# All Questions

1k views

### Backtesting with fundamentals

Recently I've read some books about quantative approach to fundamental investing: - What works on Wall Street - James O'Shaughnessy - Quantitative Value - Wesley Gray, Tobias Carlisle - Quantitative ...
77 views

### What type of interpolation should be used in key rate perturbation models?

When perturbing a key rate in order to assess sensitivity of portfolio value, what sort of interpolation is standard? A book I am looking at says linear, but this seems pretty unrealistic to me--and ...
2k views

### Baye's rule for conditional expectations (Proof review)

The Baye's rule for conditional expectations states $$E^Q[X|\mathcal{F}]E^P[f|\mathcal{F}]=E^P[Xf|\mathcal{F}]$$ With $f=dQ/dP$ - thus being the Radon-Nikodyn derivative and $X$ being ...
180 views

### Direct exchange data via a Vendor

I am considering the option between using direct exchange connections vs using a vendor like Bloomberg for market data. I am interested in daily data and potentially tick by tickdata. Initially I am ...
867 views

### Geometric Brownian motion - Volatility Interpretation (in the drift term)

A Geometric Brownian motion satisfying the SDE $dS_t = rS_t dt+\sigma S_t dW_t$ has the analytic solution $$S_t = S_0\exp\left\{\left(r-\frac{\sigma^2}{2}\right)t\right\}\exp\{\sigma W_t\}$$ Recently ...
306 views

### Definition of orthogonality and independence for a stochastic processes

Somehow I can't find the explicit definition of when two processes are supposed to be orthogonal or independent anywhere. I think orthogonality and independence should mean the same thing in this ...
2k views

### Does one use the covariance or correlation matrix in cholesky decomposition to generate correlated samples

Can we interchangeably use Cholesky decomposition of covariance and correlation matrix to generate simulations? If not, in which situations do we use one or the other and why? Thanks in advance.
2k views

### Value Weighted Return

I recently have started to look at some data from CRSP, and they have a metric called Value Weighted Return (two versions with and without distributions). When I looked it up, it seemed that this ...
661 views

### Difference between VaR and credit VaR?

Quick question: is there a difference between credit VaR and VaR or are they the same thing?
500 views

### Backtesting Period

Views on timeframes for backtesting vary considerably. Curious on what timeframe/trade size leads to a statistically significant result. For example, what backtest period is reasonable for a system ...
242 views

### Mock/practice trading for options (delta/gamma hedging etc.)

I know there are some sites for practicing equity investing. But could you provide me with suggestions concerning options trading etc. I read Natenbergs book on Options and want to test things like ...
250 views

### List of financial derivatives Ito's Lemma does not apply

According to Ito's Lemma there is no restriction on the continuity of the stochastic process. The restrictions are on the continuity of the pay-off so that second derivatives with respect to ...
62 views

### CAPM as pricing formula

P - price that the asset was purchased. Q - price that it was sold P = Q/(1+r+B(R_m - r)) What is the financial meaning of denominator. Thanks for help.
43 views

### evaluating portfolio performance without knowing the amount held on cash accounts

I would like to evaluate the performance of a portfolio mananger. I know his trades, and the initial portfolio holdings. I do not know, however the amount held on his cash account. That is, I ...
452 views

### How is the MA (moving average model) useful?

How is the MA model useful in modeling financial data, for example the stock indices? For example, from what i understand in the AR (auto-regressive) model portion, we can use the ADF test to check ...
550 views

### Scaling of a transition matrix

I am working on a ratings transition matrix and I wondered how people scale it down to shorter time periods (although one should more or less stick to the estimation period i know). It is clear that ...
1k views

### How to incorporate fundamental analysis in quantitative trading algorithm? [closed]

I want to write a quantitative stock trading program based on fundamental analysis. It would crunch through prices, financial reports to look for value stocks. It can support backtesting of strategy ...
199 views

### QuantLibXL - Optionlet bootstrapping failure

I am trying to bootstrap the Optionlet volatility surface from a Cap/Floor volatility surface using QuantLibXL. To be specific, the data is from ICAP: ...
2k views

### How do I calculate probability distribution of stock prices given option prices?

I'd like to calculate a probability distribution for prices given the option prices for that stock? Any ideas how to do this? My desire is to do this daily and then see how the price PD changes over ...
2k views

### Calculate volatility from call option price

Given call option price, what is the simplest formula to get the volatility value ? Test Data: ...
248 views

### Price of Bond given credit state matrix

"Consider a credit rating system consisting of four states, A,B,and D(default) with the following annual credit transition probability: A= [ 0.7, 0.2, 0.1; 0.2, 0.5,0.3; 0,0,1] For a company rated B,...
2k views

### Delta hedging frequency for plain vanilla European options under trading costs

I am looking for methods to select points in time when delta hedging plain vanilla European options under trading costs. It is easy to come up with ad hoc ideas such as Time-based: for example at ...
138 views

### Discount rate, convertible debt and the effect of time

The way I understand it is that there are three main parameters to a convertible debt investment. An investment amount A discount rate A trigger event Now under most of the examples I have seen, ...
52 views

### How can dividend protection be considered in the binomial model in pricing the convertible bond?

If the convertible bond has dividend-protection, how can we cater it in the binomial model? If there is dividend protection at or above 1%, can we impose input of dividend yield of 1% in the ...
5k views

### What does it mean by autocorrelation coefficient near 1?

It is said that the time series has a stochastic trend if the first autocorrelation coefficient will be near 1. Q1) What does it mean by the above statement? Q2) How do we calculate the first ...
373 views

### What are the equation that gives hurst exponent of value >0.7 and <0.3?

I had been working on algorithm which uses the Hurst Exponent. Once i random walk simulation on matlab, x = cumsum(randm(1000,1)), I was able to get a hurst value close to 0.5. To analyze the use of ...
387 views

Given that $e^{r\Delta t}(u+d)-ud-e^{2r\Delta t} = \sigma^2\Delta t$ I would like to show that $u=e^{\sigma\sqrt{\Delta t}}$ I know I must somehow use Taylor's approximation $e^x = 1 + x + \frac{... 0answers 80 views ### Log returns vs Relativizing to Portfolio size of$1

In a current empirical research project, I am tracking a non-parametric measure of a transaction cost. To this extent, I track this cost in two ways Cost in terms of log returns Cost in terms of ...
117 views

### Controlling portfolio concentration

I'm working with a heterogenous basket of instruments (in volatility terms). Risk parity allocation seems to be useful for the portfolio( * 1/Volatility). However, there are times when the ...
166 views

### Volatility swaps historical data

I am preparing a study about Volatility and Variance Swaps. Does anyone know where I can found historical public data regarding this instruments? Thanks!
71 views

### Calculating the sensitivity of the modified bond duration to changes in the coupon rate

Given that $B=Ce^{-y} + Ce^{-2y}+ (100+C)e^{-3y}$ where B is the bond price, C is the coupon. and It is a 3 years annual coupon bond. I want to find $\frac{dD}{dC}$ where $D$ is the modified duration....
336 views

### Risk neutral Esscher transform of exponential Levy processes

Let $X_t$ be a Levy Process and $e^{X_t}$ the corresponding exponential Levy process. Using the Esscher transform for a change of measure for which the Radon-Nykodym derivative is \frac{d\mathbb{Q}}...
2k views

### Definition of Return of A Long/short Portfolio

This can either be a silly question or a question with no sure rigorous answer but defined with some convention. Any way, here it is. What is the (industrial recognized) definition of the return of a ...
91 views

### What is a good index to track short term interest rates?

This is an FX question. I want to track short term (overnight or next best thing) rates for major/em ccys. What's the best way of doing this? Is there an index I can follow? Preferably something ...
45 views

### Characterizing relation “ has no less information than” between information systems represented by Markovian matrices

I crossposted this question on math.stackexchange. Background: Suppose that an investor's utility is both determined by the state and her action taken. A fact of life is that she can't observe the ...
390 views

### Places to make quant code/tools publicly avaliable

Over the years I have developed several tools - including pricing, optimization and calibration tools - most in VBA, C# and C++ I would like to make them publicly avaliable. Aside from putting up my ...
202 views

### Use of geometric mean for average return of several indices

Can anyone give any reference for using the geometric mean to average the returns from several indices? Note, this question is not about the usual use of geometric mean to obtain the average return ...
265 views

### Algorithmic Trading Model Calculation and Stale Data

I'd like ask everyone a more concurrency programming but definitely quant-finance related question. How do you deal with staleness of data in market hours as quote ticks are streaming and your model ...
202 views

### Pricing a bond with variable strike collar with QuantLibXL

I am trying to price a floating rate bond with a capped and floored interest rate. The strikes of the caps and floors vary, but are known in advance. I am trying to do this with QuantLibXL, but I am ...
666 views

### Ex-Ante tracking error how to determine the look back period

I am looking to compare the ex-ante predictions against the post values. I am using a look back period of ranges from 1 year to 5 years to construct my covariance matrix that I am using for my ex-ante ...
96 views

### Minimum PD under Basel II retail asset?

I have been told that under Basel II the minimum PD that one can assign to any portfolio/segment classified under the retail asset class is 0.33%. But Google searches return nothing and I can't seem ...
367 views

### Normally Distributed Returns Become Leptokurtic Due to Compounding

I was running a bunch of simple simulations in excel the other day in excel. Using the NORM.INV(RAND(),0,1) to simulate daily stock returns I noticed that the more compounded the returns, ie, the more ...
45 views

### How do I determine what is a separate objective in a multi-objective portfolio optimization?

Is there a general rule to determining when to separate objectives when developing a multi-objective portfolio optimization? For example, one might start with a standard portfolio optimization of ...
253 views

### Why was NASDAQ(or other index) not fluctuating in 70s and 80s?

Today I have a search of historical NASDAQ back to 70s and noticed the index was slightly increasing in 70s-early 90s and rising up and down in recent decade of years. Why would that happen? The only ...
168 views

### Sharpe Ratio and time spent in loss

Is it possible to express, given an annualized Sharpe Ratio value, what is an expected maximum/average time spent in a draw-down or something in this manner? E.g. with SR of 10, you'd expect to spend ...
97 views

### Pricing a piece of asset whose dividend stream following a Markovian matrix

I'm trying to calculate the result of an simple example on page 326-327, in Harrison and Kreps(1978). It's pricing a piece of asset whose dividend stream is a simple Markovian process. Here's my ...
115 views

### Critique against consumption-based asset pricing theory?

I find asset pricing theory very vague and full of assumptions, especially the consumption-based modern theory. In its essence, the theory states that asset prices depend on the covariance between ...
118 views

### Econometrics - Testing

If we have a time series of returns and two time series of indicators, how would we test the use of these indicators if they are autocorrelated or nonstationary (VAR Models dont produce significant ...