# All Questions

211 views

### How do brokers charge for locates?

Few quick questions on how locates work. How do brokerages charge for locates? They charge based on volume? How long you need the locate (I assume an one day is max)? Do the brokerages ...
2k views

### VaR implementation using quantlib?

I am thinking of writing a VaR framework for my existing system, using quantlib to do the bulk of the calculations. Despite several searches, I have not as yet come across a quantlib VaR ...
156 views

### Good reference on sample autocorrelation?

I'm not a statistician but I'm writing my thesis on mathematical finance and I think it would be neat to have a short section about independence of stock returns. I need to get better understanding ...
480 views

### Exploiting breakdowns in correlation of estimated volatility

In the attached image I have a plot of the rolling correlation of 90-day historic volatility (using the Garman Klass estimator based on Sinclair's Volatility Trading) of JPM v. the S&P. As can be ...
686 views

### What are some applications of bioinformatics or genetics to generating alpha in U.S. equities?

There are many disciplines that have contributed to how one model's risk and return. Physics introduced Brownian motion and RMT. Machine learning has helped to solve complex portfolio construction ...
1k views

### Resequencing of MsgSeqNum in FIX 4.2

I am trying to achieve the following functionality using QuickFIX for FIX 4.2 Send a couple of orders and make sure they’re filled. Then disconnect. Change the incoming (from Broker) sequence number ...
2k views

### Stock Price Behavior and GARCH

In my (limited) understanding, the behavior of a stock price can be modeled using Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM). According to the Hull book I'm currently reading, the discrete-time version of this ...
368 views

### Real time stock volatility

Is there any need for real time weighted volatility on a tick by tick basis for equities? If you had that access to that, what could you do with it?
192 views

### Is there an optimal covariance one would want forecasts to have?

Often in a quant process, one will generate a time series of return forecasts and use them in some sort of optimization to generate a portfolio. Generally, there will be a covariance matrix of market ...
161 views

### What is the highest frequency greek for options on futures on bonds?

I'm considering exchange traded options of futures on bonds. Options on bond futures are usually American, thus the Black model is out of question. Which is the most imporatant Greek with respect to ...
250 views

### How to measure investors' “experienced” volatility?

In asset allocation, you usually send reports to your clients where you will report the volatility of its portfolio. Assuming you only have monthly returns, you will compute volatility over a ...
455 views

### What is an appropriate hedge ratio for hedging a credit instrument with equity of the same issuer?

Given a bond and a stock issued by the same issuer, what is the appropriate ratio of bond-to-stock one should hold in order to minimize the specific risk to that issuer? Equivalently, what is the ...
489 views

### definition for “the viscosity” in financial market data series

I am willing to calculate and monitor the evolution of extreme-viscosity in the financial markets data series. Wikipedia says "Put simply, the less viscous the fluid is, the greater its ease of ...
518 views

### Arbitrage between markets

I'm trying to understand how arbitrage works, but I'm having some difficulties based on some restrictions: I have markets A, B and C. The currencies that are traded are X <-> Y, and X <-> Z. ...
249 views

### Does the correlation amongst stocks rise when stock values decline?

Is there any research on whether the correlations among stocks rise when stock indices decline? Which model could account and test for that effect ? Maybe GARCH-BEKK, or some models using copulas?
212 views

### Why in general is the variance of volume changes higher than variance of price changes?

Why, in general, is the variance of volume changes higher than variance of price changes? I understand that these two quantities are functions of some very different factors, but I don't understand ...
505 views

### Entry and exit points for very short mean-reverting timeseries

I have a model specifying a cointegration relationship on a number of transaction-level timeseries. I would like to specify entry and exit points for trades where these points ideally would be just ...
343 views

### What are VIX back-month futures based on?

The VIX calculation is a weighted average of prices for front-month out-the-money options on the S&P index. So for VIX futures, this makes sense for the front month vix futures (being based on a ...
821 views

### What precision do I need to calculate implied volatility?

I'm developing a software to calculate the implied volatility of an option using the Black & Scholes formula and a trial-and-error method. The implied volatility values I get are correct, but I ...
331 views

### Correlation: Test for linear dependence

Setting the scene: Assume a multivariate GBM with correlation matrix $\Sigma$. Further, one want to estimate the correlation between two of the assets. Assume one has a suitable estimator of the ...
3k views

### How to get greeks using Monte-Carlo for arbitrary option?

Let's assume I have an arbitrary option that I can price using Monte-Carlo simulation. What is the general approach (i.e. without relying on specific option type) to calculating the greeks in this ...
292 views

231 views

### How to value non-libor swaps (not basis swaps)?

What discount curve should be used for a swap with a fixed leg and variable leg, where the variable leg is based on rate other than Libor (in my case 1-year deposit rate). Hull (5th edition, page 595) ...
30k views

I am preparing for the CFA level 2 exam, I got confused by the concept Z-spread and OAS. When a call option is added to a bond, since it is not favorable to the bond buyer, they would require more ...
157 views

### What mathematical characteristics are required from the asset price process in order to stay within the RNP framework?

I'm currently doing a course in derivatives pricing and I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around the sweet spot where theory meets reality in terms of Risk Neutral Pricing. I know that the ...
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 ...
387 views

### Is there a standard method of scaling alpha forecasts to t-cost estimates?

Given a set of monthly alpha forecasts (i.e. standardized z-scores from a multi-factor return model) and a non-linear market impact model (or more specifically, its piecewise-linear approximation), is ...
7k views

### Deriving spot rates from treasury yield curve

I've been experimenting with bond pricing using easily available data (treasury auction prices and treasury yield curves on treasury direct). At first I assumed that I could use the components yield ...
2k views

### How are momentum and reversion long/short strategies dynamically combined in trading?

I'm trying to understand how to combine two strategies dynamically in trading: one mean-reversion and the other momentum. One way (also the simplest one) of doing this is by scaling/normalizing ...
1k views

### application of lie groups in finance

Can some one kindly go over some of the applications and use of Lie groups in finance? The math is very rigorous and I don't fully understand it or the potential it could have. Let me share some ...
918 views

### Do I need a copula to accurately estimate the VaR of a portfolio of risky assets?

I need to estimate the daily VaR of a portfolio of various exposures in $n$ risky assets (say equity futures). The simplest approach, I think, would be to just estimate VaR from a multivariate normal ...
997 views

### Analytical relationship between a covariance matrix and cross-sectional dispersion

Given an expected returns vector and a covariance matrix, one can perform a joint draw and measure the average cross-sectional variation as the standard deviation across returns for a particular joint ...
8k views

### Is “eoddata” a good data source?

Not sure if this is a relevant question for site, but I am looking to move to www.eoddata.com as my data source. If anyone has used it, can you tell me how the data quality is ? I am currently ...
144 views

### Optimal stop-loss reinsurance

What are some methods for optimizing stop-loss reinsurance? I've found an article on the minimization of the variance. I also know about the method of average-at-range. Can we apply a method for ...
2k views

### Implied Volatility from American options (binomial)

I am trying to get the implied volatility from options on commodity futures and I know it's possible to get it from the binomial american options (on an non-dividend paying stock). I believe it is ...
874 views

### What are the applications of cointegration?

We have had several posts on cointegration, and I must admit that I have only seen them mentioned here and there but I have no real experience using this concept. My question is pretty simple: how do ...
570 views

### Distribution for High Kurtosis

Can you please advise which distribution to follow when your skewness is 0.28 and Kurtosis value is 51. Since it's leptokurtic and positively skewed I would like to fit distribution and also wanted to ...
2k views

### Can end-to-day trading be profitable? If not, why? [closed]

Many academics argue that end-to-day trading, where you go long or short before opening and sell your security at the end of the day, is not profitable. Various explanations are given for this ...
611 views

### Quantitative before/after or financial engineering studies of a bid or ask tax?

Has anyone in the quantitative finance or financial engineering community studied the effects of a bid or ask tax with actual or simulated data? If so, what were the quantitative results or ...
280 views

### Application of ACD models

I have been playing around with autoregressive conditional duration (ACD) models and I have a nicely working R based implementation using real high frequency data (trades only data). However, what's ...
627 views

### Two prices pass the cointegration test but there is a trend. How to check stationarity?

Below is a spread built with two ETFs that pass the cointegration test i.e. Adjusted Dickey Fuller, adfTest(type="nc") in R's fUnitRoots with a p-value < 0.01. The red line is the trendline. What ...
520 views

### Choosing the time-frame to test for cointegration

Is there a technique to choose the time-frame for a cointegration test (eg Augmented Dickey-Fueller's)?
608 views

### Tests that any system must pass to be taken seriously

In an interview from '96 Bill Eckhardt points out that there are tests that any system must pass to be taken seriously. That is: tests for (1) overfitting, (2) post-dictiveness, (3) maldistribution ...
470 views

### calculating arbitrage-free ranges based off outright, spread, and fly prices

This may be more applied math rather than finance focused, but I'm curious about using linear algebra techniques for generating possible arbitrage signals among outright instruments and spreads/flies ...
2k views

### statistical arbitrage option overlay strategies / volatility trading

Here's an interesting trading puzzle that I would love to get the community's input on. Let's say there exists an alpha signal that does a good job of sorting equities expected excess returns over ...
263 views

### Do weights from portfolio theory contain bias?

I want to experiment with some portfolio modelling and I was wondering if you guys could help me with something. If I try to estimate and implement the traditional two-fund portfolio consisting of one ...
1k views

### How to calculate the most realistic historical option prices with additional publicly available parameters

This is a follow up question of this one. My aim is to create the most realistic historical option prices possible with publicly available data. I want to do this for backtesting purposes. The ...
The Black-scholes formula typically has time as $\sqrt{T-t}$ or some such. My questions: What is the granularity of this? If we treat $t$ as the number of days, then logically on the day of expiry, ...
Say there is an American put option that expires $N$ months from today. A call-on-put (CoP) option provides the owner the right to buy the American put option in exactly $M < N$ months (but no ...