CFAI’s Reading 36 Question 13: The value of Bond C at the upper node at Time 1 is closest to:
Given information:
Bond C: This is a 2.5%, 2 year, annual pay bond. There is no mention of embedded options.
Binomial Interest Rate Tree:
Time 0 Time 1 Time 2
1.5% 2.8853% 2.7183%
1.75% 1.6487%
1%
My steps:
Cash Flow Tree:
Time 0 Time 1 Time 2
0 2.5 102.5
2.5 102.5
102.5
My answer:
Price(N1-1) = 0.5 * (102.50/1.028853 + 102.50/1.028853) + 2.5 = 102.1255053
However, the official answer does NOT add the value of the coupon payment at the beginning of t=1:
Price(N1-1) = 0.5 * (102.50/1.028853 + 102.50/1.028853) = 99.6255
What is even more odd is that for the next question, you can see CFAI calculated the Time 1 upper node with a coupon added to the end. The only difference is that this bond is a 3-year bond, but I really don’t see how that would change the formula for computation at the upper node of Time 1???
Your insight would be appreciated.
P.S. There is an additional typo for Reading 36 Question 2. They listed the answer as C, even though they say option C is wrong later. The answer should be B. Not happy with the typos …