# All Questions

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### How do different methods and techniques used in pairs trading compare?

I was going through the paper of Avellaneda (2008) on stat arb and I found it interesting that he uses asset returns vs. their respective ETFs to compute the s-score. I am wondering if anyone has ...
1k views

### Has spectrum analysis ever been used successfully to analyse historical price data?

Spectrum analysis is often used to analyse waveforms. A common configuration, for example, is to create a graph where X is time, Y is frequency, and the brightness of each position represents ...
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### Switching from Matlab to Python for Quant Trading and Research

Has anybody else out there made this switch? I'm considering it right now. What were the negatives and positives of the switch?
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### Trading a synthetic replication of the VIX index

One cannot directly buy and sell the VIX index. Theoretically, however, one could approximate the index by purchasing an at-the-money straddle on the SP500, then delta-hedging the straddle. Does ...
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### What tools exist for order book analysis and visualization?

What tools exist for order book analysis and visualization? In particular, if one wanted to examine a limit order book and understand how it changes throughout the day where would you turn for ...
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### Implementing data-structures in a Limit order book

I'm working on implementing a 'LOB' and I'm being very careful about choosing my data-structures so as to maximize performance. Using F# as an example, I need to consider a List versus Array for ...
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### Usage of NoSQL storage in Finance

I am wondering if anyone has used NoSQL (mongodb, cassandra, etc.) to store and analyze data. I tried searching the web but was not able to see if the financial firms had gotten in to using nosql ...
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### From a high frequency point of view, with a price prediction and assuming infinite leverage, how do you determine optimal trade size?

I have read about something like Kelly criterion for long term expectation maximization assuming a fixed starting bankroll. But if one can assume unlimited leverage, and one has a signal for a price ...
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### Mapping symbols between tickers, Reuters RICs and Bloomberg tickers

Is there any known solution (preferably open source) to map between ticker symbols, Reuters and Bloomberg symbols. For example: Ticker: AAPL Reuters: RSF.ANY.AAPL.OQ Bloomberg: AAPL US Equity ...
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### Is Scala used in trading systems

I'm curious about high performance computing and consider algo/program trading as an interesting source of information about what are performant technologies that are used to trade the markets. Is ...
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### Are there any new Option pricing models?

Back in the mid 90's I used the Black-Scholes Model and the Cox-Ross-Rubenstein (Binomial) Model's to price Options. That was nearly 15 years ago and I was wondering if there are any new models being ...
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### How do I find the most diversified portfolio, or least correlated subset, of stocks?

I have a trading system that chooses top 10 stocks in Nasdaq 100 ranked on relative strength and some other factors. However, I'd like to take positions in only 5 of these 10 stocks based on how ...
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I am looking for academic articles which model the p&L of market makers. I have read the Ho-Stoll (1984) article. Is there any recent article on this subject?
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### How are risk management practices applied to ML/AI-based automated trading systems

A potential issue with automated trading systems, that are based on Machine Learning (ML) and/or Artificial Intelligence (AI), is the difficulty of assessing the risk of a trade. An ML/AI algorithm ...
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### What books should any quantitative portfolio manager or risk manager have as reference? [closed]

I'm interested to know what are the critical reference texts you rely on for portfolio or risk management? I mean those texts that you come back to because they are chock full of insight and know-how. ...
6k views

### Is “eoddata” a good data source?

Not sure if this is a relevant question for site, but I am looking to move to www.eoddata.com as my data source. If anyone has used it, can you tell me how the data quality is ? I am currently ...
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### Is there an all Java options-pricing library (preferably open source) besides jquantlib?

I am looking for an all-java implementation of black scholes, preferably open source. I found jquantlib and quantlib (C++). Any other recommendations? The jquantlib site seems to be down. I'd prefer ...
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### Is there a standard model for market impact?

Is there a standard model for market impact? I am interested in the case of high-volume equities sold in the US, during market hours, but would be interested in any pointers.
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### One dimensional analog of cleansing a correlation matrix via random matrix theory

The general idea of cleansing a correlation matrix via random matrix theory is to compare its eigenvalues to that of a random one to see which parts of it are beyond normal randomness. These are then ...
743 views

### Forward Adjusting Stock Prices?

How should one correctly forward adjust historical prices given a time series of Open, High, Low, Close, Return? Suppose that the data series is given below ('1' is the oldest interval; '5' is the ...
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### What blogs or articles online should I read to get started with quantitative finance? [closed]

I want to start learning quantitative finance, what articles or blogs should I look at to start? Also see the Related Question on Quantitative Finance Books
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### Do you have historical tick data you want to donate?

Do you have historical market/pricing ticket data that you would like to donate to the Open Source Trader project (OST)?? Please: upload your files! Once we gather some data, we'll do our best to ...
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### Cross Currency Swap Pricing in nowadays environment

Multicurve setting has now become the new paradigm for vanilla swap valuation. For the record I give here (without getting into too much details) the methodoloy for pricing Euribor3M swaps in this ...
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### How to interpolate gaps in a time series using closely related time series?

I am trying to construct a daily time series of prices and returns for some large universe of securities. However, all I have available are a monthly time series of the prices/returns (as well as ...
1k views

### How do strategies deal with corporate actions?

There are many corporate actions that will affect the stock price, like dividend, stock split and rights. Given a large series of historical price data, how do we adjust the data to filter out the ...
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### Is there a popular curve fitting formula of options skew vs strike price or vs Delta?

I was trying to build a options trading/optimization system. But it often gets more inaccurate as it scans through the far from ATM options because, you know, options skews. That is because I did ...
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### Multilayer Perceptron (Neural Network) for Time Series Prediction

I have it in mind to build a Multilayer Perceptron for predicting financial time series. I understand the algorithm concepts (linear combiner, activation function, etc). But while trying to build the ...
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### Price functions based on order book events

Assume some equity traded on a given exchange based on an electronic limit open-order book $B$ that makes sequential updates as a function of time $t$. What are "natural" or common price functions \$P: ...
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### Are public historical time series available for ratings of sovereign debt?

The nice list of free online data sources Data sources online does not mention any data from ratings agencies. Are historical time series available for sovereign credit ratings (other than as ...
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### How to update an exponential moving average with missing values?

Say you have an Exponential Moving Average being continuously updated over a time series using 1-second-long time periods. What should happen if there is no value for the next second, e.g. there were ...
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### Equity Risk Model Using PCA

I'm trying to build a simple risk model for stocks using PCA. I've noticed that when my dimensions are larger than the number of observations (for example 1000 stocks but only 250 days of returns), ...
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### How to interpret the eigenmatrix from a Johansen cointegration test?

I ran a Johansen cointegration test on 3 instruments, A B and C. The results that I got are: R<=x | Test Stat | 90% | 95% | 99% r=0 --> 36.7 | 18.9 | 21.1 | 25.8 r=1 --> ...
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### Are two identical time series cointegrated?

I did cointegration test on two identical time series, and the result shows that they are not cointegrated, but intuitively, I think they are. Can anyone share some thoughts on this? Thanks!
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### Why does the VIX index have *any* correlation to the market?

It appears that the log 'returns' of the VIX index have a (negative) correlation to the log 'returns' of e.g. the S&P 500 index. The r-squared is on the order of 0.7. I thought VIX was supposed to ...
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### So many volatility models. Any comparisons of them?

Are there any papers that make an explicit contrast/comparison of the following (or other) vol models in terms of the suitability for addressing some empirical problem? Wavelet multiresolution ...
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### When should you build your own equity risk model?

Commercial risk models (e.g., Barra, Axioma, Barclays, Northfield) have evolved to a very high level of sophistication. However, all of these models attempt to solve a very broad set of problems. ...
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### Trading C++ Libraries

Are there any free c++ libraries that would have some of the functions that would be used in developing a trading strategy. For instance, calculating drawdown, Volatility Forecasting, MAE, MFE....etc. ...
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### Central Index Key (CIK) of all traded stocks

Is there a way by which I can get a list of CIK of all registered stocks at the SEC?
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### What is Ito's lemma used for in quantitative finance?

Further to my question asked here: prior post and which left some points unanswered, I have reformulated the question as follows: What is Ito's lemma used for in quantitative finance? and when is it ...
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### How to calculate the most realistic historical option prices with additional publicly available parameters

This is a follow up question of this one. My aim is to create the most realistic historical option prices possible with publicly available data. I want to do this for backtesting purposes. The ...
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### Library to solve optimization problems

I'm working with C# and I start being bored writing optimization algorithm. Do you know of any free library containing this sort of algorithms. In particular I'm cutrently working with Semidefit ...
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### Multi Fractals Models

From a quant point of view, how would you explain Multi Fractals Models in few words ? I have the level to take these courses, but won't be able to do it next year, so I want to know what I am ...
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### Trade execution in HFT - role of quants

What is the role of quants in trade execution in high frequency trading? AFAIR in "normal" trading trade execution is considered a very mundane task. What role can quantitative modelling play in trade ...
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### Shortcomings of generalized Brownian motion for asset price modelling

I'm simply interested on hearing some views on which shortcomings arise by using the (multidimensional) SDE $$dS(t)=S(t)\alpha(t,S(t))dt+S(t)\sigma(t,S(t))dW(t)$$ as a model for asset prices. I know ...
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### How are limit orders selected from the order book?

I'm sure there is a simple answer to this but I haven't had any luck with searches. I'm just wondering when someone places a market order which order(s) from the limit order book are selected to fill ...
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### What is the difference between Option Adjusted Spread (OAS) and Z-spread?

I am preparing for the CFA level 2 exam, I got confused by the concept Z-spread and OAS. When a call option is added to a bond, since it is not favorable to the bond buyer, they would require more ...
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### Data Synchronization

I'm working on market trends. I have daily prices for 33 assets from different markets. I was wondering if there is a way to cancel the effects of different opening/closing times. I have been told ...
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### How to value a floor when a loan is callable?

Certain bank loans pay a spread above a floating-rate interest rate (typically LIBOR) subject to a floor. I would like to find the value of this floor to the investor. Assume for this example that ...