autocorrelation and trading...

Discussion in 'Strategy Building' started by mizhael, Jun 3, 2011.

  1. If you have a price series with autocorrelation = 1, what trading strategy can you devise on this price series?

    If you have a price series with autocorrelation = -1, what trading strategy can you devise on this price series?

    Thanks!
     
  2. At 1 and -1, you're looking at a deterministic relationship. Assuming no one else knows what you know about this relationship, buy/sell contracts around incorrect prices determined by your perfect knowledge and hope those with inferior information accept your prices, and be the first to do it.
     
  3. I disagree, it is not that simple of a question. In general there are noise terms in autoregressive models so they are not deterministic.

    Autocorrelation of 1:
    P2 = P1 + noise ---> random walk.

    Autocorrelation of -1:
    P2 = - P1 + noise ---> don't know what to call this and can't exist b/c stock prices can't be negative, but still not deterministic

    OP, did you really mean autocorrelation in price series or return/price change series?
     
  4. Autocorrelation does not imply profit. These are very trivial studies most mathemtically oriented tarders do very early in their carrier only to discover that even with autocorrelation =1 there can be no strategy that can offer a profit factor significantly greater than 1.