Tag Archives: Trading Systems

Kalman Filters vs. PairTrade Finder®

Why We Keep It Simple (On Purpose) Kalman filters

From time to time, experienced traders reach out and ask:

“Why doesn’t PairTrade Finder® use a Kalman filter to calculate dynamic hedge ratios?”

It’s a fair question. Kalman filters are widely used in quantitative finance and are often presented as a more advanced way to trade pairs.

So this post explains our thinking clearly.

PairTrade Finder® is designed to capture most of the statistical edge—without the complexity that often reduces real-world performance.

In practice, as a rule we seek to target a platform that delivers 80% of the benefit of institutional grade models with around 20% of the complexity.

Read More →

New Year Reflection on Trading: You Know Nothing…

As a first reflection on trading to kick off the year 2020 (as part of the Western world measures the calendar), we would like to link to a blog post by Jared Dillian, and ex-Lehman Brothers trader, now writing for Real Investment Advice.

Why do we highlight his post?  We think it shows our reflection on trading – that in a world of ever changing market regimes, where objective truth (value) is non-existent – perhaps a legitimate way of approaching profit generation is to follow a trading system that seeks to profit from RELATIVE value.  The perceived value of Stock A vs.

Read More →