# All Questions

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### Pricing a bond with variable strike collar with QuantLibXL

I am trying to price a floating rate bond with a capped and floored interest rate. The strikes of the caps and floors vary, but are known in advance. I am trying to do this with QuantLibXL, but I am ...
49 views

### Ex-Ante tracking error how to determine the look back period

I am looking to compare the ex-ante predictions against the post values. I am using a look back period of ranges from 1 year to 5 years to construct my covariance matrix that I am using for my ex-ante ...
26 views

### Minimum PD under Basel II retail asset?

I have been told that under Basel II the minimum PD that one can assign to any portfolio/segment classified under the retail asset class is 0.33%. But Google searches return nothing and I can't seem ...
124 views

### Normally Distributed Returns Become Leptokurtic Due to Compounding

I was running a bunch of simple simulations in excel the other day in excel. Using the NORM.INV(RAND(),0,1) to simulate daily stock returns I noticed that the more compounded the returns, ie, the more ...
36 views

### How do I determine what is a separate objective in a multi-objective portfolio optimization?

Is there a general rule to determining when to separate objectives when developing a multi-objective portfolio optimization? For example, one might start with a standard portfolio optimization of ...
15 views

### Cost dependency quantification

Suppose one wants to estimate the manufacturing costs dependence of the price of a specific raw commodity, are there good quantitative methods for making such estimation? I'm interested in creating a ...
118 views

### Why was NASDAQ(or other index) not fluctuating in 70s and 80s?

Today I have a search of historical NASDAQ back to 70s and noticed the index was slightly increasing in 70s-early 90s and rising up and down in recent decade of years. Why would that happen? The only ...
93 views

### Sharpe Ratio and time spent in loss

Is it possible to express, given an annualized Sharpe Ratio value, what is an expected maximum/average time spent in a draw-down or something in this manner? E.g. with SR of 10, you'd expect to spend ...
69 views

### Pricing a piece of asset whose dividend stream following a Markovian matrix

I'm trying to calculate the result of an simple example on page 326-327, in Harrison and Kreps(1978). It's pricing a piece of asset whose dividend stream is a simple Markovian process. Here's my ...
89 views

### Critique against consumption-based asset pricing theory?

I find asset pricing theory very vague and full of assumptions, especially the consumption-based modern theory. In its essence, the theory states that asset prices depend on the covariance between ...
57 views

### Econometrics - Testing

If we have a time series of returns and two time series of indicators, how would we test the use of these indicators if they are autocorrelated or nonstationary (VAR Models dont produce significant ...
36 views

### Econometrics - Granger Causality

Suppose we have two time series, if one has autocorrelations and the other is non stationary how do we test whether they Granger cause a returns series?
78 views

### Volatility tools / web sites?

Could someone give recommendations regarding volatility tools / web sites that they find useful? I am looking for information that my brokerage platform does not provide. Specifically, I want to see ...
114 views

### Optimal lag length selection criterion in GARCH(p,q) model using MATLAB

As assessed by the title, I'm trying to estimate a GARCH(p,q) model to forecast stock market volatility and, in order to be able to do that, I've to identify the optimal number of lags, p and q, to ...
88 views

### Optimal Executions for Minimizing Slippage

There has been a considerable body of work for finding trading strategies that minimize the slippage wrt arrival price. For instance, the following are on of the most well known papers: [1] Robert ...
144 views

### Call option on a Mutual Fund

I am trying to price a call option on a mutual fund. Given the lack of market implied data, I am going to estimate the fund´s expected volatility using as a reference its historical volatility ...
58 views

### Standard way to represent trend in an a-dimensional way [closed]

Let us suppose that a factory needs to know when certain products are increasing the profit. This factory produces an huge number of products each with different targets. So the factory need to ...
314 views

### Why does it “say” portfolio diversification not suitable during market turmoil?

Currently I am trying to get a hold of MPT, asset allocation and related applications. While reading a particular resource, it says diversification works best for "normal" financial markets and ...
34 views

### Is there evidence that illiquid stocks, held less by institutions, have more price momentum?

(One of) the standard explanation people gave for momentum is under-reaction of stockholders to firm-specific news. If this is true, then it seems that these stocks should have more momentum, and ...
77 views

### Looking for a pricing library supporting Mutli-curve Framework

I am looking for a builder of Yield curves by tenors (O/N, 1M, 3M, 6M, 12M) respect to a given discount curve based on multi-curve framework as described below : Interest-rate Modelling with Multiple ...
48 views

### What is the algorithm for the Fama-Bliss instrument selection?

Fama-Bliss discount bonds are defined through a straight forward calculation (Famma, Bliss 1987). For the purposes of a project I need to derive forward rates, yields &c. for periods not included ...
84 views

### How to perform significance test on transition matrices

Say you have in your hand a transition matrix published by Moody, and you also collected the rating information for a sample of bonds, which you use to form your own transition matrix. How can we use ...
94 views

### Implied probability density (Question 2 - Applications and Interpretation)

Using the second derivative of the Call-Option-Price one can try to recover the pricing density. Formally: Assuming a constant interst rate $r$ and also not making any assumptions on the model ...
22 views

### Tracking delistings on NASDAQ & NYSE

Does anyone know of a webpage (or webpages) of current delistings for NASDAQ & NYSE?
249 views

### How are HFT systems implemented on FPGA nowadays?

I have read about different implementations of HFT systems on FPGAs. Argon HFT system (http://trading-gurus.com/argon-design-an-fpga-based-hft-platform/) Hardware-only implementations or hybrid ...
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### Compute the average efficient frontiers with estimated parameters from generated time series

My overall objective is to analyse the impact of error in mean-variance analysis from historical data. I am given the returns and standard deviation for the five assets under consideration, as well as ...
79 views

### Monte Carlo American Option Pricing under GARCH(1,1) volatitliy

I am attempting to price a couple of at-the-money American option using the LSM algorithm and GARCH(1,1) volatility. The LSM code I have works correctly for constant volatility, however, when I switch ...
44 views

### Fitting Egarch Model

I am performing a monte-carlo simulation in MATLAB for the first order EGARCH model in which case I am simulating 100 paths of size 500 assuming Gaussian and Student's-t distributions for the ...
84 views

### Implied state price density (Question 1 - derivation of the formula)

I came upon the term "implied state price density" in a couple of papers. As far as I understand the concept one basically tries to extract the "pricing density" from the market data. For the sake ...
32 views

### Who is the issuer and the counter part of this instrument?

I have the following SWAP contract : T1UH4 which is a 2-Year Deliverable Interest Rate Swap. Product info : ...
51 views

### The Public Market Equivalent measure in private equity

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Public Market Equivalent measure in private equity? Why is it that the volatility of the cash flows do not matter? This topic has been discussed in a ...
62 views

### Wiener process proof

Can someone prove to me how $dW_t=W_t-W_s$, where $t=s+1$, the difference of the Wiener process eventually equates to $dW_t=z*(dt)^{(1/2)}$ where $z$ is standard normal, $N(0,1)$ in the following ...
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### Attributing change in yield as a result of structural change

Suppose your portfolio has $w_0$ amount of bonds with yield $r_0$. Now you buy additional $w_1$ amount of bonds with yield $r_1$, then buy additional $w_2$ amount of bonds with yield $r_2$. ...
239 views

### Is Behavioral Finance relevant to quants?

This topic has been prompted by the following question: Measuring Behavioral Finance Effects in Fund/Portfolio Manager Analysis After reading it and the comments below I started thinking whether ...
55 views

### Volatility Minimum Analysis for Trading

I have been back testing some algorithms against a low volume highly volatile stock. I've found that during low volatile periods the technical indicators are following noise more than real trends. ...
62 views

### What's the underlying idea of definition of constrained market in Skiadas' Asset Pricing Theory?

I'm self-studying Skiadas' Asset Pricing Theory, and find the definition of constrained market on page 21 confusing(you can find it here in the sample chapter). Deﬁnition 1.26. A constrained ...
26 views

### Approaches to check/validate the output of an optimization algorithm

Let's say we want to optimize the a function $f(x_1,\dots, x_n)$ with $(x_1, \dots , x_n) \in \mathbb{D}^n$. For the sake of simplicity let $\mathbb{D}^n$ be the unit sphere. We chose an optimization ...
25 views

### measuring the performance of round-trips on stocks

can you provide me with some ideas to assess the profitability of round-trips? That is when I buy 100 shares of IBM at 10\$and I resell them two days later at 11\$, how can I measure the profit made? ...
151 views

### Do intraday volume and volatility share the same properties?

volatility clustering and mean reversion are very well known properties that one could use when trading. Traders, especially in options world, do take realized vol into account (e.g. by forecasting it ...
50 views

### regarding Basel III IRB method for credit risk

Would the exposures between standard method and internal rating based method for credit risk under Basel III remain same?I could not find any documents for IRB approach under Basel III. Is it still ...
45 views

### What would be an alternative if the VaR model is not acceptable?

Assume we have a VaR model wich says : the lost should not exceed X for more 3 days and we come up with more days where the lost exceeded X, what is usually done for the VaR model ? Do we switch to ...
81 views

### 3 Factor HJM model, do these factors have an economic meaning?

In the HJM model, in case we have 3 factors, do these factors have an economic meaning at all ?
56 views

### Zakamouline Optimal Hedging of Options with Transaction Costs

I've read that the Zakamouline method suggests the best optimal hedging of options when taking transaction costs into account. I've read the article but am having difficulty understanding it well ...
156 views

### Delta Neutral / Gamma Neutral Positions

I've been trying to find out more about options positions which are both delta neutral and gamma neutral--created with some kind of calendar spread. Supposedly, such a trade will be perfectly hedged ...
55 views

### How to backtest the VaR model?

I have a sorted historical P&L vector of 250 days and say, I want to calculate the 90% VaR on this distribution. I will look for the 225 element (90% * 250 = 225) and this will be my Value at ...
307 views

### An alternative to the Gaussian distribution to describe/fit market stock returns

After the financial crisis in 2008, many people (including me) don't really believe that stock returns can be described in terms of the normal distribution (Gaussian distribution). But besides the ...