# All Questions

56 views

### Backtesting Period

Views on timeframes for backtesting vary considerably. Curious on what timeframe/trade size leads to a statistically significant result. For example, what backtest period is reasonable for a system ...
102 views

### Is the volatility of a trader's wealth equal to the volatility of the underlying assets traded?

Assume that a trader trades in several stocks with different volatilities. The return of the trader's portfolio would be the weighted average of returns and the risk would be a function of the the ...
58 views

### Value Weighted Return

I recently have started to look at some data from CRSP, and they have a metric called Value Weighted Return (two versions with and without distributions). When I looked it up, it seemed that this ...
85 views

### How to work out weights for a portfolio based on an inverse ratio with positive and negative values?

I am trying to work out how to determine weights for the assets in order to form a portfolio. The ratio I am using is EV/EBIT, hence the smaller the better. The problem is I don't know how to handle ...
98 views

### Effects of random-generator-choice on derivative's price

There is a plethora of pseudo-random-generators out there. Some of them are definetly better and some of them severily underperform. My standard tool is Mersenne Twister - when I need to generate ...
120 views

### Pricing options under restricted domain

How would I price an option when the underlying security is unable to trade above a certain price? I assumed this would be as simple as restricting the limits of integration of the PDF to B (the ...
63 views

### Reading XBRL Data from the SEC FTP SITE

After I ftp into the SEC Edgar site (ftp.sec.gov) I am able to pull the appropriate financial statements (i.e., 10-k, 10-q, 8-k, etc.) onto my local computer. However, when I go to open these files, I ...
131 views

### Definition of Return of A Long/short Portfolio

This can either be a silly question or a question with no sure rigorous answer but defined with some convention. Any way, here it is. What is the (industrial recognized) definition of the return of a ...
31 views

### How to determine the equiy interest of target company if there is circular ownership?

I would like to ask is there any way to determine the equity interest of target company if there is circular ownership. For example, suppose company A owns 50% of company B, company B owns 100% of ...
101 views

### Use of geometric mean for average return of several indices

Can anyone give any reference for using the geometric mean to average the returns from several indices? Note, this question is not about the usual use of geometric mean to obtain the average return ...
127 views

### Price of Bond given credit state matrix

"Consider a credit rating system consisting of four states, A,B,and D(default) with the following annual credit transition probability: A= [ 0.7, 0.2, 0.1; 0.2, 0.5,0.3; 0,0,1] For a company rated ...
30 views

### SEC XBRL Context Dates

In SEC XBRL financial filings, why do the date ranges for duration contexts not match the context's quarter? e.g. The markup for the context "D2012Q3" may look like: ...
59 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 ...
148 views

### Geometric Brownian motion - Volatility Interpretation (in the drift term)

A Geometric Brownian motion satisfying the SDE $dS_t = rS_t dt+\sigma S_t dW_t$ has the analytic solution $$S_t = S_0\exp\left\{\left(r-\frac{\sigma^2}{2}\right)t\right\}\exp\{\sigma W_t\}$$ Recently ...
119 views

### Backtesting with fundamentals

Recently I've read some books about quantative approach to fundamental investing: - What works on Wall Street - James O'Shaughnessy - Quantitative Value - Wesley Gray, Tobias Carlisle - Quantitative ...
28 views

### What type of interpolation should be used in key rate perturbation models?

When perturbing a key rate in order to assess sensitivity of portfolio value, what sort of interpolation is standard? A book I am looking at says linear, but this seems pretty unrealistic to me--and ...
31 views

### How to invest in Stocks without an intermediary [migrated]

I am looking to buy stocks but I would like to do so without a broker. From what I can tell, the exchanges are good ole boys clubs that require you know (or pay) someone inorder to participate. Am I ...
76 views

### Direct exchange data via a Vendor

I am considering the option between using direct exchange connections vs using a vendor like Bloomberg for market data. I am interested in daily data and potentially tick by tickdata. Initially I am ...
143 views

### Definition of orthogonality and independence for a stochastic processes

Somehow I can't find the explicit definition of when two processes are supposed to be orthogonal or independent anywhere. I think orthogonality and independence should mean the same thing in this ...
22 views

### Forward Yield curve for an arbitrary company

Let say I am analyzing a company XYZ. Credit rating for this company is BB. Now I need to have the 6-month forward Yield curve for this company. Can somebody help me how to find this information from ...
87 views

### Does one use the covariance or correlation matrix in cholesky decomposition to generate correlated samples

Can we interchangeably use Cholesky decomposition of covariance and correlation matrix to generate simulations? If not, in which situations do we use one or the other and why? Thanks in advance.
64 views

### Difference between VaR and credit VaR?

Quick question: is there a difference between credit VaR and VaR or are they the same thing?
252 views

### How is the MA (moving average model) useful?

How is the MA model useful in modeling financial data, for example the stock indices? For example, from what i understand in the AR (auto-regressive) model portion, we can use the ADF test to check ...
942 views

### Valuing Total Return Swaps

In my quest for simulated data, I am trying to generate prices for Total Return Swaps by calculating the NPVs of the fixed and floating leg. My problem: Given the fixed leg, how do I set the spread on ...
120 views

### Risk neutral Esscher transform of exponential Levy processes

Let $X_t$ be a Levy Process and $e^{X_t}$ the corresponding exponential Levy process. Using the Esscher transform for a change of measure for which the Radon-Nykodym derivative is ...
88 views

### Mock/practice trading for options (delta/gamma hedging etc.)

I know there are some sites for practicing equity investing. But could you provide me with suggestions concerning options trading etc. I read Natenbergs book on Options and want to test things like ...
34 views

### CAPM as pricing formula

P - price that the asset was purchased. Q - price that it was sold P = Q/(1+r+B(R_m - r)) What is the financial meaning of denominator. Thanks for help.
44 views

### Detrending before cointegration

When checking for co-integration , is it necessary to detrend the time series? What is the best way to go about it?
89 views

### Scaling of a transition matrix

I am working on a ratings transition matrix and I wondered how people scale it down to shorter time periods (although one should more or less stick to the estimation period i know). It is clear that ...
43 views

### How to setup quantlib

I installed the quantlib using vc11 but couldn't make it work. I did everything as the tutorial said https://quantcorner.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/installing-quantlib-for-vc11-windows/ And the ...
79 views

Given that $e^{r\Delta t}(u+d)-ud-e^{2r\Delta t} = \sigma^2\Delta t$ I would like to show that $u=e^{\sigma\sqrt{\Delta t}}$ I know I must somehow use Taylor's approximation $e^x = 1 + x + ... 3answers 493 views ### Convexity of BS Equation for Call and Put I have a simple question. Is the Black-Scholes Formula convex with respect to Implied volatility parameter$\sigma$(for calls or put) ? When I say Black-Scholes I mean for a call the following one ... 0answers 36 views ### Log returns vs Relativizing to Portfolio size of$1

In a current empirical research project, I am tracking a non-parametric measure of a transaction cost. To this extent, I track this cost in two ways Cost in terms of log returns Cost in terms of ...
126 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 ...
32 views

### evaluating portfolio performance without knowing the amount held on cash accounts

I would like to evaluate the performance of a portfolio mananger. I know his trades, and the initial portfolio holdings. I do not know, however the amount held on his cash account. That is, I ...
150 views

### How to incorporate fundamental analysis in quantitative trading algorithm? [closed]

I want to write a quantitative stock trading program based on fundamental analysis. It would crunch through prices, financial reports to look for value stocks. It can support backtesting of strategy ...
5k views

### What broker/feed/APIsetup allows for recording the most accurate data (cheaply)?

I'm currently using IB's Java API and getting feeds through them. However the real-time feed is updated only every 250ms and the historical feed only every second. I'm primarily looking for ES data ...
1k views

### Sources of Machine Readable News

I'm starting on a project that involves correlating and forecasting Forex time series to news releases. I'm aware of sources such as Thomson Reuter's machine readable news and Dow Jone's Newswire ...
185 views

### What does it mean by autocorrelation coefficient near 1?

It is said that the time series has a stochastic trend if the first autocorrelation coefficient will be near 1. Q1) What does it mean by the above statement? Q2) How do we calculate the first ...
119 views

### Delta hedging frequency for plain vanilla European options under trading costs

I am looking for methods to select points in time when delta hedging plain vanilla European options under trading costs. It is easy to come up with ad hoc ideas such as Time-based: for example at ...
108 views

### Calculate volatility from call option price

Given call option price, what is the simplest formula to get the volatility value ? Test Data: ...
136 views

### How do I calculate probability distribution of stock prices given option prices?

I'd like to calculate a probability distribution for prices given the option prices for that stock? Any ideas how to do this? My desire is to do this daily and then see how the price PD changes over ...
5k views

### Are there any good tools for back testing options strategies?

There are all kinds of tools for backtesting linear instruments (like stocks or stock indices). It is a completely different story when it comes to option strategies. Most of the tools used are ...
140 views

### Directional View of Volatility

What is an option strategy that someone could employ to simply go long/short volatility?? Assuming I want 0 delta(0 gamma if possible) risk in my option position, how do I take a directional view on ...
30 views

### Discount rate, convertible debt and the effect of time

The way I understand it is that there are three main parameters to a convertible debt investment. An investment amount A discount rate A trigger event Now under most of the examples I have seen, ...
14 views

### How can dividend protection be considered in the binomial model in pricing the convertible bond?

If the convertible bond has dividend-protection, how can we cater it in the binomial model? If there is dividend protection at or above 1%, can we impose input of dividend yield of 1% in the ...
2k views

### Data source for historical Share Outstanding totals for individual stocks?

Data is normally adjusted for splits/reverse splits, etc. The current shares outstanding is usually available. Is there a data repository that captures the shares outstanding for any point in the ...
39 views

### Which is the nearest town to London Gatwick [closed]

I have to spend twelve hours there every month awaitng a connection. The airport bars / shopping don't do it for me any more. Where's nearest decent sized town, and how long to get there / what cost ...
Given that $B=Ce^{-y} + Ce^{-2y}+ (100+C)e^{-3y}$ where B is the bond price, C is the coupon. and It is a 3 years annual coupon bond. I want to find $\frac{dD}{dC}$ where $D$ is the modified ...