Dowd Ch 3 Confidence Interval

Hello,

I am trying to make sense of Dowd's chapter 3, example 1.6 - and I simply do not get it. I am wondering whether there a mistake in the example?

1) In the second paragraph, he calculates p as the probability mass left of the lower boundary q - h/2. That looks arbitrary. Hull (in Risk Management and Financial Institutions, chapter 14.2) simply uses 1 - confidence = 5%.

2) When he calculates f(q), he takes the probability mass between +/- h/2 and plugs that into the formula. However, I understand that f(q) is actually the PDF at the quantile. So he would have to divide by h, which reduces the standard error considerably. That would also remove the dependency on the choice of h, which he complains about in the text, but which does not make any sense to me, as h is simply a variable which has to be infinitely small. Again, Hull simply uses the PDF.

Any advice?

Regards
Thomas
 

ShaktiRathore

Well-Known Member
Subscriber
Hi,
Thomad when acc. To me dowd puts +-h/2 in the firmula so that h is very small ,calculating probability mass b/w these limits shall only give the pdf at q i.e. f(q),so nothing different from hull which simly uses f(q) the pdf for finding f(q).
q-h/2 shall become q as h is very small. So its equivalent to saying prob. Mass left of q just as hull.
I think Dowd is handling limits for formulae to calculate f(q).He is just more analytical than hull.
Thanks
 

tosuhn

Active Member
Hi @David Harper CFA FRM CIPM I do not understand the corresponding Vars for the first point below. Shouldn't the 3rd worst loss of 2,525 instead of 2,503?

Page3, Dowd Chapter 3: Estimating Market Risk Measures
The VaRs correspond to the specified confidence level:

 The 99.0% VaR is 2,524 because that is the 3rd worst loss of -2,503 (the VaR is a loss but expressed as a positive typically)

 The 98.0% VaR is 2,466 because that is the 5th worst loss of -2,466

Hope to hear from you soon.
Thanks and regards,
Sun
 
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