Blog

To say we're living through extraordinary times would be an understatement. We saw the best part of 40% wiped off stock indexes in a matter of weeks, unprecedented co-ordinated central bank intervention on a global scale, and an unfolding health crisis that for many has already turned into a tragedy. As an investor or trader, what do you do? You...

The vector autoregression (VAR) framework is common in econometrics for modelling correlated variables with bi-directional relationships and feedback loops. If you google "vector autoregression" you'll find all sorts of academic papers related to modelling the effects of monetary and fiscal policy on various aspects of the economy. This is only of passing interest to traders. However, if we consider that...

Way back in November 2007, literally weeks after SPX put in its pre-GFC all-time high, Friedman, Hastie and Tibshirani published their Graphical Lasso algorithm for estimation of the sparse inverse covariance matrix. Are you suggesting that Friedman and his titans of statistical learning somehow caused the GFC by publishing their Graphical Lasso algorithm? Not at all. I'm just setting you...

In the first three posts of this mini-series on pairs trading with Zorro and R, we: Implemented a Kalman filter in R Implemented a simple pairs trading algorithm in Zorro Connected Zorro and R and exchanged data between the two platforms In this fourth and final post, we're going to put it all together and develop a pairs trading script...

In the last two posts, we implemented a Kalman filter in R for calculating a dynamic hedge ratio, and presented a Zorro script for backtesting and trading price-based spreads using a static hedge ratio. The goal is to get the best of both worlds and use our dynamic hedge ratio within the Zorro script. Rather than implement the Kalman filter...

In our previous post, we looked into implementing a Kalman filter in R for calculating the hedge ratio in a pairs trading strategy. You know, light reading... We saw that while R makes it easy to implement a relatively advanced algorithm like the Kalman filter, there are drawbacks to using it as a backtesting tool. Setting up anything more advanced...

This Kalman Filter Example post is the first in a series where we deploy the Kalman Filter in pairs trading. Be sure to follow our progress in Part 2: Pairs Trading in Zorro, and Part 3: Putting It All Together. Anyone who's tried pairs trading will tell you that real financial series don't exhibit truly stable, cointegrating relationships. If they...

Chart patterns have long been a favourite of the technical analysis community. Triangles, flags, pennants, cups, heads and shoulders.... Name a shape, someone somewhere is using it to predict market behaviour. But, we need to find out if there is a grain of truth or reliability in these patterns. Can attempts to objectively measure these patterns, such as with the...