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Market-neutral
An investment strategy or portfolio is considered market-neutral if it seeks to avoid some form of market risk entirely, typically by hedging. To evaluate market-neutrality requires specifying the risk to avoid. For example, convertible arbitrage attempts to fully hedge fluctuations in the price of the underlying common stock. A portfolio is truly market-neutral if it exhibits zero correlation with the unwanted source of risk. Market neutrality is an ideal, which is seldom possible in practice. A portfolio that appears market-neutral may exhibit unexpected correlations as market conditions change. The risk of this occurring is called |
Convertible Arbitrage
Convertible arbitrage is a market-neutral investment strategy often employed by hedge funds. It involves the simultaneous purchase of convertible securities and the short sale of the same issuer's common stock. The premise of the strategy is that the convertible is sometimes priced inefficiently relative to the underlying stock, for reasons that range from illiquidity to market psychology. In particular, the equity option embedded in the convertible bond may be a source of cheap volatility, which convertible arbitrageurs can then exploit. The number of shares sold short usually reflects a delta-neutral or market-neutral ratio. As a result, under normal market conditions, the arbitrageur expects the combined position to be insensitive to small fluctuations in the price of the underlying stock. However, maintaining a market-neutral position may require rebalancing transactions, a process called dynamic delta hedging. This rebalancing adds to the return of convertible arbitrag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pairs Trade
A pairs trade or pair trading is a market neutral trading strategy enabling traders to profit from virtually any market conditions: uptrend, downtrend, or sideways movement. This strategy is categorized as a statistical arbitrage and convergence trading strategy. Pair trading was pioneered by Gerry Bamberger and later led by Nunzio Tartaglia's quantitative group at Morgan Stanley in the 1980s. The strategy monitors performance of two historically correlated securities. When the correlation between the two securities temporarily weakens, i.e. one stock moves up while the other moves down, the pairs trade would be to short the outperforming stock and to long the underperforming one, betting that the "spread" between the two would eventually converge. The divergence within a pair can be caused by temporary supply/demand changes, large buy/sell orders for one security, reaction for important news about one of the companies, and so on. Pairs trading strategy demands good position siz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Investment Strategy
In finance, an investment strategy is a set of rules, behaviors or procedures, designed to guide an investor's selection of an investment portfolio. Individuals have different profit objectives, and their individual skills make different tactics and strategies appropriate. Some choices involve a tradeoff between risk and return. Most investors fall somewhere in between, accepting some risk for the expectation of higher returns. Investors frequently pick investments to hedge themselves against inflation. During periods of high inflation investments such as shares tend to perform less well in real terms. Time horizon of investments. Investments such as shares should be invested into with the time frame of a minimum of 5 years in mind. It is recommended in finance a minimum of 6 months to 12 months expenses in a rainy-day current account, giving instant access before investing in riskier investments than an instant access account. It is also recommended no more than 90% of your money i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portfolio (finance)
In finance, a portfolio is a collection of investments. Definition The term “portfolio” refers to any combination of financial assets such as stocks, bonds and cash. Portfolios may be held by individual investors or managed by financial professionals, hedge funds, banks and other financial institutions. It is a generally accepted principle that a portfolio is designed according to the investor's risk tolerance, time frame and investment objectives. The monetary value of each asset may influence the risk/reward ratio of the portfolio. When determining asset allocation, the aim is to maximise the expected return and minimise the risk. This is an example of a multi-objective optimization problem: many efficient solutions are available and the preferred solution must be selected by considering a tradeoff between risk and return. In particular, a portfolio A is dominated by another portfolio A' if A' has a greater expected gain and a lesser risk than A. If no portfolio dominate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Risk
Market risk is the risk of losses in positions arising from movements in market variables like prices and volatility. There is no unique classification as each classification may refer to different aspects of market risk. Nevertheless, the most commonly used types of market risk are: * ''Equity risk'', the risk that stock or stock indices (e.g. Euro Stoxx 50, etc.) prices or their implied volatility will change. * ''Interest rate risk'', the risk that interest rates (e.g. Libor, Euribor, etc.) or their implied volatility will change. * ''Currency risk'', the risk that foreign exchange rates (e.g. EUR/USD, EUR/GBP, etc.) or their implied volatility will change. * ''Commodity risk'', the risk that commodity prices (e.g. corn, crude oil) or their implied volatility will change. * '' Margining risk'' results from uncertain future cash outflows due to margin calls covering adverse value changes of a given position. * ''Shape risk'' * '' Holding period risk'' * ''Basis risk'' The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hedge (finance)
A hedge is an investment position intended to offset potential losses or gains that may be incurred by a companion investment. A hedge can be constructed from many types of financial instruments, including stocks, exchange-traded funds, insurance, forward contracts, swaps, options, gambles, many types of over-the-counter and derivative products, and futures contracts. Public futures markets were established in the 19th century to allow transparent, standardized, and efficient hedging of agricultural commodity prices; they have since expanded to include futures contracts for hedging the values of energy, precious metals, foreign currency, and interest rate fluctuations. Etymology Hedging is the practice of taking a position in one market to offset and balance against the risk adopted by assuming a position in a contrary or opposing market or investment. The word hedge is from Old English ''hecg'', originally any fence, living or artificial. The first known use of the word ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Stock
Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other Commonwealth realms. This type of share gives the stockholder the right to share in the profits of the company, and to vote on matters of corporate policy and the composition of the members of the board of directors. The owners of common stock do not own any particular assets of the company, which belong to all the shareholders in common. A corporation may issue both ordinary and preference shares, in which case the preference shareholders have priority to receive dividends. In the event of liquidation, ordinary shareholders receive any remaining funds after bondholders, creditors (including employees), and preference shareholders are paid. When the liquidation happens through bankruptcy, the ordinary shareholders typically receive nothing. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Correlation
Financial correlations measure the relationship between the changes of two or more financial variables over time. For example, the prices of equity stocks and fixed interest bonds often move in opposite directions: when investors sell stocks, they often use the proceeds to buy bonds and vice versa. In this case, stock and bond prices are negatively correlated. Financial correlations play a key role in modern finance. Under the capital asset pricing model (CAPM; a model recognised by a Nobel prize), an increase in diversification increases the return/risk ratio. Measures of risk include value at risk, expected shortfall, and portfolio return variance. Financial correlation and the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient There are several statistical measures of the degree of financial correlations. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient is sometimes applied to finance correlations. However, the limitations of Pearson correlation approach in finance are evide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basis Risk
Basis risk in finance is the risk associated with imperfect hedging due to the variables or characteristics that affect the difference between the futures contract and the underlying "cash" position. It arises because of the difference between the price of the asset to be hedged and the price of the asset serving as the hedge before expiration, namely b = S - F. Barring idiosyncratic influence by the other aspects to be enumerated just below, by the time of expiration this simple difference will be eliminated by arbitrage. The other aspects that give rise to basis risk include a) Quality - arising when the hedge in place has a different grade which is not perfectly correlated with the basis; b) Timing - arising due to mismatch between the expiration date of the hedge asset and the actual selling date of the underlying asset; c) Location/Transportation Costs - arising due to the difference in the location of the asset being hedged and the asset serving as the hedge, and which typ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hedge Fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives. Financial regulators generally restrict hedge fund marketing to institutional investors, high net worth individuals, and accredited investors. Hedge funds are considered alternative investments. Their ability to use leverage and more complex investment techniques distinguishes them from regulated investment funds available to the retail market, commonly known as mutual funds and ETFs. They are also considered distinct from private equity funds and other similar closed-end funds as hedge funds generally invest in relatively liquid assets and are usually open-ended. This means they typically allow investors to invest and withdraw capital periodically based on the fund's net asset value, whereas pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long/short Equity
Long/short equity is an investment strategy generally associated with hedge funds. It involves buying equities that are expected to increase in value and selling short equities that are expected to decrease in value. This is different from the risk reversal strategies where investors will simultaneously buy a call option and sell a put option to simulate being long in a stock. Overview Typically, equity long/short investing is based on "bottom up" fundamental analysis of the individual companies, in which investments are made. There may also be "top down" analysis of the risks and opportunities offered by industries, sectors, countries, and the macroeconomic situation. Long/short covers a wide variety of strategies. There are generalists, and managers who focus on certain industries and sectors or certain regions. Managers may specialize in a category — for example, large cap or small cap, value or growth. There are many trading styles, with frequent or dynamic traders and some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delta Neutral
In finance, delta neutral describes a portfolio of related financial securities, in which the portfolio value remains unchanged when small changes occur in the value of the underlying security. Such a portfolio typically contains options and their corresponding underlying securities such that positive and negative delta components offset, resulting in the portfolio's value being relatively insensitive to changes in the value of the underlying security. A related term, delta hedging is the process of setting or keeping the delta of a portfolio as close to zero as possible. In practice, maintaining a zero delta is very complex because there are risks associated with re-hedging on large movements in the underlying stock's price, and research indicates portfolios tend to have lower cash flows if re-hedged too frequently.De Weert F. pp. 74-81 Nomenclature \Delta The sensitivity of an option's value to a change in the underlying stock's price. V_0 The initial value of the option ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
