Q1. Please Compare the Advantages and Disadvantages of the Following Investment Rules: Net Present Value (Npv), Payback Period, Discounted Payback Period, Internal Rate of Return (Irr) and Profitability Index (Pi). (You

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As of today, there are diverse investment rules to evaluate a project like NPV and IRR.I will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each investment rule one by one as follows. Net Present Value (NPV) is calculated by the total present value of future cash flows minus initial investment. The first advantage is that NPV takes into consideration all cash flows, times value of money and future cash flows through the cost of capital. Undoubtedly, it will make the decision more reliable. The second benefit is that the criteria for acceptance is quite precise and reasonable – accept when project is positive NPV and reject when project is negative NPV. The third merit is that NPV measures the direct contribution of dollar rather than the percentage. It is clear to see whether the investment can earn a profit and good decision can be made. Nevertheless, there is a disadvantage. NPV is sensitive to discount rate as the computations are a summation of multiple discounted cash flows. As a consequence, a little decrease or increase in discount rate will affect the final output much. Payback Period (PP) calculates how long the future cash flow to cover the initial investment. The only advantage is that PP is easy to understand. The criterion for acceptance is the least time of PP as this method has a bias towards liquidity. But there are disadvantages. The first one is that PP ignores the cash flow after cut-off date. It is not fair to the long-term investment as they need a longer time to cover the initial investment. As a result, it is easy to accept poor short-term projects and reject good long-term project. The second one is that PP ignores the time value of money as there is no discounting of cash flow, which results in inaccurate decision. The third one is that PP with the lease time may not have a positive NPV. The elements of

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