figures should be used for the different divisions; the use of a single, overall cost of capital would be
inappropriate. If the single hurdle rate were used, riskier divisions would tend to receive more funds
for investment projects, since their return would exceed the hurdle rate despite the fact that they may
actually plot below the SML and, hence, be unprofitable projects on a risk-adjusted basis. The typical
9. The discount rate for the projects should be lower than the rate implied by the security market line.
The security market line is used to calculate the cost of equity. The appropriate discount rate for
projects is the firm’s weighted average cost of capital. Since the firm’s cost of debt is generally less
that the firm’s cost of equity, the rate implied by the security market line will be too high.
10. Beta measures the responsiveness of a security’s returns to movements in the market. Beta is
determined by the cyclicality of a firm’s revenues. This cyclicality is magnified by the firm‘s operating
and financial leverage. The following three factors will impact the firm’s beta. (1) Revenues. The
cyclicality of a firm’s sales is an important factor in determining beta. In general, stock prices will rise
when the economy expands and will fall when the economy contracts. As we said above, beta measures
the responsiveness of a security’s returns to movements in the market. Therefore, firms whose revenues
NOTE: All end-of-chapter problems were solved using a spreadsheet. Many problems require multiple
steps. Due to space and readability constraints, when these intermediate steps are included in this solutions
manual, rounding may appear to have occurred. However, the final answer for each problem is found
without rounding during any step in the problem.
Basic
1. With the information given, we can find the cost of equity using the CAPM. The cost of equity is:
RS = .041 + 1.13(.11 – .041)
RS = .1190, or 11.90%
P0 = $950 = $32(PVIFAR%,28) + $1,000(PVIFR%,28)