# Tag Info

25

I can only talk about quantitative trading. As a rule of thumb, the lower frequency you work in, the more econometrics is important, whereas for a higher frequency, the more econometrics becomes useless. (I would still recommend a top econometrician for HFT since they have what it takes to succeed, it's just the models aren't out-of-the-box applicable.) But ...

10

I'm not sure about the "CAPM formula" that you are referring to. I assume you are referring to the estimated coefficient of a regression of a security on a market portfolio. That is to say $$\beta_{security,market} = \frac{\sigma_{security,market}}{\sigma^2_{market}}$$ The idiosyncratic risk is the portion of risk unexplained ...

9

Upon close reading, this appears to be 3 (interesting) questions, not one. I'm not sure if the mods have the tools needed to split it up, so I'm just going to write down the three questions as I see them and then deal with them one by one. Note, it is simpler for me to talk about variance instead of volatility. This has no material impact on the answer. ...

8

I found this paper: Conditional value-at-risk for general loss distributions by Rockafellar and Uraysev http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0378-4266(02)00271-6 which says CVaR is coherent for general loss distributions, including discrete distributions. I think that I was confused by other authors who were also confused with the definitions of CVaR. In particular, ...

7

One relevant paper is: Shenoy, C. and Shenoy, P.P., Bayesian network models of portfolio risk and return, 1999. PDF

7

I would use the identity and three step process that: $$\textrm{Total Variance} = \textrm{Systematic Variance} + \textrm{Unsystematic Variance}$$ You can calculate systematic variance via: $$\textrm{Systematic Risk} = \beta \cdot \sigma_\textrm{market} \Rightarrow \; \textrm{Systematic Variance} = (\textrm{Systematic Risk})^2$$ then you can rearrange ...

7

Each shop will differ - there is no widely used, unified framework shared across firms. Competitive advantages vary across shops, which ultimately reflect the biases/characteristics of the particular shop. Some will be far more mathematically sophisticated/inclined than others. Some maintain strong aversion to quantiative techniques such as risk models. ...

7

$VaR^\alpha$ is not a coherent risk measure because it fails sub-additivity (a coherent risk measure is monotonic, sub-additive, positive homogenous, and translation invariant). The expectation operator $E[\cdot]$ is linear, so it meets sub-additivity, as well as the other three properties, so $CVaR$ is a coherent risk measure.

7

Great question. We would expect 3rd party risk providers to have specialized expertise (robust regression techniques, factor research, data cleansing etc.). We might grant them these advantages but still find weakness in the product design. Let's start off with the different uses of risk models and the procedure or metric which is maximized to solve for ...

7

@user2763361 has a very thorough list of useful econometric topics for quantitative finance. I would add missing, mixed frequency, and irregular data as major issues that I'm either constantly dealing with or begrudgingly ignoring. Seasonal adjustment is important too for some data (like electricity futures), though the subject is also related to his ...

6

I know you're really looking for some empirical work on this topic, but I think the following theoretical paper puts your question into proper perspective.* Risk-Based Asset Allocation: A New Answer to an Old Question by Wai Lee, JPM 2011. Overall, he finds that supposedly risk-based approaches to portfolio construction are really making implicit ...

6

Also, RiskMetrics' 'granular approach' may be of interest (I have no affiliation): See: I. Developing an Equity Factor Model for Risk II. The RiskMetrics 2006 Methodology, RM2006

6

Risk-free rate is that you get for letting someone else use your money in a riskless manner. Suppose we live in a world where there is no risk whatsoever. In particular, if you lend someone \$100 there is 100% certainty that he will pay you back in a year. Before the pay date, he can do whatever he wants with your$100, while you have no access to it. Even ...

5

"Factor loading" is a somewhat ambiguous phrase -- it could refer to the factors in a linear model (e.g. the beta in CAPM or extended linear stock models), the factors of principal component analysis, etc. If you could provide a reference to the exact example/paper it would be clearer. In credit, however, a likely interpretation is the loadings of different ...

5

Danielsson and Macrae suggest that portfolio optimization should be based on simple models. I interpret that to mean using something like Ledoit-Wolf (as opposed to most commercial models). In that case doing it yourself is not at all laborious assuming you have return data. A link to Danielsson and Macrae (worth reading if you haven't seen it) is in ...

5

Conditional VaR (CVaR), which is also called Expected Shortfall, is a coherent risk measure (although being derived from a non-coherent one, namely VaR). See this paper: Expected Shortfall: a natural coherent alternative to Value at Risk from Carlo Acerbi and Dirk Tasche http://www.bis.org/bcbs/ca/acertasc.pdf EDIT: I just saw that you emphasized ...

5

They are not mutually exclusive. PCA and clustering are similar but used for different purposes. You could use PCA to whittle down 10 risk factors to say 4 uncorrelated factors, and you could combine securities with different FACTORS into different clusters with offsetting returns and variance characteristics. However, when you say you want to derive risk ...

5

Step 1: Get your data from SQL into R -> http://www.r-bloggers.com/?s=SQL Step 2: Run your analysis/optimizations like -> http://www.r-bloggers.com/portfolio-optimization-in-r-part-1/ or http://blog.streeteye.com/blog/2012/01/portfolio-optimization-and-efficient-frontiers-in-r/ or via RMetrics: ...

5

Autocorrelation of returns can be used as a proxy measure for liquidity of the asset. The degree of serial correlation in an asset’s returns can be viewed as a proxy for the magnitude of the frictions, and illiquidity is one of the most common forms of such frictions. A strongly liquid asset should reveal no serial autocorrelation. You can perhaps build ...

4

Book: Counterparty Credit Risk: The new challenge for global financial markets by Jon Gregory

4

http://defaultrisk.com/ Main Authors, Papers & Book links, recommendations. Should be all you need.

4

I tested both procedures. The results are virtually indistinguishable - the decision is not consequential. I opted for approach #1.

4

Barrie and Hibbert might provide some help - they have a reputation based on understanding insurance risks http://www.barrhibb.com/research_and_insights

4

Most of the credit risk models are some derivative of survival models. Cox Proportional Hazard is one of the early and more popular models, Kaplan-Meier and Logrank tests are others you may have heard of. There are a few ways to go from here. The simplest is to model the sample as binomial with one population as current and the other as in default. A ...

4

First, I am quite sure that this is a typo and it should be $$0 < VaR_1 < VaR_0$$ then $$-VaR_0 < -VaR_1$$ and the plot is correct. Second, the put strategy does not change only the expected profit but the whole distribution of the P&L. If you buy a put with strike $K_1 = -VaR_1$ then you get compensated for losses below $K_1$. But you ...

3

A simple top-down shortcut calculation : Set annualized alpha = compounded alpha = 1 + a1 + a2 + a1*a2 + ... = $\Pi$ (1 + $\alpha_t$) Set annualized return from factors = compounded factor return = $\Pi$ (1 + $factorReturn_t$) Interaction Term contribution is then = Compounded Security Return - Compounded alpha - Compounded factor return Therfore the ...

3

I've played around with both schemes, but not for portfolio optimization. I used PCA on some interest rate models. That turned into a Partial Least Squares scheme, then into some non-linear thing. I wasn't impressed with the results. My Cluster Analysis scheme morphed into a classification scheme, and it turned out that the K-Nearest-Neighbor method ...

3

First you need to define what you need a risk measure for. It is usually to take a decision, so you have an operational criterion that defines your risk. You should go back at this point and see what is the impact of a change of distribution on it. Just say for instance that you need a risk measure to take decisions according to a Sharpe ratio and define it ...

3

There are a lot of code in Eric Zivots recent class in computational finance. http://spark-public.s3.amazonaws.com/compfinance/R%20code/portfolio.r http://spark-public.s3.amazonaws.com/compfinance/R%20code/testport.r http://spark-public.s3.amazonaws.com/compfinance/R%20code/rollingPortfolios.r Also, you can google some slides in his class where he ...

3

Couple points for your consideration: At the time of order execution: You are most likely a liquidity taker and thus are rendered a service by those that provide liquidity and you compete for taking liquidity with other takers in the market. As such you need to have a firm grasp at the market impact of your order. Liquidity can be extremely dynamic even ...

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