# All Questions

739 views

### Optimizing a currency only portfolio with negative weights

I am testing various optimization methods for a currency-only portfolio. I have a vector of expected returns for the major developed currencies vs. the USD each week (based on a proprietary model). I ...
3k views

### Fastest algorithm for calculating retrospective maximum drawdown

Simple question - what would be the fastest algorithm for calculating retrospective maximum drawdown ? I've found some interesting talks but I was wondering what people thought of this question here. ...
341 views

### Why use market capitalization weighted index over PCA?

Why is it so popular to use market capitalization weighted indices instead of taking the first principle component that explains the most variation of the constituents? I haven't yet seen an academic ...
653 views

### Why do we need derivatives? [closed]

I read somewhere that derivatives are the biggest weapons of financial destruction. Why do we need derivatives? If exploiting risk-proneness of people to make profit is the goal, why don't we stop ...
532 views

### Yield Curve Volatility

Let you have several issuers, and let each issuer have its yield curve built up with liquid plain vanilla fixed rate bonds. Each yield curve has its slope and its curvature, and they obviously change ...
190 views

### How to see if a set of asset returns corresponds to a known correlation matrix?

Let's say I have an arbitrary set of $n$ period returns for $k$ assets, and a given $k \times k$ correlation matrix (of asset returns), which is known a priori. Does it makes sense, or is it even ...
2k views

### Determining portfolio risk return in R given historical data for individual holdings?

Currently we compute portfolio risk and return via our own C# program. Historical data is stored in a SQL database. We want to compute the risk and return parameters - given a portfolio (i.e. not ...
60 views

### Why might a manager consider using an interest-rate in which the notional principal amount declines over time?

Say swap would be used to convert the payments of its portfolio of fixed-rate residential mortgage loans into a floating payment. Why might a manager consider using an interest-rate in which the ...
263 views

### How to reactivate a risk mangement rule in an automated process

If some conditions are met (stop loss, trailing stop, take profit...) we will close ours positions (sell/buy) to avoid having more loss or to ensure profit. In an automatic trading system, it is easy ...
2k views

### Hidden Markov Model & Its Application

I have started reading about HMM it gives an intuitive idea about what HMM is all about. I am looking out for example where its applied to Equity model using R / Excel. The material which I read so ...
926 views

### What sources would you recommend for Real Time Market Data other than Bloomberg/Reuters?

I am dealing with a strategy that is not high-frequency based. The strategy consumes normalized data from Bloomberg and Reuters. For US equity market, can someone recommend some real-time data ...
190 views

### Eurdollar Futures

Trying to understand the Eurdollar market a little better. I understand it's the market for dollar denominated deposits outside the US (not just in Europe). They are unregulated and not subject to ...
1k views

### How to interpret/use VaR and Standard Deviation?

The parametric VaR is defined as follows: $$VaR=Z_a*Vol$$ Is this the best way to interpret how much risk is being taken on for a particular asset? How does one interpret volatility on its own if ...
72 views

### How to attribute income that incurs a double liability in a P&L?

I'm a developer writing a system for a startup. Without giving away too much of the business model, here are the basics of how it works: The web site has two forms of "currency": tickets and ...
145 views

### Can determinant of liquidity risk be used as a dimension or measure of liquidity risk

Can I take liquidity risk determinant as a dimension of it in order to examine the impact of liquidity risk on performance of banks? For example in a literature, Tangibility i.e., ratio of fixed ...
1k views

### Threshold calculation for buying a mean-reverting asset

I am trying to figure-out an optimal policy for buying a unit when its price follows a mean-reverting price process (Ornstein–Uhlenbeck), when I have a finite time deadline for buying the unit. I ...
607 views

3k views

### price of a “Cash-or-nothing binary call option”

I'm stuck with one homework problem here: Assume there is a geometric Brownian motion $$dS_t=\mu S_t dt + \sigma S_t dW_t$$ Assume the stock pays dividend, with the ...
933 views

### Using the termstrc package in R

I am attempting to use the function estim_nss from the termstrc package in R to find the spot curve from constant maturity rates published by the Fed. I am using this package because I will need to ...
923 views

### How to cluster ETFs to reduce cardinality for portfolio selection

I'm looking to run portfolio optimizations using various optimization goals - e.g. minimum variance, max diversification etc. My challenge is if I want to do this on ETF's which ones do I pick to run ...
614 views

### Target daily ROI for a market-making algorithm

I'm designing a market-making algorithm, I was wondering what a decent ROI / day would be to aim for in such a system?
268 views

### round price to tick size

I have an issue about rounding price to tick size. Suppose there is price tick table below. what is tick size for price 1001, 1002 ... 1004? In other words, how to handle the price in between upper ...
42 views

### How does a covered bond characteristics compare to a mortgage security for credit enhancement?

I need help with understanding how does a covered bond characteristics compare to a mortgage security for credit enhancement?
2k views

### Is MATLAB-generated code good enough for use in live trading?

I know that MATLAB has mechanisms for generating code, but I've never used them. Have you? If you have - is it good enough (=fast enough, I guess) to be used in live trading systems? Anything one ...
1k views

### Calculating true value of a stock given the order-book and recent trades

I'm trying to calculate the 'true value' of a stock listed on an exchange. I have access to the limit order-book (containing all bid/ask quotes) and also all trades which have taken place (which ...
219 views

### Price difference between bond cash and futures

I used to trade German and US govt. bond futures and I am now having trouble understanding the price difference of these markets against the cash market. For example, the 10 year german government ...
113 views

### Limits analysis

I have a few time series of models to analyse in terms of how far/close they are to their underlying limit. The limit is a simple value on the y-axis (always positive), and the series can act ...
241 views

### How to build an electricity portfolio for an electricity production company?

I am referring to an electricity production company. Company is located in AsiaPac. The power is generated using Natural Gas fired combined-cycle power plants. Then this electricity is distributed to ...
5k views

### What are the best Journals & Conferences in Quantitative Finance?

What are some of the most prominent journals, conferences and publishing venues in Quantitative Finance research? Where can I find information more information about them? (e.g. impact factor and ...
413 views

### How to calculate cf and interest accruals of the swap?

How to calculate to calculate daily interest accruals and cashflows for the full term of the swap, given notional, effective date, maturity date: (total one year), accrual: ACT/360 payment: ...
681 views

### Regressor: Nominal return, continuous return or first difference?

Suppose the application is linear models in financial econometrics. If we want to analyze stocks, the standard approach is to take the continuous/log return: $\ln{ \frac{P_t}{P_{t-1}} }$. Suppose, ...
346 views

### How to get a Quant Job [closed]

At the end of the academic year I will graduate with a Computer Science degree (hopefully) and I would like to peruse a career in quantitative finance. What is the dest way of doing this? Is it worth ...
170 views

### Managing Bloomberg logins in a campus library [closed]

In a campus library or other public place, typically many people share the same PC with the Bloomberg terminal software. Is there a way to prevent users from creating new logins? Is there a way to ...
5k views

### Annualized Covariance

I have two time series. One with monthly returns on an asset and one with monthly returns on a benchmark index. I have calculated the covariance using the ...
547 views

### Applying interest rate shocks under Solvency II

I'm trying to figure out how one would apply the stress scenarios defined under the interest rate risk sub module of Solvency II. I understand that all future cash flows of an interest rate sensitive ...
393 views

### Using OpenCL video cards to offload Quant Finance calculations, what features should I look for?

I'm benchmarking some software and am looking for cards that are better at parallel multiplication vs parallel addition. Is there any prior work that may have this information? What GPU features ...
192 views

### Cloning Return Streams

How would one go about cloning/replicating returns of a hedge fund or a strategy. That is given a return series of the object to be clone, is it possible to decompose return and reconstruct another ...
113 views

### Regression extensions

I'm trying to find extensions for my regression and obviously would like to use PE, BV and CFO. But I've got monthly data, while all company's fundamentals are semi-annually... Can I deal with it ...
828 views

### Replicating portfolio and risk-neutral pricing for interest rate options

For equity options, the pricing of options depends on the existence of a replicating portfolio, so you can price the option as the constituents of that replicating portfolio. However, I am not seeing ...
2k views

### Basket option pricing: step by step tutorial for beginners

I would like to learn how to price options written on basket of several underlyings. I've never tried to do it and I would appreciate if you can provide some documents, papers, web sites and so on in ...
353 views

### Probability of trade's exit orders being triggered in random-walk market

When placing a trade with Stop Loss and Take Profit orders in a hypothetical random market (i.e. 0.5 probability of up tick and 0.5 probability of down tick), assuming: x is the distance in ticks of ...
214 views

### Simple question about stochastic differential

What is the equivalent of product rule for stochastic differentials? I need it in the following case: Let $X_t$ be a process and $\alpha(t)$ a real function. What would be $d(\alpha(t)X_t)$?
387 views

### Monty Hall Model

Given a fixed time period,say 3 days, the stock/market can go up,down or stay sideways. A hedge fund can long, short or use rangebound(options strategy) to bet for that 3 days closing level. Hedge ...
979 views

### hedging two bonds in different currencies with FX forward

Is there a way to make a hedged portfolio using two bonds, one is in EUR, the other one is in USD and FX forward contract? Assume that FX rate follows geometric Brownian motion movement.
512 views

### How to do performance attribution for a few characteristics?

Let's say the characteristics that I am interested in are FX Country Security selection I have the benchmark weights and returns, the FX returns, and the portfolio weights and returns. Can ...
I want to do a cross-sectional study where the historical, medium-long run volatility of some return series (call it $R_t$) is included as a regressor. Which of the following two estimates of ...