26
votes
Accepted
What mathematical theory is required for high frequency trading?
Hah! There is no such thing as the “rigorous mathematical underpinning” of high frequency trading - because HFT, like all trading, is not primarily a mathematical endeavour.
It’s true that many ...
- 5,603
21
votes
Quantitative Math required for Market-making?
The primary quant skill needed to make the market is optimal control (a typical paper is Guéant, O., L, and J. Fernandez-Tapia (2013, September). Dealing with the inventory risk: a solution to the ...
- 10.5k
17
votes
Accepted
Backtesting Market Making Strategy or Microstructure Strategy
This is a very difficult question.
First of all you should read Almgren's slides on the topic: Using a Simulator to Develop Execution Algorithms.
First you need to backtest your strategy against a "...
- 10.5k
16
votes
Ultra-High Frequency Trading Help
This question has been re-opened again after (rightly) being closed as too broad for the purpose of clearing some misconceptions regarding one of the answers here.
The main idea that is to be ...
- 1,132
16
votes
What mathematical theory is required for high frequency trading?
I would argue, taking a note from John von Neumman, that quantitative finance lacks rigorous underpinnings. Von Neumann warned in 1953 that many things that look like proofs in economics and finance ...
- 4,066
14
votes
Market impact, why square root?
I found this power point and this paper to be an excellent source on this topic.
Here is a quote from the paper:
A square-root singularity for small traded volumes is highly
non-trivial, and ...
- 382
13
votes
Accepted
How are HFT systems implemented on FPGA nowadays?
Here's a way to think about it: imagine you can do something in an ASIC (i.e. directly in hardware). However, the process of fabrication is in itself expensive, and you get a design that you cannot ...
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13
votes
Accepted
Quantitative Math required for Market-making?
Successful strategies in both areas can have the same math requirement. It just depends on the algorithm. PhD level mathematics is not a requirement in either area, despite the impression you may get ...
- 2,084
13
votes
Accepted
HFT to blame for Flash Crashes?
Using months of proprietary data that labels participants by their participant ID, it has been found that during periods of significant volatility, the composition of HFT participants in the book ...
- 5,062
12
votes
Quantitative Math required for Market-making?
Unfortunately, the ability and tools to develop a low latency trading system are extremely commoditized and will be insufficient for you to make a living in this field. An overwhelming majority of ...
- 5,062
11
votes
Accepted
Understanding how market making helps investors
I didn't quite understand your objection.
Most theories of market making are derived from a famous paper by Jack Treynor (The Economics of the Dealer Function). In the theory, there are initially no ...
- 9,347
11
votes
Accepted
How long do algorithmic trading strategies typically remain profitable?
Is there a typical "half-life" of a strategy?
This is a really subjective question, and I don't think any singular answer will generalize well. That being said, I will give some examples ...
- 3,680
10
votes
Accepted
Market Making Strategy to Interact with IB API
Pete's seven year old answer is just as relevant now as it was in 2011. None of the limiting factors of their API has changed since then, so this is essentially an extensive reiteration.
The ...
- 1,132
9
votes
Accepted
Avellaneda -Stoikov market making model
The market-maker makes a bid-ask spread $\delta$ around the reservation price $r$. So at any time, the market-maker quotes the bid price
$$
p_b = r - \delta/2,
$$
and the ask price
$$
p_a = r + \...
- 949
9
votes
Accepted
Modelling queue position
No, you have to build your model empirically with data.
Suppose $p(x)$ denotes the probability of cancel in front of you when your order is positioned $0 \leq x \leq 1$ through the queue, there are a ...
- 1,616
8
votes
Accepted
Order Book Dynamics
The Queue Reactive Model (by Huang, L and Rosenbaum) is an improvement of what Cont and de Larrard (CL) did.
This model is capturing
the inflows and outflows in each queue given the current state of ...
- 10.5k
8
votes
Infinite horizon agent in Avellaneda-Stoikov model
I'm doing this from memory, but as I recall $q_{\text{max}}$ is the maximum inventory on any side that you wish to take (otherwise you might build up a huge position if you are adversely selected).
...
- 235
8
votes
What are the main types of orders on an exchange?
As @chrisaycock mentioned, there's many permutations of parameters, especially when it comes to venue routing instructions, so it's hard to write an exhaustive list. But most of the time, the ...
- 1,616
8
votes
Accepted
Is there a HAR that deals with the leverage effect?
There exists a modification of the HAR model that accounts for leverage effect (á la GJR-GARCH) in a high-frequency setting.
The semi-variance HAR model, termed the SHAR model of Patton and Sheppard (...
- 3,273
7
votes
What good papers of short term (<30 seconds) volatility estimation
Very interesting question. I am not an expert on the subject, however, I was able to find a collection of papers on the subject that should get you started.
Here is a good and very informative paper ...
- 1,335
7
votes
Accepted
What kind of front end/ gui is used with trading applications?
If I was in your position I would start to research how I can create a web server is C++ and expose calls to create a REST service. In other words, can you make your code status output to HTTP?
From ...
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7
votes
Accepted
What are some quantitative trading strategies used by high-frequency trading companies to make a killing on a market crash day on 24Aug2015?
On aggregate, large shops like Virtu are involved in market making strategies. There's various classes of market making strategies, and it is unnecessary to distinguish further here for the purpose of ...
- 5,062
7
votes
Accepted
How to calculate volatility on intraday data?
Financial modeling is often considered as a mixture of art and science. That is a way how you model your data depends on you. You can choose several approaches, for example:
calculate max - min price ...
7
votes
definition of mid price in literature
As someone who has contributed to literature, I am purposefully vague with the use of mid price. Not that I don't define it but that it is difficult to state which definition is the best in which ...
- 7,997
7
votes
Alternatives to RDBMS for options backtesting
My answer is similar to the one given for this other question.
If you are mainly using the data for backtesting, there's very little reason to store the data in a MySQL database. The data generally ...
- 1,616
6
votes
Applications of Fourier theory in trading
I have created some Fourier Analysis of stocks here: http://www.gregthatcher.com/Stocks/Default.aspx
I turn the raw data into a series of sines and cosines, show the Fourier approximation as a graph, ...
- 266
6
votes
Calculating 6-minute, 20-minute, 45-minute, and 3-hour volatility
Quick summary: Your model should still be well specified, as long as:
1) You do the analysis on a heavily traded asset, e.g. IBM on NYSE, and
2) You use heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors ...
- 729
6
votes
Accepted
What are flickering orders?
A "flickering" order is one which is repeatedly submitted and cancelled (whether it's at the top of book or not).
The answer from @chollida mentions that "the goal typically is to either slow down ...
- 5,603
6
votes
Accepted
Why circuit breakers can't prevent a flash crash
As a preamble.
There are two types of "circuit breakers"
if the price goes outside a (long term or static) corridor defined as yesterday close +/-p% (very often p is a multiple of the long term ...
- 10.5k
6
votes
Accepted
How to measure the Sharpe Ratio of a high frequency trading strategy?
Use daily P&L rather than return rate1.
$$ Sharpe = \frac{\mu}{\sigma} $$
To annualize, multiply by the square root of the number of trading days in the year. For US equities, that would be 252.
...
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