Author Archives: Pat
US market portrait 2014 week 5
US large cap market returns. Fine print The data are from Yahoo The S&P 500 stocks are used (as implied by S&P on 2014 January 11) The initial post was “Replacing market indices” The R code is in marketportrait_funs.R — you are free to use these functions however you like
The portfolio optimization higher-moment credo
The question of skewness and kurtosis in portfolio optimization. Previously Problem 4 of “The top 7 portfolio optimization problems” concerns the use of higher moments. “Further adventures with higher moments” is the most recent in a series of posts on the efficacy of higher moments in optimization. This set includes the observation that “trade selection” … Continue reading
Posted in Quant finance
Tagged kurtosis, portfolio optimisation, portfolio optimization, skewness, trade selection
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US market portrait 2014 week 4
US large cap market returns. Fine print The data are from Yahoo The S&P 500 stocks are used (as implied by S&P on 2014 January 11) The initial post was “Replacing market indices” The R code is in marketportrait_funs.R — you are free to use these functions however you like
What is volatility?
Some facts and some speculation. Definition Volatility is the annualized standard deviation of returns — it is often expressed in percent. A volatility of 20 means that there is about a one-third probability that an asset’s price a year from now will have fallen or risen by more than 20% from its present value. In … Continue reading
US market portrait 2014 week 3
US large cap market returns. Fine print The data are from Yahoo The S&P 500 stocks are used (as implied by S&P on 2014 January 11) The initial post was “Replacing market indices” The R code is in marketportrait_funs.R — you are free to use these functions however you like
garch models caught in the spotlight
An attempt to clarify the basics. Previously There have been several posts about garch. In particular: A practical introduction to garch modeling The components garch model in the rugarch package Genesis A reader emailed me because he was confused about the workings of garch in general, and simulation with the empirical distribution in particular. If … Continue reading
US market portrait 2014 week 2
US large cap market returns. Fine print The data are from Yahoo The S&P 500 stocks are used (as implied by S&P on 2014 January 11) The initial post was “Replacing market indices” The R code is in marketportrait_funs.R — you are free to use these functions however you like
S&P that might have been
The S&P 500 returned 29.6% in 2013. How might that have varied? S&P weights There are many features that could vary — here we will keep the same constituents (almost) and weights with similar sizes but that are randomly assigned rather than based on market capitalization. That is, we want the large weights of our … Continue reading
US market portrait 2013 final
US large cap market returns. Prior year The full year portrait for 2012 is shown below. Fine print The data are from Yahoo Almost all of the S&P 500 stocks are used (as implied by Wikipedia on 2013 January 5 — see the R commands to scrape the data) The initial post was “Replacing market … Continue reading
Blog year 2013 in review
Highlights of the blog over the past year. Most popular posts The posts with the most hits during the year. A practical introduction to garch modeling (posted in 2012) A tale of two returns (posted in 2010) The top 7 portfolio optimization problems (posted in 2012) The number 1 novice quant mistake (posted in 2011) On smart beta … Continue reading
Posted in Blog, R language
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