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Pairs Trade: Definition, How Strategy Works, and Example

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Pairs Trade: Definition, How Strategy Works, and Example

what is pairs trading

The reason behind this is relatively straightforward to understand. When the three pairs fall, it means that the US dollar is strengthening. As such, that spread is often spread across other currency pairs. Let’s explore some effective strategies that can be employed 6 best online stock trading courses in pairs trading to increase the chances of success in this strategy. Now that we understand the concepts behind pairs trading, let’s delve into the mechanics of implementing this strategy effectively.

A pairs trade is a market-neutral trading strategy in which you buy (take a long position in) a stock or other security and sell (take a short position in) another security. In the chart below, the potential for profit can be identified when the price ratio hits its first or second deviation. When these profitable divergences occur it is time to take a long position in the underperformer and a short position in the overachiever. The revenue from the short sale can help cover the cost of the long position, making the pairs trade inexpensive to put on.

In theory, when oil prices rise, you would expect that shares of airline stocks will decline because oil is the most expensive part of running an airline. In this article, we will look at what pairs trading is, how to use it, and some of the key strategies to use. You can also learn more about Mean Reversion Trading Strategies to use market data and statistical concepts, here is a brief video. This new distribution will have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. It is easy to create threshold levels for this distribution such as 1.5 sigma, 2 sigma, 2.5 sigma, and so on.

what is pairs trading

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Margin trading is extended by National Financial Services, Member NYSE, SIPC, a Fidelity Investments company. For instance, a stock might move 1% a day on average, while a cryptocurrency coin moves 5% a day on average. Buying and shorting $1,000 on each will bias the impact of your pairs trade towards the easiest way to change ada to usd cryptocurrency. You will know when to enter the trade and when not to, even as the 2 assets diverge and everyone else is entering the pairs trade. Among the best pair trading stocks, Joe chooses to match his long Twitter position with an equal-size short Facebook position. The best forex pairs to trade with this market neutral strategy are the ones with the highest correlation.

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Pairs trading is a trading strategy that is based on the assumption that the highly correlated securities will come back to their neutral position after any divergence. This strategy can be incorporated into any kind of trading and in any market such as stocks, forex etc. It is extremely important that the evaluation of the correlation must be made carefully as any wrong assumption or prediction may result in the failure of the pairs trading strategy.

Usually, we check for data cleanliness at the backtesting with code stage. We look for potential errors and try to get data from multiple sources to compare. We buy $100 worth of Z (blue line) and short $100 worth of EWU (red line). The reason for the deviated stock to come back to original value is itself an assumption. It is assumed that the pair will have similar business performance as in the past during the holding period of the stock.

This strategy aims to profit from the normalization of the relative price relationship between the two assets. By analyzing fundamental factors such as earnings, ratios, or industry-specific news, traders can identify opportunities for a relative value trade. The pairs trading strategy works not only with stocks but also with currencies, commodities, and options.

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However, no matter where the general market goes, one of the positions will always show a profit while the other one will show you a loss. In very rare circumstances you can end up with two winning or losing positions. Besides, correlation uses historical data and is not always an indication of what will happen in the future. As you can see, in the past 12 months, the EUR/USD has a correlation coefficient of 0.87 against the AUD/CAD. This means that the two pairs have moved in the same direction in thar period.

  1. However, if the two pairs rise, you can expect to make a loss on the two pairs.
  2. If you look ahead in the graph to spot a profitable exit, and only decide to enter your trade because of that, your trades are biased.
  3. An overlay analysis will help adjust profit objectives and stop loss levels according to the specifics of a given trade.

Recall that we had long the blue line and short the red line on 28th Jan 2019. Using the above chart as reference, we see that the blue and red lines have the same starting point on 28th Dec 2016. Then the number on the y-axis is the change in price since the left most point.

The Importance of Backtesting in Pairs Trading

It’s worth noting, however, that it took three months for this trade to come to fruition. For a pairs trader looking for an arbitrage-type convergence, that’s a lot of time between trade initiation and liquidation, considering a pairs trade requires a short stock position. If both Twitter and Facebook stocks go up, Joe pockets the difference between the profits made in a long position and the loss in the short position. Assuming that the relative performance of Twitter stock is better than the relative performance of the Facebook stock, Joe is profitable. Pairs trading is essentially taking a long position in one asset. At the same time, you take an equal-sized short position in another asset.

Whereas a perfect negative correlation is when one variable moves in the upward direction and the other variable moves in the downward (i.e. opposite) direction with the same magnitude. Imagine if we identified and are trading 20 pairs independently. Is this case, you are betting that the 2 assets will become increasingly different from each other as time goes by. Moreover, the average price movement of the different future contracts are different too. Thus, we need to account for these to make sure the size our bets right.

Today, pairs trading is often conducted using algorithmic trading strategies on an execution management system. These strategies are typically built around models that define the spread based on historical data mining and analysis. The algorithm monitors for deviations in price, automatically buying and selling to capitalize on market inefficiencies.

The yellow and red lines represent one and two standard deviations from the mean ratio, respectively. Pairs trading has the potential to achieve profits through simple and relatively low-risk positions. The pairs trade is market-neutral, meaning the direction of the overall market does not affect its win or loss.

When you short the EUR/USD pair, you have basically bought the US dollar and sold the euro. Therefore, in such a situation, when you have sold the EUR/USD and GBP/USD, you can expect to make a profit on the two pairs. However, if the two pairs rise, you can expect to make a loss on the two pairs. There can be many ways of defining take profits depending on your risk appetite and backtesting results. This parameter will change as per the backtesting results without risking overfitting data. A perfect positive correlation is when one variable moves in either an upward or downward direction and the other variable also Dominate day trading moves in the same direction with the same magnitude.