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Sensitivity of Profitability in Cointegration-Based Pairs Trading

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Abstract

The cointegrated-based pair trading crucially depends on two key parameters: the length of the formation period and the divergence signal (or opening trigger), which are generally arbitrarily or statistically determined in the literature. In this article, we perform a sensitivity analysis of the pairs trading profitability to its parametrization, employing the daily closing prices of the S&P 500 constituent stocks. We found that that not only the measures of performance (i.e. average excess returns, Sharpe ratios and percentage of positive excess returns), but also strategy characteristics and trades features (i.e. average trades’ duration and number of trades) are highly sensitive to the choice of the parameters.

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  • Marianna Brunetti & Roberta De Luca, 2022. "Sensitivity of Profitability in Cointegration-Based Pairs Trading," CEIS Research Paper 540, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 11 Apr 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:540
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    pairs trading; sensitivity analysis; formation period;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • C44 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Operations Research; Statistical Decision Theory
    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis

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