# All Questions

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 ...
41k 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 ...
847 views

### Can you replicate an option on an arbitrary basket of stocks?

Since a market index is nothing more than a basket of stocks, you can create your own index by putting together stocks of your choice. The only difference is that you can trade options on major ...
266 views

### What does T statistics of Information Coefficient indicate?

Hi I am looking for a clear explanation of T statistics concept. Especially in quantitative equity portfolio management context, what does T statistics of monthly Information Coefficient for one ...
533 views

### What is the forward rate for a Black-Karasinski interest rate model?

I was wondering if anyone could help me with the instantaneous forward rate equation for a Black-Karasinski interest rate model? I was also after the Black-Karasinski Bond Option Pricing Formula.
1k views

### Historical S&P 500 Stock Weights [closed]

I'm looking for histocial weights of S&P 500 constituents. I have access to a Bloomberg terminal. Any thoughts on how/where I might calculate/find these data? P.S. I'm looking for as much data as ...
125 views

### Getting the actual distribution of a stock price at time T using implied volatility [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How to derive the implied probability distribution from B-S volatilities? Let's assume a stock price S, with volatility $\sigma$ constant, no dividend, and risk free ...
889 views

### Why does the following data fail my cointegration test?

I have some closing price data for two Australian banks which track each other very closely. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12337149/stat/CBA.csv http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12337149/stat/WBC.csv Code from ...
4k views

### What are your opinions on WEKA KnowledgeFlow, Rapidminer, and other rapid development environments for machine learning?

Which is the most extensible? Which is the most efficient in terms of a minimal learning curve while providing a meaningful degree of flexibility and performance? Any of these tools really limited ...
418 views

### What are the typical “realized latencies” across different products and infrastructures?

Latency has been a hot topic for a while, first in the industry and more recently also in academia. It is very common to hear about milliseconds, even microseconds. While most of the media attention ...
483 views

### Applying models with normality assumption on tick data?

Beginner question. Having read a couple of papers and book chapters on high-frequency data forecasting, I'm surprised (and confused) that the same time series techniques can be applied to ...
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### How to perform basic integrations with the Ito integral?

From the text book Quantitative Finance for Physicists: An Introduction (Academic Press Advanced Finance) I have this excercise: Prove that  ...
209 views

### Are there any valuation models of securities that use hyperbolic discounting?

To quote Wikipedia: In hyperbolic discounting, valuations fall very rapidly for small delay periods, but then fall slowly for longer delay periods. This contrasts with exponential discounting, in ...
1k views

### How to detect regime change when estimating asset correlation from historical time series?

Suppose I have two asset time series, $X_t$ and $Y_t$, and I'm estimating their correlation from historical data. I'd like to apply some systematic criterion to estimate what time window I should use ...
246 views

### How reliable is Benford's Law in forecasting crises?

I was recently reading an article about how financial accounting has increasingly deviated from the ratios expected by Benford's Law. (Benford's Law and Decreasing Reliability). The author discusses ...
192 views

### What are the effects of turning a backed currency into a fiat currency?

I hear a lot of debate over the removal of the U.S. Dollar's precious metal backing and the subsequent inflation rates, but is there any proven relationship between unbacked currency and extreme ...
193 views

### How do earnings estimates respond to changes in underlying fundamentals and economic conditions?

Sell-side analysts' earnings estimates for individual companies, typically reported by I/B/E/S, are a key ingredient to many quantitative models. However, revisions to analyst estimates tend to lag ...
2k views

### Is my trading strategy search methodology sound?

I'm building an algorithmic trading business. I'd be grateful for informed comments and opinions on my trading strategy search methodology. Goal Develop (profitable!) fully automated intra-day ...
687 views

### Reference on Markov chain Monte Carlo method for option pricing?

I have to implement option pricing in c++ using Markov chain Monte Carlo. Is there some paper which describes this in detail so that I can learn from there and implement?
891 views

### How to forecast expected volatility from high-frequency equity panel data?

I'm wading through the vast sea of literature on realized volatility estimation and expected volatility forecasting (see, e.g. Realized Volatility by Andersen and Benzoni, which cites 120 other ...
1k views

### How to get started in quant finance? [closed]

I am a programmer and I have no finance background. I am looking for advice as to how to get started in the quant finance industry. My goal would be to have solid understanding about the industry and ...
2k views

### How to optimally allocate capital among trading strategies?

I'm trying to find an optimal way to allocate capital among trading strategies. "Quantitative Trading" by Ernie Chan claims on page 97 that the optimal fraction of capital to allocate to a given ...
580 views

### How to Calculate Risk of Ruin [closed]

I'm reading a book titled "A Trader's Money Management System" and it discusses risk of ruin(ROR) tables. It says that you can have a zero probability of ROR with a payoff ratio of 2 to 1 and a win ...
1k views

### Why doesn't Black-Scholes work in discrete time?

I have a question considering Financial markets in discrete Time: One of the main theorems in discrete time is: In finite discrete Time with trading times t={1,...,T} the following are equivallent: ...
1k views

### What is the average Sharpe ratio of volatility arbitrage funds?

Where can I get data on performance metrics for volatility arbitrage funds? I am trying to compare the Sharpe ratio of my strategy to those of the major players.
267 views

### What do we really mean by put-call ratio and how should it be expressed?

I need to calculate the put-call ratio for an American option. But I'm a complete naïf: I don't know how. I think I'd use the put open interest and the call open interest. I can imagine two ways to ...
603 views

### What is a reasonable upper bound on the performance of a daily trading strategy?

I am backtesting an equity trading strategy which trades only once per day. Is there a general rule of thumb for the reasonable upper bound on the rate of return of such a strategy? For example, a ...
361 views

### How to define and measure liquidity or funding premium in credit markets?

Even companies with just a single non-callable corporate bond outstanding will often have CDS quote spreads that differ from the bond quote spread. During the 2008 crisis, there were dozens of cases ...
444 views

### Choice of prior as a shrinkage target in portfolio construction?

There's various research showing how priors such as the minimum variance portfolio turn out to be a surprisingly effective shrinkage target in portfolio construction. The sell point of these priors ...
657 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 ...
1k views

### How to build a regime-switching model which knows its own limits?

In recent months I've come to the conclusion that there are not only certain regimes in the markets (like bear or bull) but phases where all models fail because we are in uncharted territory. The ...
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2k views

### At what point does someone using technical analysis become a Quant?

Sorry if the question sounds rough. It's not my intention to devaluate something I've not yet understood like Quantitative Finance. So to keep it simple: is Quantitative Finance a science, like ...
4k views

### Skew arbitrage: How can you realize the skewness of the underlying?

It's not clear to me how to realize skewness. In other words, how do you implement skew arbitrage? There seems to be no well-known recipe like in volatility arbitrage. Volatility arbitrage (or ...
7k views

### How to interpret the eigenmatrix from a Johansen cointegration test?

I ran a Johansen cointegration test on 3 instruments, A B and C. The results that I got are: ...
8k views

### What is the best way to “fix” a covariance matrix that is not positive semi-definite?

I have a sample covariance matrix of S&P 500 security returns where the smallest k-th eigenvalues are negative and quite small (reflecting noise and some high correlations in the matrix). I am ...
3k views

### How to estimate probability of default from bond prices?

How do you use bond prices/yields to infer probabilities of default? I would think of it as follows: Create a relationship between default free (e.g., Germany) and defaultable (e.g., Greece) bond ...
619 views

### Fitting a generalized logistic distribution

I have a process that estimates the parameters for the following function using the NL2SOL algorithm. $C-[\alpha+\frac{\beta-\alpha}{1+e^-\theta(y_t-\delta)} \vartriangle y_t]$ The process currently ...
347 views

### Is there data on market participants at a particular moment?

I am looking for data on market participants at a particular moment (or some proxy/approximation). For example, how can I tell whether mostly big players and HFTs are dominating the market in ...