All Questions

1k views

How to execute a large futures order?

I am currently trading futures products on some contracts that have low volumes. More accurately, the volumes of working orders in the book are fairly light. I am trying to execute a relatively large ...
735 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

Cleansing covariance matrices via Random matrix theory

I am exploring de-noising and cleansing of covariance matrices via Random Matrix Theory. RMT is a competitor to shrinkage methods of covariance estimation. There are various methods expressed usually ...
2k 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 ...
3k views

What is an efficient data structure to model order book?

What is an efficient data structure to model order book of prices and quantities to ensure: constant look up iteration in order of prices retrieving best bid and ask in constant time fast quantity ...
4k views

How to build a mean reverting basket?

I have been playing with mean reverting pairs, but seems that most of the low hanging fruit (ie pairs) have been squeezed already. I would like to start with mean reverting baskets (>2 securities) in ...
1k views

Self-financing and Black-Scholes-Merton formula

Self-financing is an important concept in financial product replicating, normally used in pricing. I read about several ways to derive Black-Scholes-Merton (BSM) formula. Seems some approaches ...
3k views

Book on market microstructure

Can I get some recommendations for a book on market microstructure? I'm not looking for some author's questionable methods for trading, I'm just looking for a book that provides me with facts about ...
2k views

Modelling with negative interest rates

For a project, I am interested to model the impact of recently negative interest bonds on the portfolio. The literature on modelling negative interest rates is limited, and the only theory I could ...
1k 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 ...
6k views

What is a martingale?

What is a martingale and how it compares with a random walk in the context of the Efficient Market Hypothesis?
1k views

What is the relationship between risk aversion and preference for skewness and kurtosis in portfolio optimization?

Is there any relationship between the risk aversion coefficient in an individual's utility function (commonly used in portfolio optimization) and the preference for higher moments such as skewness and ...
2k views

What is the ideal ratio of in-sample length to out-of-sample length?

Suppose you are running a portfolio of quantitative strategies and that you develop a new potential strategy to be added to the mix. Assume for simplicity that the new strategy is independent of the ...
3k views

How can I learn about the quantitative aspects of market making in illiquid single stock options?

I would like to learn more about the possible ways of doing quantitative research regarding option market making. In particular, while the mainstream index option market may be very liquid, the ...
2k views

What are the steps to perform properly a risk factor analysis on a portfolio?

I have been asked to perform a factor analysis on a given portfolio, assume it's a Swiss portfolio in CHF. First step, I chose which factors I would like to see in my analysis. The first factors I ...
50k views

How to calculate unsystematic risk?

We know that there are 2 types of risk which are systematic and unsystematic risk. Systematic risk can be estimate through the calculation of β in CAPM formula. But how can we estimate the ...
445 views

Min VaR and Min TE as second order cone program

The quadratic optimization (min variance) $$w^{T} \Sigma w \rightarrow \text{min},$$ where $w$ is the vector of portfolio weights and $\Sigma$ is the covariance matrix of asset returns, is a well ...
1k views

Automated 10-K XBRL data grab using the SEC file structure

I would like to write a program that takes as input a list of CIK/year/quarter entries. The program should iterate through the list and, for each entry, grab XBRL financial data from the SEC website ...
7k views

Where can I find some examples of high frequency or stat arb trading algorithms beyond basic textbook pairs trading?

In particular, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_trading#Algorithms has several name algorithms. I understand most HFT algorithms are proprietary but I am looking for examples of HFT ...
2k views

Is there any theoretical basis for pattern-recognition strategies?

Mean-reversion and trend-following strategies have some kind of a theory behind them that explains why they might work, if implemented well. Pattern-recognition, on the other hand, seems like nothing ...
798 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 ...
1k views

Measuring liquidity

While liquidity is one of the key figure of financial markets, It seems to be very difficult to measure. Volume is sometime used as a proxy but can sometimes be completly irrelevant. Could you point ...
5k views

Why do we use GARCH(1,1) to predict volatility?

What makes GARCH(1,1) so prevalent in modeling especially in academia? What does this model has that is significantly better than the others?
684 views

What techniques are used for testing order book implementations?

I am finishing the implementation of a limit order book for modeling NASDAQ. The order book works off of the ITCH feed. My question is what techniques are typically used for testing order books. I am ...
5k views

Analyzing tick data

What are some of the commonly used techniques to analyze tick data? I am looking at tick data to see how the quotes/ mid-price evolves due to certain events in the market. Since tick data is ...