Cumulative Returns
The total change in the price of an investment over a set time period
cumulative_return = (price[t] / prince[0] ) - 1
-or-
cumulative_return = (price at end / price the beginning ) - 1 price[t] is any particular day and price[0] is the price at the beginning
Lecture 01-04-12
Bollinger Bands (r)
Bands that are 2 standard deviations above and below the rolling mean.
Rolling mean +/- std deviation * 2
Lecture 01-04-07
Why is data not pristine
Lecture 01-05-02
Why does data go missing?
Some stocks stop trading and start trading. Some stock trade under the same ticker but different name. Some stocks trade erratically due to low market cap. 01-05-03
How do you fill gaps when there are gaps in data of a stock.
Why are Bollinger Bands important.
The theory states that if the stock crosses the bands then it may be a point to pay attention.
Lecture 01-04-07
Daily Returns
How much did the price go up or down on a particular day.
Lecture 01-04-10
How do you use a histogram to plot daily returns?
Take the daily return over a plot in time and fill the histogram values based on the number of occurrences of the daily returns.
Lecture 01-06-02
What would you expect a histogram of daily returns to look like?
A normal or Gaussian distribution.
Lecture 01-06-03
Kurtosis
The difference between a normal Gaussian distribution and the distribution of the.
Kurtosis is positive with larger tails and negative with skinny tails.
Lecture 01-06-06
beta (scatter plot)
Lecture 01-06-10
alpha (scatter plot)

Lecture 01-06-10
How do you use a scatter plot to plot daily returns?
When comparing two stocks, take the daily returns of two stocks and plot (x, y) as (stock_a, stock_b).
Using linear regression plot the mean as a line to find beta and alpha.
E.G. when comparing a stock against the market as a whole
Lecture 01-06-09
Slope vs correlation.
Correlation is how tight the points are to the mean, where as the slope is just the slope of the line.
Lecture 01-07-11
What is a portfolio?
Allocation of funds to a set of stocks
Lecture 01-07-01
How do you calculate the total value of the portfolio day by day?
Lecture 01-07-02
Sharpe Ratio
Risk adjusted Return
(Rp - Rf) / σp
ex ante E[Rp - Rf] / STD[Rp]
Lectures 01-07-05; 01-07-06
What is Risk free rate of return and where can you get it?
Return if you put your money into a bank
Can get it from
Lecture 01-07-05; 01-07-11
How do you calculate daily risk free rate if using Libor or 3 month tbill.
Lecture 01-07-07
What is the annualized version of the sharpe ratio.
Since it was intended to be an annual measurement but can change based on frequencey of the sample SR
Lecture 01-07-11
What is an optimizer?
Lecture 01-08-01
How to use an optimizer?
Lecture 01-08-01
What are the methods do minimizers use?
Gradient Descent…
Lecture 01-08-02
How can minimizers be defeated?
Lecture 01-08-03; 01-08-04