# Tag Info

26

This isn't really an answer, but it's too long to add as a comment. I've always had a real problem with the correlation/covariance of price. To me, it means nothing. I realize that it gets used (abused) in many contexts, but I just don't get anything out of it (over time, price has to generally go up, go down, or go sideways, so aren't all prices ...

24

Yes, there is such a rule and it is not too hard to grasp. Consider the 3-element correlation matrix $$\left(\begin{matrix} 1 & r & \rho \\ r & 1 & c \\ \rho & c & 1 \end{matrix}\right)$$ which must be positive semidefinite. In simpler terms, that means all its eigenvalues must be nonnegative. Assuming that $\rho$ and ...

20

I would consider a motion chart that plots the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix over time. For a static view you can create a table: rows represent dates, and columns represent eigenvectors. The entries of the table represent changes in the angle of the eigenvector from the previous row. This will show how stable your covariance structure is. You can ...

17

I assume you're using returns (or log returns) instead of actual stock prices. In practice, you may also want to smooth the data by using a moving average. There are several correlation coefficients: Pearson's $r$ - most commonly used definition of correlation: $$r = \frac{\sigma_{x,y}}{\sigma_x \sigma_y}$$ Spearman's ...

13

One simple method, based on the principles of mean-variance optimization, is to set the weights proportional to the product of the inverse of the covariance matrix and a vector of standard deviations. This implicitly assumes that the normalized expected return of each stock is equal. If you wish, you can take only the top 5 weights and set the others to ...

13

You can use changepoint analysis to identify regime change. You can also look at large angle differences in the eigenvectors between your most up-to-date/recent covariance matrix and the covariance matrix from the prior window. Another way to identify regime change is using a factor model. If the returns on a particular set of factors is X standard ...

12

Increased volatility (high VIX) signifies more risk. To keep their portfolio in line with their risk preferences, market participants deleverage. Since long positions outweigh short positions in the market as a whole, deleveraging entails a lot of selling and less buying. The relative increase in selling causes downward pressure on stocks.

12

Correlation is much more widely used concept and it has much more "informal" meanings. If we have only two random variables $X$ and $Y$ then correlation is simply a measure of linear dependence between the two variables: $$corr(X,Y)=\frac{cov(X,Y)}{\sqrt{var(X)var(Y)}}=\frac{EXY-EX\cdot EY}{\sqrt{var(X)var(Y)}}$$ If correlation is -1 or 1 then the two ...

11

The blog post: http://www.portfolioprobe.com/2011/01/12/the-number-1-novice-quant-mistake/ shows (and tries to explain) why you generally want to use returns and not prices.

10

One of my favorites is a generalization of correlation: Distance Correlation (dCor) There are several reasons for that: It generalizes classical (i.e. linear) correlation in the sense that linearity is a special case. It gives identical readings for linear dependence. There are analogs for variance, covariance and standard deviation, so these identities ...

10

Here's an interesting possibility: correlation network analysis + motion chart. Thanks to the hot research efforts in social network analysis (SNA), network analysis and graphics libraries such as R and Gephis are now easily accessible. I am well-versed in correlation analysis, and have a feeling that SNA can be effectively adapted for it. After all, the ...

10

Nick Higham happens to have given a talk on this very subject this summer; he continues to actively work to improve nearest correlation matrix algorithms. You can see his talk and notes here: http://mxm.mxmfb.com/rsps/ct/c/629/r/90368/l/48110

9

From Quantitative Trading by Ernie Chan : "Correlation between two price series actually refers to the correlations of their returns over some time horizon (for concreteness, let's say a day). If two stocks are positively correlated, there is a good chance that their prices will move in the same direction most days. However, having a positive correlation ...

9

Before I try to answer your question we need to establish a difference between what one wants to analyse. It is true that before modern time-series methodologies were developed, researches used "correlation" between prices as a means of analysis. However, since a Price (at a specific moment in time) is 1 value, it makes no sense to compare 2 prices with ...

9

Why not using the so simple Monte-Carlo estimator $\hat{p}_N =\frac{ \sum_{i=1}^N 1_{|A_{i+1}-A_i|>0 \cap |B_{i+1}-B_i|>0}} {\sum_{i=1}^N 1_{|A_{i+1}-A_i|>0 }}$ where $1_{|A_{i+1}-A_i|>0}$ is $1$ if stock $A$ has moved at time $i+1$

8

Technically, yes, the VIX is a measure of implied volatility. But practically speaking, it is a measure of market uncertainty: when market participants are uncertain of the future, they buy options to protect their positions, driving up option premiums and increasing implied volatility. The broader market hates uncertainty, however, so that same uncertainty ...

8

You can't determine this with just the correlation; you need to know the joint probability.

8

Two ways: Model the returns using an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process You can control the variance of the residual noise in the process to your desired level of correlation. Conceptually you inject gaussian noise into the synthetic OU process to satisfy your requirement. For example, let's say you have time-series A which is what you are modelling. Time-series ...

8

This is a misunderstanding of how to apply RMT theory. The point of the MP distribution is to describe the expected distribution of eigenvalues assuming a symmetric matrix whose elements are drawn from a normal distribution of mean zero and some sigma. So if you observe eigenvalues beyond the level predicted by MP this means you have found factors that are ...

8

Here is a structured list of your bullet points: covariance, correlation, PCA, factor analysis, Are similar. They are based on Gaussian assumptions (i.e. correlations means dependencies) and try to identify common factors (i.e. a variable in small dimension) explaining the observed relationships. co-integration is more specific in the sense that you ...

7

VIX is mechanically determined from the price of S&P500 call and put options. So if the demands for S&P500 calls/puts rise, then the prices rise, then the implied vol from these options rises. During a down market there's a lot of demand for portfolio protection. If you're diversified, then S&P500 puts are good protection, so the prices for puts ...

7

Short answer, you want to use the correlation of returns, since you're typically interested in the returns on your portfolio, rather than the absolute levels. Also, correlations on price series have very strange properties. If you think about a time series of prices, you could write it out as [P0,P1,P2,...,PN], or [P0,P0+R1,P0+R1+R2,...,P0+R1+...+RN], ...

7

Correlation is a property of collections of observations. Cointegration is a property of time series. The important difference is that temporal observations have one neighbour to their left and one to their right. Collections are like a set — no implicit "neighbour" relationships. Moving average is an inappropriate statistic to apply to lab ...

7

So you want to calculate $\mathbb{P}[B_1 > B_0 + \varepsilon \;|\; A_1 > A_0 + \varepsilon]$? If you truly have the joint distribution of $A_1$ and $B_1$ and the current prices $A_0$ and $B_0$, this just becomes a simple exercise in integration, by the definition of probability density. Are you asking how to find a conditional probability in general, ...

7

The problem of the selecting the best portfolio (according to some risk measure) with a limited number of assets can be formulated as a mixed integer linear or quadratic program and is reviewed in the recent paper "Portfolio selection problems in practice: a comparison between linear and quadratic optimization models". It can be solved for reasonable sizes ...

7

Regarding the optimization question: I haven't compared random matrix estimates to shrinkage estimates, but shrinkage seems to beat (statistical) factor models -- see a series of blog posts at http://www.portfolioprobe.com/tag/ledoit-wolf-shrinkage/ However, my guess is that random matrix estimates behave a lot like factor models, and hence that shrinkage ...

7

Your formula looks like cointegration (between the price time series) rather than correlation (between the returns). To simulate "correlated random walks", i.e., random walks built from correlated innovations, you can just build the desired covariance matrix (for instance, put ones on the diagonal and $\rho$ everywhere else), take multivariate gaussian ...

6

Correlation between two financial time series should be calculated as correlation of the returns (or log returns for prices). There is absolutely no relationship between correlation of the returns and cointegration. Two correlated time series can be cointegrated or not cointegrated. Two cointegrated time series can be correlated or not correlated. ...

6

It depends, usually you would want to measure correlation between variables that are both stationary, else you would always be able to measure a correlation in the case of variables developing with a trend, even if they are unrelated. In this case I would guess that you should use first differences.

6

The short answer is that I don't know, but your question gives some hints about how to find out. The key thing for me is that you want a minimum variance portfolio. I don't think you should be thinking about some abstract mathematical operation that is "best", but rather look over a few mathematical operations and see which seems to work best for your ...

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