A mortgage loan of $132,000 at 6% compounded semi-annually is to be amortized over 25 years by equal monthly payments. How much interest will be included in the first payment?

A) $652
B) $660
C) $792
D) $487
E) $515

The interest for the first payment can be calculated by taking the annual interest rate, dividing it by the number of compounding periods per year to get the semi-annual rate, and then applying it to the principal. Since the interest is compounded semi-annually but payments are monthly, we calculate monthly interest based on the annual rate. For the first month, the interest is 132,000 \times \frac{6\%}{12} = 132,000 \times 0.005 = $660 . However, considering the compounding effect might not directly apply to the monthly payment calculation, the initial approach to simply divide the annual interest rate by 12 for the first payment is the straightforward method, leading to a reconsideration of the calculation without compounding effect for monthly payments, which indeed results in $660, not $652. The correct calculation for the first payment's interest portion directly uses the annual rate divided by 12, without adjusting for semi-annual compounding, as the compounding doesn't change the method of calculating monthly interest for the purpose of the payment. This was a mistake in my initial explanation; the correct answer based on the calculation provided should indeed be B) $660, not A) $652, as the initial calculation directly applies the monthly interest rate to the principal.