Pairs trading with general state space models

Guang Zhang

Quantitative Finance, 2021, vol. 21, issue 9, 1567-1587

Abstract: This study examines pairs trading using a general state space model framework. It models the spread between the prices of two assets as an unobservable state variable assuming that it follows a mean-reverting process. This new model has two distinctive features: the (1) non-Gaussianity and heteroscedasticity of innovations to the spread, and (2) nonlinearity of the mean reversion of the spread. It shows how to use the filtered spread as the trading indicator in carrying out statistical arbitrage and proposes a new trading strategy which uses a Monte Carlo-based approach to selecting the optimal trading rule. The new model and trading strategy are illustrated by two examples: PEP vs. KO and EWT vs. EWH. The empirical results show that the new approach can achieve 21.86% (31.84%) annualized return for the PEP-KO (EWT-EWH) pair. Then all the possible pairs among the five largest and the five smallest U.S. banks listed on the NYSE are considered. For these pairs, the performance of the proposed approach with that of the existing popular approaches, are compared both in-sample and out-of-sample. In almost all the cases considered, our approach can significantly improve the return and the Sharpe ratio.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14697688.2021.1890806 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:quantf:v:21:y:2021:i:9:p:1567-1587

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RQUF20

DOI: 10.1080/14697688.2021.1890806

Access Statistics for this article

Quantitative Finance is currently edited by Michael Dempster and Jim Gatheral

More articles in Quantitative Finance from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().