# All Questions

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### Malliavin Calculus

From a quant point of view, how would you explain Malliavin calculus in few words ? I have the level to take these courses, but won't be able to do it next year, so I want to know what I am missing. ...
2k views

### QuantLib in industry

How much is QuantLib used in industry and how much street cred does it have?
1k 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 ...
1k 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 ...
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 ...
1k views

### Hedging stocks with VIX futures

It seems that VIX futures could be a great hedge for a long-only stock portfolio since they rise when stocks fall. But how many VIX futures should I buy to hedge my portfolio, and which futures ...
1k 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 ...
620 views

### Minimizing Correlation

Is there a quantitative method in monitoring trades to reduce the possibility of correlated trades?
2k views

### Difference between google finance and yahoo finance?

I am wondering about the huge differences of the data provider google finance and yahoo finance. I am interested in the monthly data from adidas listed on xetra. In google: ETR:ADS and in yahoo ...
2k views

### Which algorithm should I look into to kick off my research in algorithmic trading? [closed]

I have recently undertaken a research into automated algorithmic trading algorithms. The aim of the research is to focus on studying algorithmic trading and trying to improve a basic implementation ...
2k views

### SPX options vs VIX futures trading

Forward volatility implied by SPX options, and that of VIX futures get out of line. If there existed VIX SQUARED futures they could easily be replicated (and arbitraged) with a strip of SPX options. ...
243 views

### What are the canonical books for statistics applied to finance?

I have some decent knowledge of probability, stochastic processes and option theory, however I do not have a proper background in statistics. Now I am working quite a lot with data, and trying ...
1k views

### A generic limit order book: What are the most important queries it should be able to answer?

Assume a class LimitOrderBook which represents a limit order book in a trading system. To be able to represent the limit order book a data handler reads a feed ...
10k views

### How to fit ARMA+GARCH Model In R?

I am currently working on ARMA+GARCH model using R. I am looking out for example which explain step by step explanation for fitting this model in R. I have time series which is stationary and I am ...
1k views

### Constructing an approximation of the S&P 500 volatility smile with publicly available data

Besides of the VIX there is another vol datum publicly available for the S&P 500: the SKEW. Do you know a procedure with which one can extrapolate other implied vols of the S&P 500 smile with ...
36k 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 ...
1k views

### Mass Market Data Source

My current project requires large amounts of historical and real-time market data (1m or 5m bars for various products, mostly US futures for as far back as available). This data will be analyzed by ...
1k views

### How is historical data for forex collected or computed?

I'm looking at four sources of forex data, as compiled in the question, What data sources are available online? And I think I must be misunderstanding something, perhaps something fundamental, but I'm ...
622 views

### Do markets typically fall fast, and rise slowly

I'm wondering if there is some measurement or name to this notion, i.e.: Markets typically fall fast, but rise slowly. It seems like this is the case -- get some bad news out of Europe on the debt ...
7k views

### What does it mean to be long gamma?

When you are "long gamma", your position will become "longer" as the price of the underlying asset increases and "shorter" as the underlying price decreases. source: ...
10k 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 ...
3k views

### What is a “coherent” risk measure?

What is a coherent risk measure, and why do we care? Can you give a simple example of a coherent risk measure as opposed to a non-coherent one, and the problems that a coherent measure addresses in ...
2k views

### When does delta hedging result in more risk?

There's a question in an interview book saying "when can hedging an options position make you take on more risk?" The answer provided is that "Hedging can increase your risk if you are forced to both ...
314 views

### What approaches are there for stress testing a portfolio?

Wikipedia lists three of them: Extreme event: hypothesize the portfolio's return given the recurrence of a historical event. Current positions and risk exposures are combined with the historical ...
5k 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?
3k 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?
2k views

### Cluster analysis vs PCA for risk models?

I built risk models using cluster analysis in a previous life. Years ago I learned about principal component analysis and I've often wondered whether that would have been more appropriate. What are ...
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### Is this a common variation of sharpe ratio?

As an aside on his answer on another question Freddy said: Sharpe ratio is an often cited metric, though I do not like it too much because you are penalized for out-sized positive returns while ...
1k views

### What commercial financial libraries are available to outsource implementation risk?

During our daily jobs as quants, we tend to be willing to develop all the quantitative libraries ourselves. While I know that we need to develop specific algorithms which are the foundations of our ...
2k views

### How does volatility affect the price of binary options?

In theory, how should volatility affect the price of a binary option? A typical out the money option has more extrinsic value and therefore volatility plays a much more noticeable factor. Now let's ...
1k views

### Volatility arbitrage - how is the profit extracted?

Is there any paper that describes in detail how the profit is extracted in directional volatility bet (vol arb)? I mean in the case that I bet the realized volatility will be lower than currently ...
1k views

### Limit order book size

I am trying to write a highly optimised limit order book and I wondered what sort of size I can expect for: Range of limit prices Number of orders at each limit price I am developing custom ...
346 views

### How to reduce variance in a Cox-Ingersoll-Ross Monte Carlo simulation?

I am working out a numerical integral for option pricing in which I'm simulating an interest rate process using a Cox-Ingersoll-Ross process. Each step in my Monte Carlo generated path is a ...