Tess Mulroney, a veteran options investor, wishes ...

Tess Mulroney, a veteran options investor, wishes to do some speculating and hedging with options, but isn’t sure the derivatives currently available are attractively priced. Before making any transactions, Mulroney puts her calculator to work to determine a fair price for the options.

First, Mulroney seeks to protect a large variable-rate investment. She has loaned $40 million to her nephew’s construction company. The loan is payable in one year, and the current interest rate is 7.6 percent. Based on data provided by her brokerage house, Mulroney believes interest rates will fall sharply over the next year, with a 70 percent chance of a decline to 5.9 percent and a 30 percent chance of a decline to 4.7 percent.

To protect her cash flows, Mulroney is considering the purchase of a 6.2 percent floor. Mulroney knows a banker who writes such options, but she must come to him with a price in mind.

Next on Mulroney’s list is call options on Merrill Materials stock. She has obtained the followingassumptions through a subscription options service:

The stock trades for $35 per share.

The chance of an upward movement over the next year is 60 percent.

The likely downward movement is 20 percent.

At-the-money calls currently sell for $4.75.

Despite her experience, Mulroney knows she always has more to learn. So she then reviews some technical material on options that she found on the Internet. Mulroney spends the next hour reading up on sensitivity factors related to option pricing.

Later that day, Mulroney meets with Ben Glanda, her financial adviser. He has prepared some investment recommendations and advice for Mulroney.

His first suggestion addresses a series of investments Mulroney was considering. She had proposed buying a stock, buying a European put option on the stock, and writing a call option. Glanda has proposed an alternative investment that will be simpler to make.

Next Glanda attempts to convince Mulroney to start using an alternate method for valuing her options. Glanda suggests using the Black-Scholes-Merton model because of its precision and ability to consider more factors, but Mulroney prefers the binomial model because it requires fewer assumptions.

Mulroney doesn’t like the Black-Scholes Merton model for the following reasons:

It does not work for American options.

It does not consider volatility of interest rates.

It does not reflect the compounding of returns.

It does not work for assets that generate cash flows.

Part 5)

The value of the floor Mulroney seeks is closest to:

A) $236,571.

B) $228,023.

C) $233,494.

D) $231,029.