# All Questions

278 views

### Analyzing the angle between vector of weights and vector of returns in mean-variance optimization

I am using the paper "A Sharper Angle on Optimization" by Golts and Jones (2009) as a basis for my (minor) masters thesis in mathematical finance. The paper focuses on the mean-variance analysis of ...
1k views

### How to calculate Vomma of Black Scholes model

This source (PDF) gives the closed-form for vomma (or volga, i.e. the second derivative of price w.r.t. volatility) of the Black Scholes option pricing model as: ...
161 views

### How to simulate one-minute bars data from one-day bars?

I need to generate one-minute bars out of one-day bars to test the performance of an algorithm (speed, memory usage, etc). I don't need them to resemble real data, but they should be consistent with ...
972 views

### When hiring a quant, how can I protect my IP?

I am a one-man operation, and would like to hire a quant for around 4 weeks or work. I am worried that the person I hire might copy my data or the indicators that I have him work on. What have ...
262 views

### Sharpe ratio in days with no open positions

Should I include or not the days a strategy has no open positions (thus no returns) in the Sharpe ratio calculation?
487 views

### Alternative ways to understand time-varying comovement between two time-series?

I have been looking into ways to better understand how the dependencies/correlations/etc between two time series can vary over time. I first thought about using a Kalman/particle filter over a ...
2k views

### Squared and Absolute Returns

I've always wondered why do one use squared or absolute returns to determine if volatility modeling is required for the return series? We understand that there are various tests for its ...
507 views

### Choice of epsilon for numerical calculation of vega in binomial option pricing model

I have a binomial option-pricing model (I don't think the details of how its implemented are relevant). However, when I go to calculate vega, I am essentially running the model a second time with new ...
290 views

### Comparison of Brownian Motion Expected Drawdown and simulated results

Can anyone tell me whether results as predicted by Brownian Motion for a given mean and std, match what you get by measuring actual drawdown from simulated results over a number of iterations?
571 views

### Selecting timeframe for time series analysis

In technical analysis, we may use confluence of direction for 3 timeframes to roughly gauge bias of market now. Similarly, if we use time series forecasting methods to predict(say daily data-whether ...
3k views

### How do we use option price models (like Black-Scholes Model) to make money in practice?

In quantitative finance, we know we have a lot of option price models such as geometric Brownian motion model (Black-Scholes models), stochastic volatility model (Heston), jump diffusion models and so ...
138 views

### Volatility Index Weighting Scheme

Among the several weighting schemes used for constructing volatility indices, which ones are the best for forecasting (realized) volatility? I've constructed a volatility index for emerging markets ...
270 views

### Pricing swaptions

What are the approaches available to price a swaption (either European or American style)? So far it seems Black method is the only one used. Thanks!
5k views

### What are the advantages/disadvantages of these approaches to deal with volatility surface?

I would like to know if someone could provide a summarized view of the advantages and disadvantages of the approaches on the volatility surface issues, such as: Local vol Stochastic Vol ...
2k views

### CTD and bond futures

I am reading a chapter on bond futures in Fabozzi's book. It states that without CF (conversion factor) the CTD (cheapest to deliver) would be the bond with the longest maturity and highest coupon. ...
769 views

### Which prediction market model is efficient and simple to use?

For a college project I'm tasked with implementing prediction market. Which model of it I'd better choose? I want something useful and simple enough for other people to quickly understand and use. ...
600 views

### Asymmetric Volatility Modeling (Interpretation)

I am currently writing a paper on asymmetric volatility modeling of brent, gold, silver, wheat, soybean and corn from 1986-2012 and divided them into 4 sub-sample periods (i.e. 1986-1991, 1991-1997, ...
493 views

### Generate correlated random variables from Normal and Gamma distributions

I want to generate a random vector $z$ of dimension $k+m$ with some given correlation matrix $\Sigma$, such that the first $k$ elements of the vector are distributed normally and the last $m$ elements ...
648 views

### What data transformations to use in regression of credit spreads on equity prices?

Clearly there is a strong relationship between credit spreads and equity prices (both theoretically and empirically). But how would one go about formulating a regression which seeks to explain this ...
5k views

### What is the “leverage effect” for stocks?

I've read the so-called "leverage-effect" for stocks models the fact that if a company is leveraged, its volatility should increase as the stock price moves lower and closer to the level of debt. Can ...
311 views

### Value options when the currency’s risk free rate is negative?

How would you handle a negative interest rate in index/equity options valuation? An example would be negative rates for short term maturities for Swiss Frank (CHF).
14k 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 ...
644 views

### BDT model implementation

I am looking for a nice and readable description of how to implement BDT model: $d log(r(t)) = [\theta(t)-\frac{\sigma'(t)}{\sigma(t)}log(r(t))]dt + \sigma(t) dW$. I assume I already have ...
1k views

### What is the clean price and dirty price of a risky bond?

Following up on this question: Yield of a risky bond, what is the definition of clean and dirty prices for a risky (defaultable, catastrophe, etc.) bond? I would think the dirty price should ...
124 views

I was looking at this video today: http://www.cmegroup.com/education/interactive/webinars-archived/implied-price-functionality.html on implied pricing. And am aware that implied orders/pricing ...
4k views

### Why is short term implied volatility typically higher?

Why do short term implieds move more than long term?
668 views

### Regime switching in mean reverting stochastic process

Let you have a mean reverting stochastic process with a statistically significant autocorrelation coefficient; let it looks like you can well model it using an $ARMA(p,q)$. This time series could be ...
240 views

### Inflation swap liquidity versus inflation-linked bonds

In which markets are inflation swaps considered liquid enough to be the primary instrument for measuring market inflation expectations (compared to say, inflation-linked bonds)? Are there specific ...
2k views

### What is the mean and the standard deviation for Geometric Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Process?

I am uncertain as to how to calculate the mean and variance of the following Geometric Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. $$d X(t) = a ( L - X_t ) dt + V X_t dW_t$$ Is anyone able to calculate the mean ...
6k views

### Early execise of American Call on Non-Dividend paying stock.

Let us consider an American call option with strike price K and the time to maturity be T. Assume that the underlying stock does not pay any dividend. Let the price of this call option is C$^a$ today ...
664 views

### Rubinsteins Implied Binomial Tree - how to calculate the cumulative returns

I am working on Rubinsteins IBT and use the following paper to implement this into excel: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=541744 the original paper can be found here: ...
93 views

I found this comment in a book I bought about risk management: Risk Management in Banking by Joel Bessis. This is the well-known rule that states that the sum of individual risks is less than ...
650 views

### Yield of a risky bond

When working with risky bonds, i.e. corporate bonds, what is usually defined as the yield of such a bond? Is it the yield calculated as if the bond was riskless, or is it calculated by properly taking ...
306 views

### BS and delta hedging questions

I have two related questions concerning Black Scholes and delta hedging. I thought about this two questions, but I could not come up with an answer, so maybe you guys & girls can help me: If an ...
655 views

### Optimizing a currency only portfolio with negative weights

I am testing various optimization methods for a currency-only portfolio. I have a vector of expected returns for the major developed currencies vs. the USD each week (based on a proprietary model). I ...
2k views

### Fastest algorithm for calculating retrospective maximum drawdown

Simple question - what would be the fastest algorithm for calculating retrospective maximum drawdown ? I've found some interesting talks but I was wondering what people thought of this question here. ...
336 views

### Why use market capitalization weighted index over PCA?

Why is it so popular to use market capitalization weighted indices instead of taking the first principle component that explains the most variation of the constituents? I haven't yet seen an academic ...
595 views

### Why do we need derivatives? [closed]

I read somewhere that derivatives are the biggest weapons of financial destruction. Why do we need derivatives? If exploiting risk-proneness of people to make profit is the goal, why don't we stop ...
465 views

### Yield Curve Volatility

Let you have several issuers, and let each issuer have its yield curve built up with liquid plain vanilla fixed rate bonds. Each yield curve has its slope and its curvature, and they obviously change ...
190 views

### How to see if a set of asset returns corresponds to a known correlation matrix?

Let's say I have an arbitrary set of $n$ period returns for $k$ assets, and a given $k \times k$ correlation matrix (of asset returns), which is known a priori. Does it makes sense, or is it even ...
2k views

### Determining portfolio risk return in R given historical data for individual holdings?

Currently we compute portfolio risk and return via our own C# program. Historical data is stored in a SQL database. We want to compute the risk and return parameters - given a portfolio (i.e. not ...
60 views

### Why might a manager consider using an interest-rate in which the notional principal amount declines over time?

Say swap would be used to convert the payments of its portfolio of fixed-rate residential mortgage loans into a floating payment. Why might a manager consider using an interest-rate in which the ...
260 views

### How to reactivate a risk mangement rule in an automated process

If some conditions are met (stop loss, trailing stop, take profit...) we will close ours positions (sell/buy) to avoid having more loss or to ensure profit. In an automatic trading system, it is easy ...
2k views

### Hidden Markov Model & Its Application

I have started reading about HMM it gives an intuitive idea about what HMM is all about. I am looking out for example where its applied to Equity model using R / Excel. The material which I read so ...
777 views

### What sources would you recommend for Real Time Market Data other than Bloomberg/Reuters?

I am dealing with a strategy that is not high-frequency based. The strategy consumes normalized data from Bloomberg and Reuters. For US equity market, can someone recommend some real-time data ...
187 views

### Eurdollar Futures

Trying to understand the Eurdollar market a little better. I understand it's the market for dollar denominated deposits outside the US (not just in Europe). They are unregulated and not subject to ...
984 views

### How to interpret/use VaR and Standard Deviation?

The parametric VaR is defined as follows: $$VaR=Z_a*Vol$$ Is this the best way to interpret how much risk is being taken on for a particular asset? How does one interpret volatility on its own if ...
68 views

### How to attribute income that incurs a double liability in a P&L?

I'm a developer writing a system for a startup. Without giving away too much of the business model, here are the basics of how it works: The web site has two forms of "currency": tickets and ...