# All Questions

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### Why do banks offer options? [closed]

I have only taken one introduction class in finance. However we came along opinions, their pricing, etc. We only contemplated being the buyer of a option. If everything works for you apparently you ...
734 views

### How to record tick data from Google/Yahoo Finance data streams?

Is there any way to record or piggyback with an app, code or excel Google finances' or Yahoo finance's data stream? Ideally, I need tick by tick data, as in every price change of the day. All the ...
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### How does Fed Qe affect the housing sales in the US? Why does it happen to be that way?

From my research, Fed's Qe should encourage house sales, however the graph shows houses price in the state seem to gradually go down after 2009. Isn't that contradicting itself? Ain't the increase in ...
74 views

### Interview questions pictures [closed]

I got this questions which is quite interesting, I am in a museum, there are 100 rooms (numbered from 1 to 100) in this museum and each room has a picture in it. I go visit each room in the ...
115 views

### How are referenced asset gains routed in a credit derivative?

Lets assume for the sake of the example that we are talking about a Total Return Swap. The flow diagram is something like this. Lets assume the Payer in this instance is a Hedge Fund, and the ...
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### Motivation: Stochastic Interest rate model

what is a reason that someone might be interested in a stochastic-interest model such as the Chen model? Also can you provide me with a link to an easy to read motivational paper/part of a paper on ...
171 views

### Validating a Credit Scoring Model without Data

Fellow Quants, Suppose you have a credit scoring model that is developed without the aid of statistics, because (unfortunately) there is no historical default/loss data in your portfolio. The ...
94 views

### Risk Manager must-know list

What are the products, concepts, and models a risk manager must know? I'm not looking for an exhaustive list, but rather a general list as the one in Paul & Dominic's Guide To Quant Careers: ...
72 views

### Brownian motion. Solve stoc. integral by using Ito's lemma

I want to show that following statement is true by using Ito's lemma to solve stochastic integrals: I define the functions in Ito's model: a()=0, b()= (2wt-2)^2. f(t)=Integrate[(2wt-2)^2] Then ...
41 views

### How to change to risk neutral measure in a mean reversion process?

For example, in the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process do I just replace the drift term with the risk free rate, like in the GBM case?
42 views

### Why is the forward rate used for the underlying in Black's model?

Why is the forward rate suitable for being used as the underlying in Black's model? Thanks
19 views

### How Current are Google Finance & YQL Sock Information

When viewing a specific stocks information on Google Finance and Yahoo Finance- how old/current is the stock information (Price, offer, bid, etc)? I've heard some providers offer information that is ...
233 views

### Present and future role of pricing quants

While looking up on quants, I came across many sources that cited 'pricing quants' as one of the biggest chunks among all quant positions. But then I also came across many software companies providing ...
18 views

### Question in the proof of “Optimization of conditional value-at-risk”

I'm reading the paper "Optimization of conditional value-at-risk" by Rockafellar and Uryasev. The state two theorems within the paper which are proven in the appendix. Let me introduce some notation ...
35 views

### Optimal Financing Mix: Cost of Capital Approach

According to Cost of Capital approach to optimal financing mix we can calculate Cost-of-Capital-minimizing $\frac{D}{E}$ ratio as follows: $\frac{D}{E}_{opt} = argmin_{\frac{D}{E}}WACC$, where ...
126 views

### Which one is best Performance evaluation measures?

I want to compare the performance of various volatility models like GARCH, eGARCH, and gjrGARCH from actual volatility(computed using high frequency data). I found 3 common performance evaluation ...
42 views

### How do derivatives affect capital structures?

Yesterday, I was at a lecture where the speaker said that the impact of derivatives was often to make senior debt, in effect, subordinated debt (in terms of priority, recovery rates, etc.)? How do ...
34 views

### BLS v2 API took 20+ minutes to publish data where is immediate data available?

First, I should state that I built a Java program that uses HTTP Components to keep in sync with server time for my broker. Once 7:29:59 comes around the program ...
314 views

### Why do volatility and correlation increase in times of crisis?

can somebody please explain to me why volatility and correlation increase in times of crisis? It is connected somehow to the herding effect. But I cannot really explain it. And also why are negative ...
102 views

### Sobol numbers in monte Carlo simulation

I wanted to figure how how much faster the Sobol quasi random numbers convergence to the B&S call price compared with pseudo random numbers. To generate the Sobol numbers I used the randtoolbox in ...
595 views

### How many monte carlo runs do I need for pricing a Call?

I have to price several calls using Monte Carlo. Obviously, there is a huge tradeoff between the number of runs and the fair price of the call option. I know I can check how the approximation changes ...
21 views

### Effect on variance of change of measure

My current understanding: (a) changing the probability measure of a diffusion process does not change the variance. (b) for a general stochastic process the variance may change. Please confirm whether ...
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### BDT model calibration using swaptions

I am using the Black-Derman-Toy model in a binomial tree that lasts 5 years with time increments of 1/12 . I have to calibrate my model using swaptions but I don't know which maturity I should use. I ...
68 views

### High values of skewness and kurtosis of realized protfolio returns

I am investigating some asset allocation strategies and I am wondering about the results I obtain. I am working on monthly and weekly data of the same stock indices (SP500, FTSE 100 etc). And when I ...