High Probability Credit Spreads – Using Linear Regression Curves

Posted on September 29, 2013 by GekkoQuant

I came across this video series over the weekend, an option trader discusses how he trades credit spreads (mainly looks for mean reversion). Most of you will be familiar with bollinger bands as a common mean reversion strategy, essentially you take the moving average and moving standard deviation of the stock. You then plot on to your chart the moving average and an upper and lower band(moving average +/- n*standard deviations).

It is assumed that the price will revert to the moving average hence any price move to the bands is a good entry point. A common problem with this strategy is that the moving average is a LAGGING indicator and is often very slow to track the price moves if a long lookback period is used.

Video 1 presents a technique called “linear regression curves” about 10mins in. Linear regression curves aim to solve the problem of the moving average being slow to track the price.

Linear Regression Curve vs Simple Moving Average

See how tightly the blue linear regression curve follows the close price, it’s significantly quicker to identify turns in the market where as the simple moving average has considerable tracking error. The MSE could be taken to quantify the tightness.

How to calculate the linear regression curve:

In this example you have 100 closing prices for your given stock. Bar 1 is the oldest price, bar 100 is the most recent price. We will use a 20day regression.

1. Take prices 1-20 and draw the line of best fit through them
2. At the end of your best fit line (so bar 20), draw a little circle
3. Take prices 2-21 and draw the line of best fit through them
4. At the end of your best fit line (so bar 21) draw a little circle
5. Repeat upto bar 100
6. Join all of your little circles, this is your ‘linear regression curve’
So in a nutshell you just join the ends of a rolling linear regression.

Parameter Optimisation & Backtesting – Part 2

Posted on August 29, 2012 by GekkoQuant

This is a follow on from: http://gekkoquant.com/2012/08/29/parameter-optimisation-backtesting-part1/

The code presented here will aim to optimise a strategy based upon the simple moving average indicator. The strategy will go Long when moving average A > moving average B. The optimisation is to determine what period to make each of the moving averages A & B.

Please note that this isn’t intended to be a good strategy, it is merely here to give an example of how to optimise a parameter.

Onto the code:

Functions

TradingStrategy this function implements the trading logic and calculates the returns
RunIterativeStrategy this function iterates through possible parameter combinations and calls TradingStrategy for each new parameter set
CalculatePerformanceMetric takes in a table of returns (from RunIterativeStrategy) and runs a function/metric over each set of returns.
PerformanceTable calls CalculatePerformanceMetric for lots of different metric and compiles the results into a table
OrderPerformanceTable lets us order the performance table by a given metric, ie order by highest sharpe ratio
SelectTopNStrategies selects the best N strategies for a specified performance metric (charts.PerformanceSummary can only plot ~20 strategies, hence this function to select a sample)
FindOptimumStrategy does what it says on the tin

Note that when performing the out of sample test, you will need to manual specify the parameter set that you wish to use.

^?View Code RSPLUS

 
library("quantmod")
library("PerformanceAnalytics")
 
 
nameOfStrategy <- "GSPC Moving Average Strategy"
 
#Specify dates for downloading data, training models and running simulation
trainingStartDate = as.Date("2000-01-01")
trainingEndDate = as.Date("2010-01-01")
outofSampleStartDate = as.Date("2010-01-02")
 
 
#Download the data
symbolData <- new.env() #Make a new environment for quantmod to store data in
getSymbols("^GSPC", env = symbolData, src = "yahoo", from = trainingStartDate)
trainingData <- window(symbolData$GSPC, start = trainingStartDate, end = trainingEndDate)
testData <- window(symbolData$GSPC, start = outofSampleStartDate)
indexReturns <- Delt(Cl(window(symbolData$GSPC, start = outofSampleStartDate)))
colnames(indexReturns) <- "GSPC Buy&Hold"
 
TradingStrategy <- function(mktdata,mavga_period,mavgb_period){
  #This is where we define the trading strategy
  #Check moving averages at start of the day and use as the direciton signal
  #Enter trade at the start of the day and exit at the close
 
  #Lets print the name of whats running
  runName <- paste("MAVGa",mavga_period,".b",mavgb_period,sep="")
  print(paste("Running Strategy: ",runName))
 
  #Calculate the Open Close return
  returns <- (Cl(mktdata)/Op(mktdata))-1
 
  #Calculate the moving averages
  mavga <- SMA(Op(mktdata),n=mavga_period)
  mavgb <- SMA(Op(mktdata),n=mavgb_period)
 
  signal <- mavga / mavgb
  #If mavga > mavgb go long
  signal <- apply(signal,1,function (x) { if(is.na(x)){ return (0) } else { if(x>1){return (1)} else {return (-1)}}})
 
  tradingreturns <- signal * returns
  colnames(tradingreturns) <- runName
 
  return (tradingreturns)
}
 
RunIterativeStrategy <- function(mktdata){
  #This function will run the TradingStrategy
  #It will iterate over a given set of input variables
  #In this case we try lots of different periods for the moving average
  firstRun <- TRUE
    for(a in 1:10) {
        for(b in 1:10) {
 
          runResult <- TradingStrategy(mktdata,a,b)
 
          if(firstRun){
              firstRun <- FALSE
              results <- runResult
          } else {
              results <- cbind(results,runResult)
          }
        }
    }
 
   return(results)
}
 
CalculatePerformanceMetric <- function(returns,metric){
  #Get given some returns in columns
  #Apply the function metric to the data
 
  print (paste("Calculating Performance Metric:",metric))
 
  metricFunction <- match.fun(metric)
  metricData <- as.matrix(metricFunction(returns))
  #Some functions return the data the wrong way round
  #Hence cant label columns to need to check and transpose it
  if(nrow(metricData) == 1){
    metricData <- t(metricData)
  }
  colnames(metricData) <- metric
 
  return (metricData)
}
 
 
 
PerformanceTable <- function(returns){
  pMetric <- CalculatePerformanceMetric(returns,"colSums")
  pMetric <- cbind(pMetric,CalculatePerformanceMetric(returns,"SharpeRatio.annualized"))
  pMetric <- cbind(pMetric,CalculatePerformanceMetric(returns,"maxDrawdown"))
  colnames(pMetric) <- c("Profit","SharpeRatio","MaxDrawDown")
 
  print("Performance Table")
  print(pMetric)
  return (pMetric)
}
 
OrderPerformanceTable <- function(performanceTable,metric){
return (performanceTable[order(performanceTable[,metric],decreasing=TRUE),])
}
 
SelectTopNStrategies <- function(returns,performanceTable,metric,n){
#Metric is the name of the function to apply to the column to select the Top N
#n is the number of strategies to select
  pTab <- OrderPerformanceTable(performanceTable,metric)
 
  if(n > ncol(returns)){
     n <- ncol(returns)
  }
  strategyNames <- rownames(pTab)[1:n]
  topNMetrics <- returns[,strategyNames]
  return (topNMetrics)
}
 
FindOptimumStrategy <- function(trainingData){
  #Optimise the strategy
  trainingReturns <- RunIterativeStrategy(trainingData)
  pTab <- PerformanceTable(trainingReturns)
  toptrainingReturns <- SelectTopNStrategies(trainingReturns,pTab,"SharpeRatio",5)
  charts.PerformanceSummary(toptrainingReturns,main=paste(nameOfStrategy,"- Training"),geometric=FALSE)
  return (pTab)
}
 
pTab <- FindOptimumStrategy(trainingData) #pTab is the performance table of the various parameters tested
 
#Test out of sample
dev.new()
#Manually specify the parameter that we want to trade here, just because a strategy is at the top of
#pTab it might not be good (maybe due to overfit)
outOfSampleReturns <- TradingStrategy(testData,mavga_period=9,mavgb_period=6)
finalReturns <- cbind(outOfSampleReturns,indexReturns)
charts.PerformanceSummary(finalReturns,main=paste(nameOfStrategy,"- Out of Sample"),geometric=FALSE)

Trading Strategy – VWAP Mean Reversion

Posted on July 31, 2012 by GekkoQuant

This strategy is going to use the volume weighted average price (VWAP) as an indicator to trade mean version back to VWAP. Annualized Sharpe Ratio (Rf=0%) is 0.9016936.

This post is a response to http://gekkoquant.com/2012/07/29/trading-strategy-sp-vwap-trend-follow/ where there was a bug in the code indicating that VWAP wasn’t reverting (this didn’t sit well with me, or some of the people who commented). As always don’t take my word for anything, backtest the strategy yourself. One of the dangers of using R or Matlab is that it’s easy for forward bias to slip into your code. There are libraries such as Quantstrat for R which protect against this, but I’ve found them terribly slow to run.

Trade logic:

All conditions are checked at the close, and the trade held for one day from the close
If price/vwap > uLim go short
If price/vwap < lLim go long

Onto the code:

^?View Code RSPLUS

library("quantmod")
library("PerformanceAnalytics")
 
#Trade logic - Look for mean reversion
#If price/vwap > uLim go SHORT
#If price/vwap < lLim go LONG
 
#Script parameters
symbol <- "^GSPC"     #Symbol
nlookback <- 3 #Number of days to lookback and calculate vwap
uLim <- 1.001  #If price/vwap > uLim enter a short trade
lLim <- 0.999  #If price/vwap < lLim enter a long trade
 
 
#Specify dates for downloading data
startDate = as.Date("2006-01-01") #Specify what date to get the prices from
symbolData <- new.env() #Make a new environment for quantmod to store data in
getSymbols(symbol, env = symbolData, src = "yahoo", from = startDate)
mktdata <- eval(parse(text=paste("symbolData$",sub("^","",symbol,fixed=TRUE))))
mktdata <- head(mktdata,-1) #Hack to fix some stupid duplicate date problem with yahoo
 
#Calculate volume weighted average price
vwap <- VWAP(Cl(mktdata), Vo(mktdata), n=nlookback)
#Can calculate vwap like this, but it is slower
#vwap <- runSum(Cl(mktdata)*Vo(mktdata),nlookback)/runSum(Vo(mktdata),nlookback)
 
#Calulate the daily returns
dailyRet <- Delt(Cl(mktdata),k=1,type="arithmetic") #Daily Returns
 
#signal = price/vwap
signal <- Cl(mktdata) / vwap
signal[is.na(signal)] <- 1 #Setting to one means that no trade will occur for NA's
#Stripping NA's caused all manner of problems in a previous post
trade <- apply(signal,1, function(x) {if(x<lLim) { return (1) } else { if(x>uLim) { return(-1) } else { return (0) }}})
 
#Calculate the P&L
#The daily ret is DailyRet(T)=(Close(T)-Close(T-1))/Close(T-1)
#We enter the trade on day T so need the DailyRet(T+1) as our potential profit
#Hence the lag in the line below
strategyReturns <- trade * lag(dailyRet,-1)
strategyReturns <- na.omit(strategyReturns)
 
#### Performance Analysis ###
#Calculate returns for the index
indexRet <- dailyRet #Daily returns
colnames(indexRet) <- "IndexRet"
zooTradeVec <- cbind(as.zoo(strategyReturns),as.zoo(indexRet)) #Convert to zoo object
colnames(zooTradeVec) <- c(paste(symbol," VWAP Trade"),symbol)
zooTradeVec <- na.omit(zooTradeVec)
 
#Lets see how all the strategies faired against the index
dev.new()
charts.PerformanceSummary(zooTradeVec,main=paste("Performance of ", symbol, " VWAP Strategy"),geometric=FALSE)
 
 
#Lets calculate a table of montly returns by year and strategy
cat("Calander Returns - Note 13.5 means a return of 13.5%\n")
print(table.CalendarReturns(zooTradeVec))
#Calculate the sharpe ratio
cat("Sharpe Ratio")
print(SharpeRatio.annualized(zooTradeVec))

Trading Strategy – S&P VWAP Trend Follow (BUGGY)

Posted on July 29, 2012 by GekkoQuant

UPDATE: The exceptional returns seen in this strategy were due to a 2 day look forward bias in the signal (and then subsequent trade direction), ie when returns were calculated for day T the trade signal used was actually from day T+2.

This bias occurred in the lines:

^?View Code RSCODE

signal <- na.omit(signal)

Both the signal and trade dataframe had the correct dates for each signal/trades however when indexRet*trade happened then trade was treated as undated vectors (which is 2 elements shorter than index ret) hence the 2 day shift. The moral of this story is to merge dataframes before multiplying!

Thank you for everyone that commented on this, a corrected post is to follow!

Original Post

This strategy is going to use the volume weighted average price (VWAP) as an indicator to determine the direction of the current trend and trade the same direction as the trend. Annualized Sharpe Ratio (Rf=0%) is 8.510472.

Trade logic:

All conditions are checked at the close, and the trade held for one day from the close
If price/vwap > uLim go long
If price/vwap < lLim go short

Initially I thought that the price would be mean reverting to VWAP (this can be see in high freq data) however this didn’t appear to be the case with EOD data. For such a simple strategy I’m amazed that the Sharpe ratio is so high (suspiciously high). The code has been double&tripple checked to see if any forward bias has slipped in, however I haven’t spotted anything.

Onto the code:

^?View Code RSPLUS

library("quantmod")
library("PerformanceAnalytics")
 
#Trade logic - Follow the trade demand, ie if price > vwap then go long
#If price/vwap > uLim go LONG
#If price/vwap < lLim go SHORT
 
#Script parameters
symbol <- "^GSPC"     #Symbol
nlookback <- 3 #Number of days to lookback and calculate vwap
uLim <- 1.001  #If price/vwap > uLim enter a long trade
lLim <- 0.999  #If price/vwap < lLim enter a short trade
 
 
#Specify dates for downloading data
startDate = as.Date("2006-01-01") #Specify what date to get the prices from
symbolData <- new.env() #Make a new environment for quantmod to store data in
getSymbols(symbol, env = symbolData, src = "yahoo", from = startDate)
mktdata <- eval(parse(text=paste("symbolData$",sub("^","",symbol,fixed=TRUE))))
mktdata <- head(mktdata,-1) #Hack to fix some stupid duplicate date problem with yahoo
 
#Calculate volume weighted average price
vwap <- VWAP(Cl(mktdata), Vo(mktdata), n=nlookback)
#Can calculate vwap like this, but it is slower
#vwap <- runSum(Cl(mktdata)*Vo(mktdata),nlookback)/runSum(Vo(mktdata),nlookback)
 
#Calulate the daily returns
dailyRet <- Delt(Cl(mktdata),k=1,type="arithmetic") #Daily Returns
 
#signal = price/vwap
signal <- Cl(mktdata) / vwap
signal <- na.omit(signal)
trade <- apply(signal,1, function(x) {if(x<lLim) { return (-1) } else { if(x>uLim) { return(1) } else { return (0) }}})
 
#Calculate the P&L
#The daily ret is DailyRet(T)=(Close(T)-Close(T-1))/Close(T-1)
#We enter the trade on day T so need the DailyRet(T+1) as our potential profit
#Hence the lag in the line below
strategyReturns <- trade * lag(dailyRet,-1)
strategyReturns <- na.omit(strategyReturns)
 
#### Performance Analysis ###
#Calculate returns for the index
indexRet <- dailyRet #Daily returns
colnames(indexRet) <- "IndexRet"
zooTradeVec <- cbind(as.zoo(strategyReturns),as.zoo(indexRet)) #Convert to zoo object
colnames(zooTradeVec) <- c(paste(symbol," VWAP Trade"),symbol)
zooTradeVec <- na.omit(zooTradeVec)
 
#Lets see how all the strategies faired against the index
dev.new()
charts.PerformanceSummary(zooTradeVec,main=paste("Performance of ", symbol, " VWAP Strategy"),geometric=FALSE)
 
 
#Lets calculate a table of montly returns by year and strategy
cat("Calander Returns - Note 13.5 means a return of 13.5%\n")
print(table.CalendarReturns(zooTradeVec))
#Calculate the sharpe ratio
cat("Sharpe Ratio")
print(SharpeRatio.annualized(zooTradeVec))

Trading Strategy – Volatility Carry Trade

Posted on June 24, 2012 by GekkoQuant

This strategy is going to look at a vega neutral volatility carry trading strategy. Two different futures contract will be traded, the VXX and VXZ. These contracts are rolling futures on the S&P 500 Vix index, the VXX is a short term future and the VXZ is a medium term future. Annualized Sharpe Ratio (Rf=0%) is 1.759449.

The strategy is very simple, the rules are:

If VXX / VXZ > 1 then in backwardation so do a reverse carry trade (buy VXX, sell VXZ)
If VXX / VXZ < 1 then do a carry trade (sell VXX, buy VXZ)

If the volatility spot price doesn’t change, then we’re extracting the cost of carry. Due to buying and selling (or vice versa) the short to mid term futures the vega exposure is hedged.

In the script the above two rules have been slightly changed, a slight offset is added/subtracted from the ratio. Essentially we want to be deep into contango zone or deep into backwardation zone before we trade, if we’re close to the flip point then don’t trade.

Section 1: Downloaded the data, and calculate the Open to Close return. This strategy will look for entry at the open and exit at the close.

Section 2: Regress the daily returns of VXX with VXZ to calculate the hedge ratio

Section 3: Generate the backwardation / contango signal

Section 4: Simulate the trading

Section 5: Analyse the performance

Onto the code:

^?View Code RSPLUS

library("quantmod")
library("PerformanceAnalytics")
 
#Control variables for entering a trade
#Used to check for the level of contango / backwardation
#IF signal < signalLowLim then in contango and do a carry trade
#IF signal > signalUpperLim then in backwardation so do a reverse carry
#ELSE do nothing
signalLowLim <- 0.9
signalUpperLim <- 1.1
 
#Use volatility futures, shortdate vs medium dated
#VXX iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX)
#VXZ iPath S&P 500 VIX Mid-Term Futures ETN (VXZ)
symbolLst <- c("VXX","VXZ")
 
#Specify dates for downloading data, training models and running simulation
startDate = as.Date("2009-01-01") #Specify what date to get the prices from
hedgeTrainingStartDate = as.Date("2009-01-01") #Start date for training the hedge ratio
hedgeTrainingEndDate = as.Date("2009-05-01") #End date for training the hedge ratio
tradingStartDate = as.Date("2009-05-02") #Date to run the strategy from
 
### SECTION 1 - Download Data & Calculate Returns ###
#Download the data
symbolData <- new.env() #Make a new environment for quantmod to store data in
getSymbols(symbolLst, env = symbolData, src = "yahoo", from = startDate)
 
#Plan is to check for trade entry at the open, and exit the trade at the close
#So need to calculate the open to close return as they represens our profit or loss
#Calculate returns for VXX and VXZ
vxxRet <- (Cl(symbolData$VXX)/Op(symbolData$VXX))-1
colnames(vxxRet) <- "Ret"
symbolData$VXX <- cbind(symbolData$VXX,vxxRet)
 
vxzRet <- (Cl(symbolData$VXZ)/Op(symbolData$VXZ))-1
colnames(vxzRet) <- "Ret"
symbolData$VXZ <- cbind(symbolData$VXZ,vxzRet)
 
### SECTION 2 - Calculating the hedge ratio ###
#Want to work out a hedge ratio, so that we can remain Vega neutral (the futures contact are trading VEGA)
#Select a small amount of data for training the hedge model on
subVxx <- window(symbolData$VXX$Ret,start=hedgeTrainingStartDate ,end=hedgeTrainingEndDate)
subVxz <- window(symbolData$VXZ$Ret,start=hedgeTrainingStartDate ,end=hedgeTrainingEndDate)
datablock = na.omit(cbind(subVxx,subVxz))
colnames(datablock) <- c("VXX","VXZ")
 
#Simply linearly regress the returns of Vxx with Vxz
regression <- lm(datablock[,"VXZ"] ~ datablock[,"VXX"]) #Linear Regression
 
#Plot the regression
plot(x=as.vector(datablock[,"VXX"]), y=as.vector(datablock[,"VXZ"]), main=paste("Hedge Regression: XXZret =",regression$coefficient[2]," * RXXret + intercept"),
  	 xlab="Vxx Ret", ylab="Vxz ", pch=19)
abline(regression, col = 2 )
hedgeratio = regression$coefficient[2]
 
 
### SECTION 3 - Generate trading signals ###
#Generate Trading signal
#Check ratio to see if contango or backwarded volatility future
#If shortTermVega < midTermVega in contango so do carry trade
#If shortTermVega > midTermVega in backwardation so do reverse carry
#If VXX less than VXZ then want to short VXX and long VXZ
 
#Calculate the contango / backwardation signal
tSig <- Op(symbolData$VXX)/Op(symbolData$VXZ)
colnames(tSig) <- "Signal"
 
### SECTION 4 - Do the trading ###
#Generate the individual buy/sell signals for each of the futures contract
vxxSignal <- apply(tSig,1, function(x) {if(x<signalLowLim) { return (-1) } else { if(x>signalUpperLim) { return(1) } else { return (0) }}})
vxzSignal <- -1 * vxxSignal
 
#Strategy returns are simply the direction * the Open-to-Close return for the day
#Include the hedge ratio here so that we remain vega neutral
strategyReturns <- ((vxxSignal * symbolData$VXX$Ret) + hedgeratio * (vxzSignal * symbolData$VXZ$Ret) )
strategyReturns <- window(strategyReturns,start=tradingStartDate,end=Sys.Date(), extend = FALSE)
#Normalise the amount of money being invested on each trade so that we can compare to the S&P index later
strategyReturns <- strategyReturns * 1 / (1+abs(hedgeratio))
colnames(strategyReturns) <- "StrategyReturns"
#plot(cumsum(strategyReturns))
 
#SECTION 5
#### Performance Analysis ###
 
#Get the S&P 500 index data
indexData <- new.env()
startDate = as.Date("2009-01-01") #Specify what date to get the prices from
getSymbols("^GSPC", env = indexData, src = "yahoo", from = startDate)
 
#Calculate returns for the index
indexRet <- (Cl(indexData$GSPC)-lag(Cl(indexData$GSPC),1))/lag(Cl(indexData$GSPC),1)
colnames(indexRet) <- "IndexRet"
zooTradeVec <- cbind(as.zoo(strategyReturns),as.zoo(indexRet)) #Convert to zoo object
colnames(zooTradeVec) <- c("Vol Carry Trade","S&P500")
zooTradeVec <- na.omit(zooTradeVec)
#Lets see how all the strategies faired against the index
dev.new()
charts.PerformanceSummary(zooTradeVec,main="Performance of Volatility Carry Trade",geometric=FALSE)
 
#Lets calculate a table of montly returns by year and strategy
cat("Calander Returns - Note 13.5 means a return of 13.5%\n")
print(table.CalendarReturns(zooTradeVec))
#Calculate the sharpe ratio
cat("Sharpe Ratio")
print(SharpeRatio.annualized(zooTradeVec))
#Calculate other statistics
cat("Other Statistics")
print(table.CAPM(zooTradeVec[,"Vol Carry Trade"],zooTradeVec[,"S&P500"]))
 
dev.new()
#Lets make a boxplot of the returns
chart.Boxplot(zooTradeVec)
 
dev.new()
#Set the plotting area to a 2 by 2 grid
layout(rbind(c(1,2),c(3,4)))
 
#Plot various histograms with different overlays added
chart.Histogram(zooTradeVec, main = "Plain", methods = NULL)
chart.Histogram(zooTradeVec, main = "Density", breaks=40, methods = c("add.density", "add.normal"))
chart.Histogram(zooTradeVec, main = "Skew and Kurt", methods = c("add.centered", "add.rug"))
chart.Histogram(zooTradeVec, main = "Risk Measures", methods = c("add.risk"))

Gekko Quant – Quantitative Trading

Quantitative Trading, Statistical Arbitrage, Machine Learning and Binary Options

Category Archives: R Code

High Probability Credit Spreads – Using Linear Regression Curves

Parameter Optimisation & Backtesting – Part 2

Trading Strategy – VWAP Mean Reversion

Trading Strategy – S&P VWAP Trend Follow (BUGGY)

Trading Strategy – Volatility Carry Trade