Hedging/Trading Strategy testing

strategy Function

The strategy function is the backbone of the strategy_returns function. To test out a trading strategy, strategy must be extended and given a new method overload for a new Hedging type.

The key elements to defining a new strategy are (in the order used by strategy_returns):

  • fin_obj: the FinancialInstrument (or Vector{:>FinancialInstrument} the strategy is defined for. In the function definition, it can be left without a type to be generic for any FinancialInstrument.
  • pricing_model: the pricing model to be used on the financial instruments in the strategy. It does not need to be specified in the function definition.
  • holdings: The dictionary of owned financial instruments and Widgets. Does not need to be specified in the function definition.
  • step: The index of time steps that have passed in the strategy simulation. Does not need to be specified in the function definition.
  • kwargs...: A place holder to allow pass through keyword arguments that might be needed in the strategy such as transaction costs, or extra arguments for the price! function.

IMPORTANT: always return holdings at the end of the strategy function!!

buy and sell Functions

The buy and sell functions are provided to make defining a strategy easier inside the strategy definition. They record in the holdings dictionary how much more or less of a certain FinancialInstrument or Widget are owned after the transaction, along with the changes in the holdings["cash"].

Using holdings or step in a strategy

The holdings dictionary is initialized during the startup phase of the strategy_returns function, but it can be manipulated by a custom strategy function in ways other than the buy and sell functions.

For example, if tracking the delta exposure of a stock option would be helpful in a strategy, it can be added to the holdings dictionary.

# inside the custom strategy function
holdings["delta"] = current_delta

Then, at the end of the strategy function, strategy_returns will copy all of the values to a dictionary of arrays of all the holdings during every time step. This is returned at the end of strategy_returns.

The step argument is indexed from the number of timesteps from the start of the strategy. step==1 happens on the timestep of the strategy, before the first entry of future_prices. This is a good time to set up things for the initial strategy. For example, if your strategy is to buy one call option then hedge the risk using the underlying stock, the beginning of your strategy function might include:

# inside strategy function
if step == 1
    buy(fin_obj, 1, holdings, pricing_model, 0) #assuming no transaction cost
end

The step function can also be used to buy or sell at a specific time interval. See the tutorial page for an example.

strategy_returns Function

strategy_returns acts as a wrapper for the strategy function. It handles all interest on cash balances, and updates the ts_holdings object of a time-series of the holdings dictionary.

timesteps_per_period reflects the size of time that passes between each time the strategy funciton is called compared to the implicit time period. For example, if daily data is used for historic and future prices, assuming yearly interest rates, then timesteps_per_period would be 252. This is to allow strategy_returns function to be as generic as possible. Yearly, biyearly, or even hourly time windows are possible depending on the nature of the data used.

Note: strategy_returns returns the dollar cumulative return from the strategy, NOT the percent return on an investment.