This article proposes the orthonormalised Laguerre polynomial (OLP) model of the yield curve, a generic linear model that is both cross-sectionally consistent (that is, it reliably fits the yield curve at a given point in time), and inter-temporally consistent (that is, the cross-sectional...

The performance of dynamic trading and investment strategies can be difficult to predict. Although not without its problems, analysis of the historical performance of a strategy can provide valuable insight into its general risk and return properties. Furthermore, historical analysis allows one...

Implicit in industry standard option pricing models is the expectation that roughly 25% of stocks with 60% consistent volatility will septuple within 10 years, an extraordinary rate of appreciation. The exceptionally high equilibrium anticipated returns for an improbably large percentage of high...

Pushing models to extremes can expose output biases that stem from underlying assumptions. In the case of industry standard option valuation models, long term, high volatility securities provide a stress test vehicle. For instance, in evaluating a stock with 60% volatility, industry standard...

In this report we study South African implied volatility from three different perspectives. Firstly, we conduct an analysis of the historical Top40 Index implied volatility surface dynamics. In particular, we consider the regime-dependence of atm volatility and skew levels and how this...

In continuous time specifications, the prices of interest rate derivative securities depend crucially on the mean reversion parameter of the associated interest rate diffusion equation. This parameter is well known to be subject to estimation bias when standard methods like maximum likelihood...

This paper proposes a nonparametric regression using asymmetric kernel functions for nonnegative, absolutely regular processes, and specializes this technique to estimating scalar diffusion models of spot interest rate. We illustrate the advantages of asymmetric kernel estimators for bias...

This paper motivates and introduces a two-stage method for estimating diffusion processes based on discretely sampled observations. In the first stage we make use of the feasible central limit theory for realized volatility, as recently developed in Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard (2002), to...

We discuss the idea of a purely algorithmic universal world iCurrency set forth in: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542541" https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542541 and expanded in: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=3059330" https://ssrn.com/abstract=3059330 in light of recent developments, including Libra. Is...

We discuss the pros of adopting government-issued digital currencies as well as a supranational digital iCurrency. One such pro is to get rid of paper money (and coinage), a ubiquitous medium for spreading germs, as highlighted by the recent coronavirus outbreak. We set forth three policy...