# All Questions

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We know that $$C-P = PV(F_{0,T}-K)$$ When we create a synthetic forward, we buy call and sell a put at the same strike price $K$. When we buy the call why do we assume the premium is positive? When ...
3k views

### How many explanatory variables is too many?

When researching any sort of predictive model, whether using ordinary linear regression or more sophisticated methods such as neural networks or classification and regression trees, there seems to ...
3k views

### Has high frequency trading (HFT) been a net benefit or cost to society?

Various studies have demonstrated the very large and growing influence of high frequency trading (HFT) on the markets. HFT firms are clearly making a great deal of money from somewhere, and it stands ...
2k views

### How to get list of all CUSIPS/ISIN?

I want a list of all CUSIPs/ISINs. It would be nice if they were also categorized (e.g. Bonds/Funds etc). Where can I get such a data?
379 views

### How did bans on short-selling affect the derivatives markets?

Due to the ongoing turmoil in the financial markets a short-selling ban is being considered (again, one has to say, but this time in Europe): ...
2k views

### What is the basis risk between cash and futures government bonds?

I am currently working in a team responsible for maintaining a simple risk application for our bond desk and I am interested in knowing how to provide some sort of basic basis risk metric. Our desk ...
34k views

I have a very basic data question: how to get a list of all common stocks traded on NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX? I would need to be able to get the approximate list of common stocks as is available in ...
95 views

### How Would You Categorize A Cap or Spread On A Monthly Sum Option?

I'm just trying to determine the appropriate naming convention for a category that holds cap or spread, or in other words, what category can I put cap and spread (in this context) into? Are they ...
131 views

### How to reconstruct a discontinued economic time series such as the Fed's CP rate?

The old 3-Month Commercial Paper Rate (CP3M) on FRED was discontinued in 1997. I would like to reconstruct this series in a reasonable fashion, so I can use it to analyze more recent events. I was ...
585 views

### Rolling GARCH and higher moments

I m recently doing my dissertation and faced with problem in estimation basic rolling GARCh (1,1) process. I have 2500 observation and need to forecast 1 day ahead volatility in rolling form. I will ...
1k views

### How is mean reversion implied by different valuations of Bermudan swaptions?

Someone told me that mean reversion can be implied by the different valuations of bermudan swaptions when using different methods for volatility calibration. Does anyone know what this means?
4k views

### What are the best sources for equity quantitative research?

What are the best sources of quantitative finance research in equities? I will list a couple and note an asterisk if the research is available by request (i.e. non-clients) or online: BAC-Merrill ...
603 views

### Should I use currency hedged or unhedged returns for a global equity allocation model?

I am building a global tactical equity allocation model. The model will help determine an optimal allocation amongst a number of major developed and emerging stock markets (represented for my purposes ...
920 views

### Closed-form formula for approximate maximum duration of a bond?

In teaching myself about bonds, I am writing some software, one piece of which will calculate the maturity of a bond given the yield curve as a function and a requested duration. The tricky part is ...
5k views

### How to derive the implied probability distribution from B-S volatilities?

The general problem I have is visualization of the implied distribution of returns of a currency pair. I usually use QQplots for historical returns, so for example versus the normal distribution: ...
883 views

### How do I replicate John Hussman's recession forecasting methodology?

John Hussman has a recession forecasting methodology he often posts about on his blog, and I am trying to replicate it using publicly available data. I would like to assess his accuracy in predicting ...
720 views

### Indicators and research for stress-based investment strategies

In reference to this paper: Can risk aversion indicators anticipate ﬁnancial crises? and the investable UBS Risk Adjusted Dynamic Alpha Strategy: ...
3k views

### How can I estimate the degrees of freedom for a Student's T distribution?

I am doing research estimating the value at risk for non-normally distributed assets. I need help in the process of estimating the parameters of Student's t distribution and which method to use. I ...
802 views

### What exactly is the annualized forward premium?

A forward contract has a premium of $0$ because it is an obligation to buy or sell something in the future (hence there is more risk). Call and put options, on the other hand, have premiums of $C$ ...
2k views

### What functional form describes the implied volatility curve?

It is often convenient to parametrize the implied volatility curve to allow easy interpolation of volatility for any strike or maturity. What functional form describes the implied volatility curve for ...
146 views

### Could the Implied Volatility distribution change again? [closed]

It is well documented that following the stock market crash in 1987 the prices of options started to demonstrate skew and smile in the distribution of implied volatilities. This feature has been ...
208 views

3k views

### How do I calculate the skewness of a portfolio of assets?

I need to calculate the skewness of a portfolio consisting of 6 assets. I know that for that I would need the co-skewness matrix between the assets. Does anybody know the formula for co-skewness or ...
362 views

### Will price levels fall even though money supply increases?

Given this equation, according to the article at this location , which provides the following equation as an argument, the author claims that he predicts "deflation" in the last paragraph of the ...
613 views

### Alternative to Block Bootstrap for Multivariate Time Series

I currently use the following process for bootstrapping a multivariate time series in R: Determine block sizes - run the function b.star in the np package which produces a block size for each series ...
202 views

### How to quantify the impact of management cost on return?

Suppose funds X and Y are the same but X has 0.25% higher management cost. Suppose we are analyzing a 2 year interval. The simple models with discrete/continuous interval -assumptions are not really ...
1k views

### How do I backtest a convertible bond arbitrage strategy in R/Matlab?

Since no one was able to answer my previous question, I am going to try to backtest a modern convertible bond arbitrage strategy myself (perhaps I'll report the results back here, if you're lucky :)). ...
523 views

### What methods do I need to learn in order forecast asset price movements?

What are the standard models used to forecast asset price movements? For example, if I were to trade an option, what model would I use in conjunction with option pricing models to forecast the stock ...
742 views

### Use Trades as Input for PerformanceAnalytics

I'd like to use the PerformanceAnalytics R package to view various metrics from a list of trades with profit values. From looking at the documentation from the PerformanceAnalytics package that most ...
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### 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 ...
585 views

### What research is available on the performance of convertible bond arbitrage models?

The basic principles of convertible bond arbitrage have been clear at least since Thorp and Kassouf (1967). For those who are not familiar, the arbitrage entails purchasing a convertible bond and ...
2k views

### robust portfolio optimization re-balancing with transaction costs

The optimal re-balancing strategy takes account of factors including i) objective function, ii) current portfolio weights, iii) expected return vector containing updated views/alpha forecasts, iv) ...
5k views

### Which approach dominates? Mathematical modeling or data mining?

According to my current understanding, there is a clear difference between data mining and mathematical modeling. Data mining methods treat systems (e.g., financial markets) as a "black box". The ...
9k views

### Why would an investor trade a variance swap over a volatility swap?

Why would an investor trade a variance swap over a volatility swap? Is it simply related to the leverage involved in a Var (i.e. sigma-squared) or is there something else to it?
7k views

### How should I calculate the implied volatility of an American option in a real-time production environment?

There are many models available for calculating the implied volatility of an American option. The most popular method, employed by OptionMetrics and others, is probably the Cox-Ross-Rubinstein model. ...
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 ...
2k views

### What are the advantages of switching platforms/languages between strategy development and implementation?

I am interested in coding a medium frequency (trading over minutes to hours, holding for days to weeks) quantitative trading strategy and trading it with Interactive Brokers. I have seen many people ...
437 views

### How to model the risk of a CFD

I'm struggling to understand why the risk on an equity CFD is not the same as for the corresponding equity. The RiskMetrics FAQ mentions two ways to model a CFD, but it does not explain why this is ...