Assume that you recently graduated and landed a job as a financial planner
with Cicero Services, an investment advisory company. Your first client recently inherited
some assets and has asked you to evaluate them. The client owns a bond portfolio with $1
million invested in zero coupon Treasury bonds that mature in 10 years. The client also has
$2 million invested in the stock of Blandy, Inc., a company that produces
meat-and-potatoes frozen dinners. Blandy’s slogan is “Solid food for shaky times.”
Unfortunately, Congress and the president are engaged in an acrimonious dispute over the budget
and the debt ceiling. The outcome of the dispute, which will not be resolved until the end of the
year, will have a big impact on interest rates one year from now. Your first task is to determine
the risk of the client’s bond portfolio. After consulting with the economists at your firm, you
have specified five possible scenarios for the resolution of the dispute at the end of the year. For
each scenario, you have estimated the probability of the scenario occurring and the impact on
interest rates and bond prices if the scenario occurs. Given this information, you have calculated
the rate of return on 10-year zero coupon Treasury bonds for each scenario. The probabilities and
returns are shown below:
Scenario
Probability
of Scenario
Return on a 10-Year Zero
Coupon Treasury Bond
During the Next Year
Worst Case 0.10 −14%
Poor Case 0.20 −4%
Most Likely 0.40 6%
Good Case 0.20 16%
Best Case 0.10 26%
1.00
You have also gathered historical returns for the past 10 years for Blandy, Gourmange
Corporation (a producer of gourmet specialty foods), and the stock market.
Answers and Solutions: 6 – 4
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MINI CASE