# All Questions

1answer
305 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 ...
8answers
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 ...
0answers
244 views

### How to calculate time-segmented volume? [closed]

amibrokers has this calculation for TSV: ...
0answers
379 views

### What is the correct procedure to choose the lag when preforming Johansen cointegration test?

When preforming Johansen cointegration test for 2 time series (the simple case) you need to decide the lag you want to use. Doing the test for different lag levels returns different results: for some ...
1answer
198 views

### RMT (Random Matrix Theory) issue with callibrating MP distribution -

I am seeing an issue when callibrating an MP distribution. Assume a log return series for the SP500 with the following dimensions dim(xts.sp500.ret.stocksonly) ==> [1] 1133 478 ...
3answers
500 views

### Does random matrix theory (RMT) for returns' correlation matrices apply if there are high correlations?

Steps to replicate: Take the correlation matrix of a sample of stocks in the SP500, or a set of ETF's that are include some that are highly correlated (0.7 and above). Problem observed: I observe ...
1answer
675 views

### How to use macroeconomic indicators for long/short trading strategies?

I am trying to understand how to use macroeconomic data in my trading. I understand that using such data could be used to gauge an overall view of the market and how it's doing as a whole. I have been ...
1answer
357 views

### Can duration gap analysis be applied to mortgages?

Can a mortgage loan be treated like a bond and its duration calculated using the bond duration formula? More precisely, can I calculate the loan portfolio duration for duration gap analysis, with ...
1answer
527 views

### How does “time segmented volume” differ from on-balance volume?

Worden Brothers Inc. advertise a proprietary indicator called Time Segmented Volume. This gizmo seems closely to resemble On Balance Volume. Is there any reason to think that TSV might yield a more ...
2answers
578 views

### Can we replicate a call option without borrowing and make it cheaper in this way?

I learned how to price a European call option using this video lecture. The considered case is very simple. The call option gives the right to buy 100 Euros for 100 Dollars in one month from now. The ...
1answer
371 views

### Any research paper on stop loss?

Has there been any rigorous study on stop loss ? When to apply it? Has it been shown to work through proper statistical backtests? I am interested in Equities, preferably European stocks.
2answers
482 views

### What benchmark/index to use for backtesting a portfolio of stock options?

What benchmark should I use for backtesting a model for when I should buy an option of a particular stock? For equities, one could say their portfolio outperformed the S&P 500. I would like to ...
5answers
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 ...
1answer
404 views

### What is the optimal strategy when there is an equal chance for gain or loss but the size of the potential gain is larger?

I'm investigating a situation where the chance for gain or loss is the same, but the amount gained is greater than the amount that is lost. For example, the gain would be about 30% of the trade ...
1answer
497 views

### 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 ...
0answers
167 views

### Can a higher P/E ratio be beneficial under certain circumstances? [closed]

I am new to investing. I understand that the P/E ratio along with other data can be used to determine whether a stock may or may not be undervalued. Are there situations where a HIGH P/E is actually ...
2answers
552 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 ...
0answers
1k views

### 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 ...
3answers
1k views

### Is equity market making a game of speed?

I have always felt that equity market making was a speed game for HFTs. But recently I talked to someone on the buy side, who made a claim to the contrary. He argued that with the right market making ...
5answers
615 views

### How can higher co-moments be applied to portfolio optimization in an asset allocation context?

Traditional portfolio optimization involves mean variance optimization, where only the mean and covariance matrix of returns are estimated. What asset allocation and portfolio optimization techniques ...
3answers
453 views

### How to account for jumps in intraday data when calculating beta?

I am calculating betas on intraday trade data at 15-minute intervals. For simplicity sake, let's assume I am modeling $$Y = \beta * X + c$$ where $Y$ is the return of XLF ...
3answers
1k views

### Why do expected return models and risk models use different factors?

This is a question responding to weekly topic challenge. I happen to see an interesting question from SYMMYS by Michael Kapler. I always approached expected return and risk modeling as separate ...
3answers
2k views

### How do you mix quantitative asset allocation with qualitative views?

Usually in asset allocation you have a quantitative approach (which can be from example mean-variance), but you (or you and your firm) also have a more qualitative approach given market-conditions, ...
1answer
140 views

### Are there quantitative models which can guide one's choice of target risk?

Note: This question was written for the weekly topic challenge. Many asset allocation funds presume the investor knows his target risk level, typically on some spectrum from conservative (mostly G7 ...
3answers
498 views

### How do you remove expected returns from asset allocation strategies?

The classic mean-variance optimization problem tries to minimize variance of a portfolio for a given expected return:  \underset{w}{\arg \min} \quad w^T \Sigma w \quad \text{s.t} \quad \mu^Tw \geq ...
3answers
852 views

### What are some of the major quantitative approaches to tactical asset allocation?

Note: This question was written for the weekly topic challenge. Many of you who deal with asset allocation will probably already be familiar with Mebane Faber's Timing Model, based on one of SSRN's ...
1answer
165 views

### accumulation/distribution and options to create excessive position to hit the tape with later

I am curious about possibilities and theory here. Basically a "problem" with trying to get large positions is that it would move the market in the direction that you are loading up on, therefore ...
1answer
275 views

### Econometric vs ANN models for forecast?

I hope this is an appropriate question for this forum... for me it is an obvious query since it intrigues me for a long time. Ok, assume there are 2 distinct classes of models: econometric (AR, MA, ...
2answers
226 views

### Which indices to use for an equity vs. fixed-income portfolio simulation?

I want to backtest several basic optimization methods (e.g. MVO, "most-diversified portfolio"), and I want to do this on a basket of different asset indexes. To start with, I want to simulate a 60/40 ...
2answers
1k views

### Why a self-financing replicating portfolio should always exist?

According to my understanding the derivation of the Black-Scholes PDE is based on the assumption that the price of the option should change in time in such a way that it should be possible to ...
2answers
580 views

### What quantitative strategies were successful through the 2008 crisis?

Obviously, strategies like "short everything" did well during this period, but getting the future right is one thing and having a robust strategy is another. In particular, many quantitative ...
1answer
549 views

### How to 'calibrate' simple pricing models for equity index options and equity options?

I am interested in doing some research on plain vanilla equity options and equity index options. I have historical data for these options. I also happen to have market maker 'fair price' (bid and ask) ...
4answers
1k views

### How does an option's time value depend on moneyness?

How does an option's time value (also known as extrinsic or instrumental value) depend on how far it is in the money or out of the money? In other words, how does the time value change as the ...
3answers
293 views

### How to improve the consistency of explained variance statistics in a linear equity model?

I have an intraday equity returns linear model that, overall, shows good values in terms of $R^2$, p-value and other explained variance statistics. Around 70% of the stocks show consistent R-squared ...
1answer
1k views

### Why is the first principal component a proxy for the market portfolio, and what other proxies exist?

Let's say that I have a universe of stocks from a certain sector. I want to compute the market portfolio of this sector. Beta is the covariance between each stock and the market. But how do you ...
4answers
875 views

### True or False? An option's price will always be greater than or equal to its intrinsic value

Since if the option's price is lower than its intrinsic value (eg. strike price - current stock price for puts), then an arbitrage opportunity arises from buying the option at bargain and then ...
0answers
122 views

### What is the relation between return volatility and return rank volatility, and how can I control the latter?

I have no experience in finance, but I've been playing around with a virtual portfolio. I'm trying to control the "rank volatility" distribution - that is, the volatility of a stock's daily rank in ...
1answer
346 views

### What are some “Must Know” investment/portfolio management theories out there?

What are the most important portfolio management theories you must know in order to competently manage an investment portfolio? In order to keep the topic focused, I would like to narrow down the set ...
2answers
300 views

### Which interest rate should I use for the discount rate in real-world pricing?

Suppose I want to compute the time value of money (present value, future value, etc). I need to put an interest rate into the calculation. Which real world interest rate would best be used here, ...
2answers
1k views

### How to apply risk-parity portfolio construction to a dollar-neutral portfolio?

Long-only risk-parity portfolios have proliferated in recent years. An optimized long-only risk-parity portfolio requires that the asset weight * marginal contribution to risk of the asset is ...
3answers
416 views

### How to test for and how to simulate price rise/fall asymmetry in the stock market

One of the stylized facts of financial time series seems to be a fundamental asymmetry between smooth upward movements over longer periods of time followed by abrupt declines over relatively shorter ...
5answers
517 views

### how expected moves are priced into options

I understand that expected price changes of underlying assets are usually priced into options, but I don't understand how. For instance, before upcoming earning reports the option values are inflated ...
1answer
2k views

### What is a self-financing and replicating portfolio?

I try to understand the derivation of the Black-Scholes equation based on the "constructing a replicating portfolio". From mathematical point of view it looks simple. We assume that: Stock prices ...
1answer
636 views

### How to hedge a bull call spread

I am trying to make a theoretical hedge to a bull call spread. (buy out the money call, sell further out the money call) What I have now is almost effective but there is one possible 80% loss ...
3answers
586 views

### What are the limits of bond portfolio immunization against interest rate changes?

I'm currently reading through an article on bond portfolio immunization against changes in the interest rate. I learned that the immunization can be done against instant changes in interest rate ...
1answer
363 views

### Simulating conditional expectations

There is a multidimensional process X defined via its SDE (we can assume that its a diffusion type process), and lets define another process by $g_t = E[G(X_T)|X_t]$ for $t\leq T$. I would like to ...
1answer
121 views

### Simulating property price index

I am trying to write a Monte Carlo simulation to calculate risk associated with some property based products. What is the most reasonable stochastic process to model property price index? Do people ...
1answer
335 views

### Linear regression and assets direction prediction

I have the following asset returns Y and the predictions for the same periods Y': Y = { 10, 200, -1000, -1, -7 } Y' = { 1, 2, -3, -4, -5 } The OLR R-squared for ...
3answers
301 views

### How to account for market movement when some exchanges are closed?

Daily data, such as open and close prices, is often available for much longer periods than high-frequency data. However, whenever backtesting any strategy that examines instruments traded in different ...
1answer
345 views

### How do you estimate the volatility of a sample when points are irregularly spaced?

I was looking again at this question which basically haunts every quant I believe, and I was thinking about the effect of these gaps when computing volatility of the series. Let's define the problem ...

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