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arXiv · 1110.1006

Returns in futures markets and $ν=3$ t-distribution

Laurent Schoeffel
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Abstract

The probability distribution of log-returns of financial time series, sampled at high frequency, is the basis for any further developments in quantitative finance. In this letter, we present experimental results based on a large set of time series on futures. Then, we show that the t-distribution with $ν\simeq 3$ gives a nice description of almost all data series. This appears to be a quite general result that stays robust on a large set of any financial data as well as on a wide range of sampling frequency of these data, below one hour.

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Laurent Schoeffel. 2011-10-05. Returns in futures markets and $ν=3$ t-distribution. https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1006

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