FRM L2 Mock Exam (2) Questions

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1-23 FRM Part 2 Mock Exam Two 1. Suppose an investor has a mortgage-backed security (MBS) with an average life of 12 years and a monthly mortgage yield of 0.6%. If a 12-year Treasury bond has a yield of 5.2%, the nominal spread for this MBS is: A. 0.22%. B. 1.72%. C. 2.11%. D. 2.24%. 2. Your colleague John makes the following statements about the valuation of mortgage-backed securities (MBS): I. A 9.00% mortgage (cash flow) yield translates into a 9.17% bond-equivalent yield (BEY). II. The nominal spread is the difference between the cash flow yield (aka, mortgage yield) and the yield on a Treasury security with the same maturity as the average life of the MBS. III. The z-spread (aka, static spread) is the spread that will make the present value of the cash flows from the MBS equal to the price of the MBS when discounted at the Treasury spot rate plus the spread. IV. Unlike both the nominal and the z-spread, which do not recognize prepayment risk, the option-adjusted spread (OAS) does recognize prepayments on the MBS. Which is true about John’s statements? A. None are correct. B. Only II and III are correct. C. Only I and IV are correct. D. All four statements are correct. 3. It is not always apparent how risk should be quantified for a given bank when there are many different possible risk measures to consider. Prior to defining specific measures, one should be aware of the general characteristics of ideal risk measures. Such measures should be intuitive, stable, easy to understand, coherent, and interpretable in economic terms. In addition, the risk decomposition process must be simple and meaningful for a given risk measure. Standard deviation, value at risk (VaR), expected shortfall (ES), and spectral and distorted risk measures are commonly used measures to calculate economic capital. However, it is not easy to select a risk measure to calculate economic capital, as each measure has its respective pros and cons. Which of the following statements pertaining to the pros and cons of these risk measures is not accurate? A. Standard deviation does not have the property of monotonicity, and therefore, it is not coherent. B. VaR does not have the property of subadditivity, and therefore; it is not coherent. C. ES is not stable regardless of the loss distribution. D. Spectral and distorted risk measures are neither intuitive nor commonly used in practice.
2-23 4. In calculating its risk-adjusted return on capital, your bank uses a capital charge of 2.50% for revolving credit facilities with a loan equivalent factor of 0.35 assigned to the undrawn portion. Recently, you have become concerned that the protective covenants embedded in these loans are weak and may not prevent customers from drawing on the facilities during times of stress. As such, you have recommended doubling the loan equivalent factor of 0.70. This recommendation has met with resistance from the loan origination team, and senior management has asked you to quantify the impact of your recommendation. For a typical facility that has an original principal of USD 1 billion and is 30% drawn, how much additional economic capital would have to be allocated if you increase the loan equivalent factor from 0.35 to 0.70? A. USD 3.50 million B. USD 6.13 million C. USD 8.75 million D. USD 13.63 million 5. Several steps are involved in developing the loss distribution approach (LDA), including derivation of frequency and severity distributions, estimation of the tail distribution, modeling correlations, and incorporation of insurance. Which of the following statements about LDA modeling is incorrect? A. To select the appropriate distribution of the frequency of losses (Poisson distribution, binomial distribution, or negative binomial distribution), tests for normality and serial correlations are applied. B. Extrapolation of observed losses, in order to develop a more complete severity distribution (of losses), could result in overestimation of the needed capital charge. C. To build an LDA model that includes adequate representation in the tail, both internal and external data are used. D. The LDA typically allows for the risk reducing effect of insurance by lowering the severity of losses, but not their frequency. 6. Which of these statements regarding risk factor mapping approaches is/are correct? I. Under the cash flow mapping approach, only the risk associated with the average maturity of a fixed-income portfolio is mapped. II. Cash flow mapping is the least precise method of risk mapping for a fixed-income portfolio. III. Under the duration mapping approach, the risk of a bond is mapped to a zero-coupon bond of the same duration. IV. Using more risk factors generally leads to better risk measurement but also requires more time to be devoted to the modeling process and risk computation. A. I and II B. I, III, and IV C. III and IV D. IV only 7. Each of the following is true about the liquidity risk typology, across these key authors (Jorion,
3-23 Dowd and Malz), except which is false? A. Liquidity risk has three major types: 1. Transaction (aka, asset, market); 2. Funding (aka, cash flow, balance sheet); and 3. Systemic (aka, crisis) B. Transaction liquidity risk (aka, asset or market liquidity risk) can be modeled by either or both of an exogenous-spread approach or/and an endogenous price approach C. A key example of funding (aka, cash flow or balance sheet) liquidity risk is the rollover risk created by the maturity transformation function in a traditional depository institution D. The liquidity risk typology is well-defined into three buckets because the three major liquidity risk types do not interrelate; e.g., funding risk is not due to systemic causes; transaction risk does not constrain funding liquidity 8. A firm has determined that the risk-adjusted return on capital (RAROC) for a particular project is 14%. To evaluate whether the firm should accept the project, an analyst determines that the firm’s beta is 1.3, the expected market return is 13%, and the risk-free interest rate is 5.5%. If the analyst uses the adjusted RAROC (ARAROC) methodology to make an accept/reject decision, should the project be accepted? A. No, because the computed ARAROC is approximately 1% less than the market risk premium. B. No, because the RAROC is 1.25% less than the return predicted by the CAPM. C. Yes, because the computed ARAROC is approximately 1% more than the market risk premium. D. Yes, because the ARAROC is approximately 4% more than the return predicted by the CAPM. 9. Each of the following is true about a single-name credit default swap (CDS) except: A. A CDS is a bilateral derivatives contract with, in theory, at least some counterparty risk to both sides of the trade. B. A long bond exposes the buyer to more risk types than a CDS protection seller (short CDS on same bond) C. Compared to a long bond position, a long CDS trade primarily substitutes default risk with counterparty risk. D. The long CDS (i.e., the protection buyer who is synthetically short the reference) must have an insurable interest in the reference asset. 10. Which of the following approaches can be used to compute regulatory capital under the internal ratings-based (IRB) approach for securitization exposures under the Basel II framework? I Ratings-Based Approach (RBA) II Supervisory Formula (SF) III Internal Assessment Approach (IAA) IV Internal Models Approach (IMA) A. I and II B. I, II and III C. II, III and IV
4-23 D. I, III, and IV 11. Consider a bank that wants to model processing errors in its retail banking business. The number of such errors in a given year is denoted by random variable N. The dollar loss amount when a processing error occurs is denoted by random variable S. Which of the following procedures is the most likely implementation of the first step of the loss distribution approach? A. Convolute a marginal Poisson distribution (to characterize N) with a Weibull (to characterize S) B. Convolute a marginal Poisson distribution (to characterize S) with a Weibull (to characterize N) C. Convolute a marginal lognormal distribution (to characterize N) with a Weibull (to characterize S) D. Convolute a marginal Poisson distribution (to characterize N) with a negative binomial (to Characterize S) 12. A portfolio manager’s “bogey” is a benchmark portfolio invested in three components: 60.0% in the S&P 500 (the equity index), 30.0% in a Lehman Bond Index (the bond index), and 10.0% in a money market fund (the cash index). A portfolio passively invested in this bogey portfolio would have returned +4.0% over the period. The manager’s actual portfolio components included 70.0% in equities, 20.0% in bonds, and 10.0% in cash. The manager’s actual portfolio underperformed the bogey by 90 basis points (i.e., 3.1% actual portfolio return compared to a 4.0% bogey portfolio return): Bogey Portfolio Comp’t Index Benchmark Weight Index Return Bogey Portfolio Return Equity S&P 500 60.0% 5.0% 3.0% Bonds Lehman 30.0% 3.0% 0.9% Cash Money 10.0% 1.0% 0.1% Return on Bogey 4.0% Managed Portfolio Comp’t Actual Portfolio Weight Actual Return Portfolio Return Equity 70.0% 4.0% 2.8% Bonds 20.0% 1.0% 0.2% Cash 10.0% 1.0% 0.1% Return on Managed Portfolio 3.1% Excess Return of Managed Portfolio -0.9% If the excess return of -0.9% is decomposed into two components, asset allocation and security selection, what is the contribution to the excess return from asset allocation? A. -1.10% B. -0.70% C. -0.20% D. +0.20% 13. In Basel II, the foundation and advanced IRB approaches differ primarily in terms of the inputs that are provided by the bank based on its own estimates and those that have been
5-23 specified by the supervisor. For the foundation approach, the inputs provided by the bank are the: A. Probability of default. B. Loss given default and exposure at default. C. Probability of default and loss given default. D. Probability of loss given default and maturity. 14. Trader A purchased a 3-month floating lookback call option on ABA stock three months ago. Trader B purchased a 3-month fixed lookback call option on the same stock during the same time period as Trader A. ABA stock finished at $50 at the end of the three-month option term, and the initial strike price was equal to $40. The minimum stock price over the investment horizon was $35, and the maximum stock price over the investment horizon was $53. The payoff difference between the floating lookback call and the fixed lookback call is closest to: A. $2. B. $3. C. $8. D. $10. 15. An analyst has the following information pertaining to Portfolio X: Risk-free rate = 2%. Actual portfolio return = 10%. Relevant benchmark return = 8%. Portfolio standard deviation = 5%. Observed tracking error = 3%. Which of the following statements regarding Portfolio X is correct? A. The information ratio is 0.67. B. The information ratio is 1.60. C. The Sharpe ratio is 0.40. D. The Sharpe ratio is 2.67. 16. The capital conservation buffer: A. Will provide an extra 2.5% Common Equity Tier 1 capital buffer in times of stress. B. Will be used exclusively to protect banks from the losses garnered from OTC derivatives trading. C. Is required only for banks with inadequate liquidity coverage and net stable funding source ratios. D. Is covered in the increased Common Equity Tier 1 capital to risk-weighted assets ratio that will increase to 4.5% from the current 2% over the next few years. 17. Regarding term structure models, there are two lognormal models of importance: lognormal with deterministic drift and lognormal mean reversion. Which of the following statements regarding the lognormal model with drift is correct? A. The short-term rate follows a normal distribution. B. The exponential of the short-term rate follows a normal distribution.
6-23 C. The natural log of the short-term rate follows a normal distribution. D. The natural log of the short-term rate follows a bivariate normal distribution. 18. Samantha Moore manages a hedge fund for a mid-sized money management firm. The fund frequently changes styles according to identified profit opportunities. At the beginning of the year, the fund took a long position in 10-year subordinated 8% coupon debt issued by a firm expected to undergo reorganization under Chapter 11. Moore felt that analysts had been paying too little attention to the issuer. Six months later, the fund completed a second transaction involving a long position in Swiss Francs and a short position in Japanese Yen based on forecasted movements in interest rates in the two countries. What two hedge fund strategies are most likely being employed by Moore’s hedge fund? A. Distressed securities strategy and equity long/short strategy. B. Fixed-income arbitrage and global macro strategy. C. Distressed securities strategy and global macro strategy. D. Fixed-income arbitrage and equity long/short strategy. 19. Which of the following statements was not an advantage of MF Global’s European bond/repurchase-to-maturity strategy? A. The firm could derecognize the sovereign bonds on its balance sheet. B. MF Global could avoid earnings volatility with the strategy relative to an outright purchase of sovereign bonds. C. MF Global could ignore the commitment to repurchase the sovereign bonds for accounting purposes because the lending firm had the option to redeem the bonds at par. D. MF Global could realize an instant profit on the difference between the interest rate paid to MF Global on the sovereign bonds and the repurchase rate paid by MF Global to counterparties. 20. According to Basel II, the basic indicator and standardized approaches to operational risk require banks to hold capital for operational risk equal to a fixed percentage of gross income. The difference between the two approaches is that under the standardized approach: A. Banks must calculate a capital requirement for each business line, rather than at the firm level as in the basic indicator approach. B. Banks must calculate separate capital requirement for rated and unrated exposures rather than at the firm level as in the basic indicator approach. C. The capital requirement is a higher percentage of income than in the basic indicator approach. D. The capital requirement is a lower percentage of income than in the basic indicator approach. 21. The Westover Fund is a portfolio consisting of 42% fixed-income investments and 58% equity investments. The manager of the Westover Fund recently estimated that the annual VaR (5%), assuming a 250-day year, for the entire portfolio was $1,367,000 based on the portfolio’s market value of $12,428,000 and a correlation coefficient between stocks and bonds of zero. If the annual loss in the equity position is only expected to exceed $1,153,000 five percent of the
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