# All Questions

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### What is the difference between a book value and a market value?

0 down vote favorite I would like to understand the following problem. A 2yr zero-coupon bond has an annual yield rate of 11% per year. A 4yr zero-coupon bond has an annual yield rate of 19% ...
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### Calculating or finding info about the value of a market? for example Cloud Storage

I am assembling a pitch which will aim towards investors by the end of this year/beginning of next year, and I need to gather information such as how much the Cloud Storage market is worth and how ...
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### What's the point of discounting in risk-neutral pricing?

Let $\phi$ be a self-financing strategy that replicates a time $T$ option payoff $X$ on stock $S$. By definition of a trading strategy, $\phi$ is previsible. Finally, let $V_t$ be the time $t$ value ...
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### How to calculate the JdK RS-Ratio

Anyone have a clue how to calculate the JdK RS-Ratio? Let's say I want to compare the Relative strength for these: EWA iShares MSCI Australia Index Fund EWC iShares MSCI Canada Index Fund EWD ...
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### Mean reversion time estimation

I am new to mean reversion trading, and I would like to get some good references about how to estimate the time it takes to a mean reverting provess to cross it's long term mean Thanks
16 views

### Matlab loop statement is driving me mad [on hold]

Can someone please help me out with this loop over here? Matlab simple refuses to consider the for o=k:k-20 statement inside the if statement. :pullingmyhair: ...
25 views

### Why Lie groups, differential geometry and string theory relate to MF?

I'm reading Peter Carr's "A Practitioner’s Guide to Mathematical Finance". When talking about the math used in mathematical finance, he mentions Lie groups, differential geometry, string theory. Can ...
69 views

### ETNs as bank funding

I've just read the article in the link below and would like to know if someone can elaborate on a statement. I have added the whole paragraph, but highlighted the part about the use of ETNs as cheap ...
31 views

### Build spot rate curve with multiple treasuries for each maturity

I have the following treasuries: T 0 1/4 01/31/15 at 100.1236 T 2 1/4 01/31/15 at 101.1257 T 0 1/4 02/15/15 at 100.1251 T 4 02/15/15 at 101.9994 T 11 1/4 02/15/15 at 105.6269 T 0 1/4 02/28/15 at ...
87 views

### Fitting transition matrices in R by solving for coefficient

I'm using various matrices to impute a fitted transition matrix for credit ratings by solving for a variable [S]. Essentially the idea is to determine a base matrix and stress matrix to compare to a ...
483 views

### Is R being replaced by Python at quant desks?

I know the title sounds a little extreme but I wonder whether R is phased out by a lot of quant desks at sell side banks as well as hedge funds in favor of Python. I get the impression that with ...
20 views

### Black Scholes Model and Dividends

My question can be summarised as such: Consider a portfolio. Say it has a price $\Pi = x$. Portfolio consists of a stock and a sequence of call options underlying on the stock. It has been announced ...
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### Obtaining intra-day values of the EUR-USD exchange

I need for my project the values of the EUR-USD exchange (both intra-day and ticker). I've been playing around with the Yahoo's YQL API and at this moment I can obtain the current value of the ...
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### pdf of simple equation, compound Poisson noise

I would like to find the probability density function (at stationarity) of the random variable $X_t$, where: \begin{equation*} dX_t = -aX_t + d N_t, \end{equation*} $a$ is a constant and $N_t$ is a ...
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### Building curves using onshore or offshore JPY overnight rates?

I am trying to build Japanese Yen interest rate curves. When defining the curve instruments for the 'OIS' (discount) curve (aka TONAR), I am uncertain as to which rate to use for the overnight deposit ...
314 views

### Pricing options under restricted domain

How would I price an option when the underlying security is unable to trade above a certain price? I assumed this would be as simple as restricting the limits of integration of the PDF to B (the ...
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### How to identify the orders p and q for ARIMA model using least squares method?

I would like to identify the orders p and q for ARIMA model using least squares method in Matlab. I have got also two data files (one with noise and one without) Previously I identified p and q for ...
337 views

### Why is that a risk averse consumer buys the optimum insurance when there is actuarially fair insurance?

I think I understand the fact that when marginal utilities of the same function are equal (a consequence of the actuarially fair insurance), the independent variables in it must be equal -- right? But ...
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### Need for Binomial Representation Theorem

In some texts (e.g. Baxter & Rennie, Shreve I) the binomial model is first constructed using the usual backward induction argument, and it is concluded that by no-arbitrage the time $t$ value of a ...
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### R package for portfolio

In the context of modern portfolio theory, one often wishes to minimise $\mathbf{w}^{\mathrm{{\scriptstyle T}}}\boldsymbol{\Sigma}\mathbf{w}$ subject to $\mathbf{w}^{T}\boldsymbol{\mu}=c_{1}$, ...
36 views

### Expected Utility and $\log$

I've just started reading about expected utility and utility functions and have the following question. $\textbf{Question:}$ An investor has an initial wealth of 100 and a utility function of the ...
47 views

### Using Gordon's Growth Model to find value of corporation

This is a question posed to us by my professor in my finance class. I was under the impression that the Gordon Growth Model was used to find the intrinsic value of a stock, but I am unsure how to plug ...
46 views

### Black Scholes Formula, drift term

In the formula, the stock return is modelled as a brownian motion that is a drift + a stochastic term, ok I get that. But the drift term is then modelled as r - volatility ^ 2 / 2. I am not sure how ...
35 views

### Why Must Dividends Be Reinvested to Use Risk-Neutral Pricing?

Assume the price of a stock $S_t$ paying continuous dividend $a$ satisfies $$dS_t = S_t\left((\mu - a)dt + \sigma dW_t\right).$$ The risk-neutral pricing formula states that if $\mathbb{Q}$ is any ...
107 views

### How to pull stock exchange names for a list of tickers, bloomberg?

How to pull stock exchange names for a list of stocks with tickers, on bloomberg? Please advise the steps so as to paste the list of tickers without having to type tickers one by one.
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### In Dupire's paper, why is $(S_t, t)$ in the $(K, T)$ space?

I'm new to local volatility model. From Dupire's paper and most of the textbooks, they derived the local volatility $\sigma(K, T)$ in the $(K, T)$ (i.e., strike and maturity) space, from call prices ...
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### Yield and interest rate? [on hold]

Are they the same thing? Is yield the annualized return rate? Why when yield rise, yearly return increases but price falls?
38 views

### Markowitz portfolio optimization question

I am studying the Markowitz portfolio optimization theory, and I just wanted to ask if I understood this correctly. For a stock portfolio we distinguish two kinds of risks: an unsystematic risk, which ...
475 views

### Portfolio software that shows 'total return' for each investment

I'm a high school technology teacher and sponsor for the Charity Student Investment Project. Currently our students track our investment portfolio via a google spreadsheet ...
34 views

### Differences between editions of Security Analysis by Graham and Dodd?

Where can I find a comparison of the contents, a list of everything that changed or the differences among the different editions of the book Security Analysis by ...
50 views

### Is the Altman Z-Score broken?

When I try to predict future returns with with the Altman Z score, it fails. That would likely not be the case if it predicted bankruptcy well (e.g. the Piotroski F score). It seems to predict ...
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### Credit Risk question

Consider two 7% (annual) coupon corporate bonds, each with one year to maturity. Both are expected to default with 20% probability. Investors demand an expected return of 4.5% on both bonds. The only ...
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### Density of Geometric BM via Fokker-Planck

Attempting to derive density of a GBM (which we know is log-normal) the long way, using the Fokker Planck-equation. Can't figure out where I went wrong - would appreciate a few sets of extra eyes! ...
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### A Difference between Local Vol and Stochastic Vol Models

For the purpose of this question a local vol model is a 1d SDE which specifies the price process and we have a contingent claim that depends on those prices (in general, at multiple times). e.g. ...
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### How to effectively hedge a Fixed-Term deal in a foreign currency?

Assume my firm is based in USD and agrees with some counterparty to buy, at time $T$, some quantity $Q$ of asset $A$ for a fixed price $K$. Assume also that $A$ prices and $K$ are denominated in EUR. ...
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### Arbitrage question

Consider a hypothetical Payment in Kind (PIK) bond of XYZ Corporation. The bond has 2 years to maturity, a face value of \$1000, and has an annual coupon rate of 10%. Coupons are paid annually. XYZ ...
479 views

### Demonstration of Ito's correction term/lemma in binomial tree

I am preparing an undergraduate QuantFinance lecture. I want to demonstrate the ideas of Ito's correction term and Ito's lemma in the most accessible manner. My idea is to take the "working horse" of ...
450 views

### Construction of “vol of vol”

How do you construct something that lets you buy "vol of vol"? not necessarily for VIX, but any particular stock or index.