969 following a major acquisition, and the Ferguson name quickly became one of the most recognized in retailing. Ferguson had been successful through most of its first 30 years in business and has prided itself on being the one-stop shopping destination for consumers living on the West Coast of the United States. Recently, FDS began to experience both top and bottom line difficulties due to increased competition from specialty retailers who could operate more efficiently and offer a wider range of products in a focused retailing sector. When the company's main bank reduced FDS's line of credit, a serious working capital crisis ensued, and the company was forced to issue additional equity in an effort to overcome the problem. FDS has a cost of capital of 10% and a required rate of return on equity of 12%. Dividends are growing at a rate of 8%, but the growth rate is expected to decline linearly over the next six years to a long-term growth rate of 4%. The company recently paid an annual dividend of $1.

At the end of 2008, FDS announced that it would be expanding its retail operations, moving to a warehouse concept, and opening new stores around the country. FDS also announced it would close some existing stores, write-down assets, and take a large restructuring charge. Upon reviewing the prospects of the firm, Emery issued an earnings per share forecast for 2009 of $0.90. He set a 12-month share price target of $22.50. Immediately following the expansion announcement, the share price of FDS jumped from $14 to $18.

In 2008, FDS also reported an unusual expense of $189.1 million related to restructuring costs and asset write downs.

In response to questions from a colleague, Emery makes the following statements regarding the merits of earnings yield compared to the P/E ratio:

Statement 1: For ranking purposes, earnings yield may be useful whenever earnings are either negative or close to zero.

Statement 2: A high E/P implies the security is overpriced.

According to FDS's price-to-sales ratio for 2008, based on the post-expansion announcement stock price, FDS is:

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Natalia Berg, CFA, has estimated the key rate durations for several maturities in three of her $25 million bond portfolios, as shown in Exhibit 1.

At a fixed-income conference in London, Berg hears a presentation by a university professor on the increasing use of the swap rate curve as a benchmark instead of the government bond yield curve. When Berg returns from the conference, she realizes she has left her notes from the presentation on the airplane. However, she is very interested in learning more about whether she should consider using the swap rate curve in her work.

As she tries to reconstruct what was said at the conference, she writes down two advantages to using the swap rate curve:

Statement 1: The swap rate curve typically has yield quotes at 11 maturities between 2 and 30 years. The U .S . government bond yield curve, however, has fewer on-the-run issues trading at maturities of at least two years.

Statement 2: Swap curves across countries are more comparable than government bond curves because they reflect similar levels of credit risk.

Berg also estimates the nominal spread, Z-spread, and option-adjusted spread (OAS) for the Steigers Corporation callable bonds in Portfolio 2. The OAS is estimated from a binomial interest rate tree. The results are shown in Exhibit 2.

Berg determines that to obtain an accurate estimate of the effective duration and effective convexity of a callable bond using a binomial model, the specified change in yield (i.e., Ay) must be equal to the OAS.

Berg also observes that the current Treasury bond yield curve is upward sloping. Based on this observation, Berg forecasts that short-term interest rates will increase.

Are the two observations Berg writes down after the fixed income conference advantages to using the swap rate curve as a benchmark instead of a government bond curve?

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William Rogers, a fixed-income portfolio manager, needs to eliminate a large cash position in his portfolio. He would like to purchase some corporate bonds. Two bonds that he is evaluating are shown in Exhibit I. These two bonds are from the same issuer, and the current call price for the callable bond is 100. Assume that the issuer will call if the bond price exceeds the call price.

Rogers is also concerned about increases in interest rates and is considering the purchase of a putable bond. He ants to determine how assumed increases or decreases in interest rate volatility affect the value of the straight bonds and bonds with embedded options. After Rogers performs some analysis, he and his supervisor, Sigourney Walters, discuss the relative price movement between the two bonds in Exhibit 1 when interest rates change significantly

During the discussions, Rogers makes the following statements:

Statement 1: If the volatility of interest rates decreases, the value of the callable bond will increase.

Statement 2: The noncallable bond will not be affected by a change in the volatility or level of interest rates.

Statement 3: When interest rates decrease, the value of the noncallable bond increases by more than the callable bond.

Statement4: If the volatility of interest rates increases, the value of the putable bond will increase.

Walters mentors Rogers on bond concepts and then asks him to consider the pricing of a third bond. The third bond has five years to maturity, a 6% annual coupon, and pays interest semiannually. The bond is both callable and putable at 100 at any time. Walters indicates that the holders of the bond's embedded options will exercise if the option is in-the-money.

Rogers obtained the prices shown in Exhibit b using software that generates an interest rate lattice. He uses his software to generate the interest rate lattice shown in Exhibit 2.

Exhibit 2: Interest Rate Lattice (Annualized Interest Rates)

The market value of the embedded call option in Exhibit 1 is closest to:

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Janice Palmer, CFA, is an international equity analyst at a large investment management firm catering to high net worth U .S . investors. She is assisted by Morgan Greene and Cathy Wong. Both Greene and Wong have prepared their preliminary security selections and are meeting along with Palmer today for detailed security analysis and valuation. They have narrowed their focus to a few closed-end country funds and some firms from Switzerland, Germany, the U.K. and the emerging markets.

The initial decision is to choose between closed-end country funds and direct investment in foreign stock markets. Wong is in favor of country funds because:

1. Country funds provide immediate diversification.

2. Buying country funds is a better choice than direct investment for most emerging markets.

However, Wong has observed a premium to NAV that is prevalent in closed-end country funds. Wong is curious as to how the observed premiums would affect investments in such instruments.

In contrast to Wong, Greene is more inclined towards individual stocks and has started looking into their financial statements. One firm Greene is analyzing is a German conglomerate. Kaiser Corp. Kaiser has a history of growing by acquiring high-growth firms in niche markets. Exhibit 1 provides key financial information from Greene's analysis of Kaiser Corp.

Exhibit 1: Financial information---Kaiser Corp.

While going through their sample of emerging market stocks, Wong observed that these markets in general have high inflation and that sales for the stocks were extremely seasonal. Wong compensated by adjusting reported sales growth in the emerging market firms by deflating the sales using annual inflation adjustments. Wong also made upward adjustments to reported depreciation figures.

Wong suggested to her colleagues that they add a country risk premium to the discount rate they were using to evaluate emerging market stocks. She further suggested that they estimate country risk premiums by calculating the spread between the yield of U .S . government bonds and that of similar maturity local bonds.

Subsequently they started working on the financial projections for Emerjico, Inc., an emerging market stock. Their assumptions are given in Exhibit 2.

Exhibit 2: Key Assumptions---Emerjico

Wong made two adjustments to the financial statements of the emerging market stocks. Which of the adjustments are correct?

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