# All Questions

3k views

### Free paper trading site with an API

I've got a quanitative trading model I want to test out in the real stock market. Right now, I'm writing some code to pull "live" quotes from yahoo, feed them to my model, and keep track of the ...
459 views

### Who has introduced the term 'vega' and why?

The sensitivity of the option value $V$ to volatility $\sigma$ (a.k.a. vega) is different from the other greeks. It is a derivative with respect to a parameter and not a variable. To quote from Paul ...
982 views

### Is there a way to estimate (predict) the half life of a quantitative trading system?

Usually even good performing quant trading strategies work for a while and then return start to shrink. I see two reasons for that which would probably give rise to different analysis: The Strategy ...
824 views

### Portfolio optimization with monte carlo sampling from predictive distribution

Let's say we have a predictive distribution of expected returns for N assets. The distribution is not normal. We can interpret the dispersion in the distribution as reflection of our uncertainty (or ...
542 views

### Parameter estimation of Ornstein–Uhlenbeck and CIR processes

I would like to estimate Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process' parameters via Kalman filter. My process is the following one: $\text{d}x_{t}=\alpha(\theta-x_{t})\text{d}t+\sigma\text{d}W_{t}$ I'm interested ...
1k views

### Good quant finance jokes

Have a good quant joke? Share it here. The principle "should be of interest to quants" trumps. I would be particularly keen to learn jokes which involve some nontrivial finance/mathematics. I am ...
2k views

### What C++ math libraries are typically used by quants?

Before you mark question as off-topic, please read it - it is, actually, quant-related. Basically, I'm working on an app that spits out a lot of C++ math. When it comes to simple things like ...
6k views

### 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?
4k views

### What is the “delta” option quoting convention about?

At my work I often see option prices or vols quoted against deltas rather than against strikes. For example for March 2013 Zinc options I might see 5 quotes available for deltas as follows: ...
1k views

### How do we use option price models (like Black-Scholes Model) to make money in practice?

In quantitative finance, we know we have a lot of option price models such as geometric Brownian motion model (Black-Scholes models), stochastic volatility model (Heston), jump diffusion models and so ...
6k views

### Correlation between prices or returns?

If you are interested in determining whether there is a correlation between the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet and PPI, would you calculate the correlation between values (prices) or period-to-period ...
686 views

### Approximately what proportion of a stock’s volatility is explained by market movement?

Assume we decompose the daily (log) returns of a stock as beta times market movement plus an idiosyncratic part. If this is done ex-ante, what proportion of the variance is explained by the market ...
5k views

### Python library for Portfolio Optimization

Does anyone know of a python library/source that is able to calculate the traditional mean-variance portfolio? To press my luck, any resources where the library/source also contains functions such as ...
2k views

### What type of analysis is appropriate for assessing the performance time-series forecasts?

When using time-series analysis to forecast some type of value, what types of error analysis are worth considering when trying to determine which models are appropriate. One of the big issues that ...
170 views

### How reliable is Benford's Law in forecasting crises?

I was recently reading an article about how financial accounting has increasingly deviated from the ratios expected by Benford's Law. (Benford's Law and Decreasing Reliability). The author discusses ...
631 views

### Duality between constant rebalanced portfolio (CRP) and corresponding derivative

One of the greatest achievements of modern option pricing theory is finding corresponding dynamical trading strategies in linear instruments with which you can replicate and by that price derivative ...
2k views

### Transformation from the Black-Scholes differential equation to the diffusion equation - and back

I know the derivation of the Black-Scholes differential equation and I understand (most of) the solution of the diffusion equation. What I am missing is the transformation from the Black-Scholes ...
616 views

### How do you distinguish “significant” moves from noise?

How do you distinguish between losses that are within the normal range for day-to-day shifts and situations with a real potential for loss? The specific application I have in mind is pattern ...
1k views

### George Soros models

Mr. Soros in his books talked about principles which are not used by today's financial mathematics — namely reflexivity of all actions on the market. Simply it can be given by following: ...
1k views

### Does mean-variance portfolio optimization provide a real edge to those who use it?

Mean-variance optimization (MVO) is a 50+ year concept, and perhaps the first seminal idea of quantitative finance. Still, as far as I know, less than 25% of AUM in the US is quantitatively managed. ...
603 views

### Concentration risk in credit portfolio

How do you model concentration risk of credit portfolio in IRB/Basel II framework?
3k views

### Free market data (delayed or snapshot)

I know there are similar questions but I don't think there are any identical ones. Basically, I'm looking for one of these two things. Delayed market data feed. A tick by tick feed, but delayed by ...
927 views

### Is there a standard method for getting a continuous time series from futures data?

I would like to be able to analyse futures prices as one continuous time series, so what kinds of methods exist for combining the prices for the various delivery dates into a single time series? I am ...
667 views

### Why isn't the Nelson-Siegel model arbitrage-free?

Assume $X_t$ is a multivariate Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, i.e. $$dX_t=\sigma dB_t-AX_tdt$$ and the spot interest rate evolves by the following equation: $$r_t=a+b\cdot X_t.$$ After solving for $X_t$ ...
378 views

### What should be considered when selecting a windowing function when smoothing a time series?

If one wants to smooth a time series using a window function such as Hanning, Hamming, Blackman etc. what are the considerations for favouring any one window over another?
4k views

### What is the intuition behind cointegration?

What is the intuition behind cointegration? What does the Dickey-Fuller test do to test for it? Ideally, a non-technical explanation would be appreciated. Say you need to explain it to an investor ...
6k views

### 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 ...
3k views

### Proof that you cannot beat a random walk

There is much speculation to what degree financial series are random (and what kind of randomness prevails). I want to turn the question on its head and ask: Is there a mathematical proof that ...
736 views

### Setting the r in put-call parity?

Put-call parity is given by $C + Ke^{-r(T-t)} = P + S$. The variables $C$, $P$ and $S$ are directly observable in the market place. $T-t$ follows by the contract specification. The variable $r$ is ...
3k views

### What is the best data structure/implementation for representing a time series?

I was wondering what is best practice for representing elements in a time series, especially with large amounts of data. The focus/context is in a back testing engine and comparing multiple series. ...
1k views

### is beta of a portfolio always meaningful?

Consider the following strategies: a stat arb strategy with no overnight exposure, but significant market exposure intraday. a market timing model which is always long or short the market. etc is ...
892 views

### HFT: What is the big differentiator in comparison to other time scales?

High Frequency Trading (HFT) seems to be the big money making mystery machine these days. The purported source of unlimited floods of gelt pouring into the investment shops using it. For me, HFT is ...
7k views

### Why are GARCH models used to forecast volatility if residuals are often correlated?

The answers to this question on forecast assessment suggest that if the sequence of residuals from the forecast are not properly independent, then the model is missing something and further changes ...
729 views

### What are the limitations of Gaussian copulas in respect to pricing credit derivatives?

The practice of using Gaussian copulas in modeling credit derivatives has come under a lot of criticism in the past few years. What are the major arguments against using the copula method in this ...
625 views

### Machine Learning vs Regression and/or Why still use the latter?

I come from a different field (Machine learning/AI/data science), but aim to ask a philosophical question with the utmost respect: Why do quantitative financial analysts (analysts/traders/etc.) prefer ...
1k views

### Why are options trades supposed to be delta-neutral?

I'm reading Natenberg's book, and he says that all options trades should be delta neutral. I understand that this prevents small changes in the underlying price from changing the price of the option, ...
2k views

### 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!
693 views

### How to account for transaction costs in a simulated market environment?

I am simulating a market for my trading system. I have no ask-bid prices in my dataset and use adjusted close for both buy and sell price. To account for this I plan to use a relative transaction ...
1k views

### How to encode trading strategies mathematically

If you have a bunch of different econometric data (e.g. indexes, FX, commodities, interest rates...) you can try to find a formula to see if there is any relationship in the data - e.g. to forecast ...
1k 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 ...
2k views

### portfolio optimisation with VaR (or CVaR) constraints

I would like to optimize a portfolio allocation (maximizing the exposure or the expected return), but with VaR or CVaR contraints. (some parts of my portfolio cannot exceed a certain VaR) How can I ...
534 views

### Can you fully hedge an option in the presence of counterparty risk?

The derivation of the Black-Scholes model assumes no counterparty risk. Does the presence of counterparty risk invalidate the argument behind the model? EDIT: The question is about options in ...
3k views

### Probability of touching

For a vanilla option, I know that the probability of the option expiring in the money is simply the delta of the option... but how would I calculate the probability, without doing monte carlo, of the ...
3k views

### data on historical stock price of bankrupt companies

does anybody know a site where I can download historical data on stocks including companies that have gone bankrupt such as lehman brothers? it appears that bankrupt companies no longer appear in the ...
3k views

### What are the best sources for equity quantitative research?

What are the best sources of quantitative finance research in equities? I will list a couple and note an asterisk if the research is available by request (i.e. non-clients) or online: BAC-Merrill ...
4k views

### 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 --> ...
541 views

### How to price a volatility-index option?

There exist several volatility indices, such as the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX). There are also options on such indicies. What is the best way to price a volatility-index option? Is there a simple ...
649 views

### Discrete-time model: stock dynamics

I am working in the area of probability theory and for a case study I would like to make some calculations in finance. Since I am developing theory for the discrete time, I am interested in models for ...