Pairs trading: does volatility timing matter?

Pairs trading is a dollar-neutral trading strategy. Using the components of two major stock indices, the S&P 500 and the Nikkei 225, this article deals with the performance of a pairs trading system based on various pairs selection methods (distance, stationarity, cointegration) over a 10-year period. On both markets, using a classical framework, cointegration appears superior and effective. On the U.S. market and also in Japan to a lower extent, pairs trading strategies exhibited an impressive performance during the 2008 financial crisis. Bearish periods are associated with a high level of the VIX index: the ‘investor fear gauge’. Using a modified trading system, this article examines the link between pairs trading performance and volatility/VIX timing. It is shown that for the best selection technique (cointegration), timing volatility has no economic value in a pairs trading context.     

我国财政科技投入与经济增长的协整关系

利用单位根平稳性检验和协整检验的理论,研究1978-2005年度我国财政科技投入与经济增长的关系.国家财政用于科技的投入对经济增长具有重要的推动作用,而经济增长对财政科技投入有一定的拉动作用.     

Pairs trading strategies in a cointegration framework: back-tested on CFD and optimized by profit factor

Statistical arbitrage is based on pairs trading of mean-reverting returns. We used cointegration approach and ECM-DCC-GARCH to construct 98 pairs of 152 stocks of 3 currencies. Stocks trading is done by Contract for Difference (CFD), a financial derivative product which facilitates short selling and provides a leverage up to 25 times. To measure the performance of a leveraged strategy, we introduced the profit factor which is the annualized return rate per unit risk. And the historical risk is measured by maximum drawdown. We compared three main strategies: percentage, standard deviation of cointegration long-term residuals and Bollinger Bands (dynamic standard deviation), with and without double confirmation of short-term standard deviation modelled by ECM-DCC-GARCH. Each of the three main strategies is optimized by two optimizers: absolute profit and profit factor. The optimization period goes from 2012–01-01 to 2014–12-31, and validation period is from 2015–01-01 to 2016–06-01. Our results showed that the USD Bollinger Bands strategy without double confirmation and optimized by profit factor, outperformed other strategies and provided the highest annualized return rate per unit risk; 32% of our sample pairs ended up in loss, and 94% of which are explained by a cointegration break during the testing period.     

股票市场发展与经济增长——从流动性的视角

基于前人的重要结论,从流动性的角度,将流动性分为成交量、换手率两个方面。通过向量自回归（VAR）建立模型进行进一步的研究,得出股票交易成交量与经济增长的长期均衡关系,并通过VECM模型与Granger因果关系检验对所建立的模型进行进一步验证。研究结果显示,股票市场的流动性与经济增长存在显著的关系。进一步研究换手率对股票流动性的影响可得出的结论是,股票市场的流动性与经济增长存在长期的均衡关系,并且流动性中,成交额与经济增长存在正向关系,而换手率与经济增长存在负向关系,两者都是通过影响股票市场的总市值来进一步影响经济增长的。     

Joint Implementation under the Second Sulfur Protocol: Analysis and Simulation

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the possibility of introducing a system of transferable discharge permits (TDP) to develop the joint implementation procedure conceived in the Second Sulfur Protocol. The analysis is performed considering not only the European countries that have agreed emission reductions in the Protocol, but also a group of non-signing countries that could possibly abate their emissions and alleviate the reduction burden agreed by the former, presumably receiving certain compensation from them in return. The theoretic elements of the system are analyzed and then a simulation software – the program ATLAS – is developed and applied to study the effects of choosing among the possible implementation parameters. In contrast to other simulation programs developed with a similar aim, ATLAS can simulate multilateral permit trades, which are closer than bilateral ones to the concept of joint implementation conceived in the Protocol. The use of this program anticipates that the amount of feasible and profitable transfers would be much higher if a set of European countries which are not Parties to the Protocol were allowed to take part in the system as permit sellers.     

On the Use of Exchange Rates as Trading Rules in a Bilateral System of Transferable Discharge Permits

The use of a system of transferable discharge permitsto control the harmful effects of non-uniformly mixedpollutants requires the application of trading rulesin order to prevent permit trading among sources fromviolating environmental standards. The elements andproperties of bilateral trading rules can be analyzedmore easily once formulated as exchange rates, whichwould convert, in a cost-effective way, the emissionright potentially given up by the seller into an offsetting emission right acquired by the buyer. Inthis article, a new expression for such exchange ratesis proposed and then analyzed to infer someunexplored properties of the system.     

Optimal trading strategies for Lévy-driven Ornstein–Uhlenbeck processes

This study derives an optimal pairs trading strategy based on a Lévy-driven Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process and applies it to high-frequency data of the S&P 500 constituents from 1998 to 2015. Our model provides optimal entry and exit signals by maximizing the expected return expressed in terms of the first-passage time of the spread process. An explicit representation of the strategy’s objective function allows for direct optimization without Monte Carlo methods. Categorizing the data sample into 10 economic sectors, we depict both the performance of each sector and the efficiency of the strategy in general. Results from empirical back-testing show strong support for the profitability of the model with returns after transaction costs ranging from 31.90% p.a. for the sector ‘Consumer Staples’ to 278.61% p.a. for the sector ‘Financials’. We find that the remarkable returns across all economic sectors are strongly driven by model parameters and sector size. Jump intensity decreases over time with strong outliers in times of high market turmoil. The value-add of our Lévy-based model is demonstrated by benchmarking it with quantitative strategies based on Brownian motion-driven processes.     

中国涤纶产业链均衡发展的协整性分析

根据协整理论,利用中国1984--2009年的涤纶产业数据对中国涤纶产业链的均衡发展进行协整分析,主要包括对PTA年产量与涤纶年产量、涤纶年产量与纺织服装净出口额以及这三者之间的协整性进行了检验,并建立了它们之间的误差修正模型。协整检验表明,直接上下游之间存在协整关系;上中下游企业间存在长期协整关系,整个产业链均衡发展。     

我国排污权交易污染因子和交易区域的选取策略研究

梳理我国排污权交易污染因子和交易区域选取现状,总结污染因子和交易区域选取的特点,分析目前尚存在的问题,探索排污权交易污染因子和交易区域选取的原则,结果表明:(1)目前我国开展排污权交易的选取的污染因子不科学,交易区域选取过于行政化;(2)试点污染物的选取应综合考虑污染物特性、监测能力及总量因素;(3)交易区域的选取应综合考虑污染源数量、扩散特性及污染程度等因素。     

Bootstrapping covariate stationarity tests for inflation rates

This paper investigates the stationarity properties of international inflation rates by bootstrapping two stationarity tests with covariates in Jansson (2004). When the asymptotic critical values are used, the two powerful tests are found to reject the null hypothesis less in the presence of a large negative moving-average (MA) error in inflation. To cope with this problem, a parametric bootstrap scheme is developed and then is investigated by a Monte Carlo study. The simulation results demonstrate that the bootstrap tests display a better control over the empirical rejection rates at finite samples. Furthermore, after applying these tests to the inflation in G-10 countries, we find that one of the two tests using bootstrap critical values yields inferences that differ from when using asymptotic ones, and as a whole, the bootstrap tests consistently provide strong evidence in support of mean reversion in inflation in most countries of the G-10.     

新疆人口迁移与经济增长的协整分析

人口迁移带来的大量劳动力有利于解决新疆劳动力有效供给不足的问题,促进新疆经济的发展。选取新疆1990—2007年的数据,用单位根检验、协整检验以及granger因果检验等统计方法,研究了新疆人口迁移和经济增长二者之间的关系,并根据研究结果提出相应的对策建议。