Matlab

[DominiConnor]

I'm interested in the % of MFE students who use Matlab, any ideas ?

 

[Peik Looi]

We use C++ and Excel VBA in our assignments.

 

[Bridgett]

some current students do use MatLab though, but I'm not sure about the %.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I'm interested in the % of MFE students who use Matlab, any ideas ?

It's interesting you asked because I notice many shops increasingly use Matlab for the models development. They told me that they chose Matlab for the shorter development time. They can convert to C++ using Matlab compiler.

What is your take on Matlab, Dominic ?

 

[DominiConnor]

Matlab is indeed getting a good share of model development. Banks vary a lot in how they see it as adding value to a Cv. Zero if they don't use it, and some see it as rather like someone bragging that they are "really good at doing charts in Excel".
But there is a market for people who know it well and can do finance.
We are seeing the emergence of a market for it as a distinct skill like C++, VBA etc.

But like anything else you put on your CV, it' ,laying down a challenge to be asked hard questions on it.
We do have a requirement going for a serious Matlab guru at a tier one bank, though I set an expectation with them, that "someone will turn up before Christmas, probably". Deep Matlab skills are quite rare. So far we've found precisley one newbie at this level, and the fight over who hired him was nasty enough that I found it appropriate to give him personal counselling on the issue.

We see Matlab as promising enough that we're starting to build a relationship with the firm itself.

 

[tigergb]

we use matlab quite often for daily research because of its built-in function and convenience, but switch to C++ for formal use.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

matlab vs SAS for data analysis

While doing some research on which software is more suited for large scale data analysis, I came across this discussion which I found useful. It compares Matlab vs SAS

I agree, MATLAB is a great product, but in my opinion it completely depends on what your doing. If your doing any "mathematical" type problems (i.e. large scale simulations, equation solving, etc ...) I think MATLAB is far superior to SAS. The language is relatively easy to learn as is a much more "obvious" programming language than SAS. For example, if you want to create an nxn matrix of zeros, the MATLAB command is zeros(n,n) ... or for an nxn identity matrix the command is eye(n). Plus if you want your plots to look good, MATLAB plots are definetly the way to go. (Unless you buy the expensive SAS/GRAPH add-on)
However, if your doing any "statistical" problems (i.e. predictive modeling, statistical analysis, etc ...) I think SAS is far superior in these applications. SAS also does very well with massive datasets and has a lot of great built in procedures.
So, depending on what your doing, MATLAB and SAS both have there advantages and disadvantages. They're both expensive, but if your companies paying for them ... I say get both !
Hope that helps
Eric B

John,

If you simply compare stat toolbox in matlab with stat/SAS, I totally
agree with you that SAS is much better than matlab. However,

1) it is much easy to do generic programming and write your own functions in matlab. There is no comparison between writing SAS macro and writing functions in matlab.
2) it is very easy to create high-quality chart in matlab. The chart quality in matlab is comparable with the one created by S+/R.
3) if you are using neural net, the functions provoded by Eminer/SAS is not even close to the neuralnet toolbox in matlab.
4) in tems of price, I think matlab is much cheaper than SAS.

I have to chime in and agree with Eric B. Whenever I have a complex problem involving matrix algebra, I tend to turn to MatLab, but I'm far more likely to use SAS for everyday statistical problems. The
addition of anovan (and its ability to handle nested designs) is a big recent improvement to MatLab's toolbox, but the statistical tools in SAS still far outsurpass those in MatLab. SAS is also better at automation as it seamlessly integrates with
.Net architecture -- something MatLab is still working on. MatLab's programming language is nevertheless easy to use and understand --if you have a strong matrix algebra background -- so like Eric, I say get
both.

Cheers! John

 

[Jonathan]

SAS is deeper than just a programming language, the documentation for the usages and functionalities are endless. At work, we occasionally use SAS/IML (Interactive Matrix Language). If you want a identity matrix or zero matrix, than its I(n) and j(n,n,0). There are some guys here 10 years and still learning new things with SAS.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I agree that SAS document is just way too much for one to master. Matlab is much easier to learn. Also, Amazon is selling the SAS documents that you can download from SAS website for free

I like the SAS PROC pretty much.

So Jonathan, how did you get your dataset ? Is it local or remotely ?
I couldn't get the work machine to connect to our SQL server so I'll bring my laptop over and try again tomorrow.

 

[Jonathan]

Well, I access the Oracle DB in Unix using Putty. The SAS code has some preliminary commands to get access the datasets, (its typically a libname statement with pswd and usrname). If there is too much traffic on the system then I just export the datasets that I need to my PC using the WinSCP tool.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Nice input.
I did SAS/ACCESS with libname and pass-through but it complained about ODBC driver not found. The database I'm dealing with is 100GB in size and updated everynight so download it locally is not an option.

SAS/CONNECT to a SAS server to run batch job would be nice but we don't have a SAS server set up yet. I'll try to connect it from my laptop tomorrow and see what happen.

In any case, I probably talk to you soon. I'm interested in learning more about the SAS tricks you know

 

[Yuriy]

SAS is very powerful in terms that you can do virtually everything. Although, it might not be the most efficient way
I would vote for SAS, but keep an eye on S-Plus as well.
Actually, we could try to compare SAS and S-Plus, rather than SAS and Matlab, since, in my opinion, SAS and Matlab are designed to do different things.

 

[joe_bradley]

While you're at it, toss in R. GNU R is the free/open-source equivalent to S-plus and I hear it's pretty competitive in terms of useful functionality. In any case, for any sort of stuff I want to do at home, I suppose I'll -have- to learn R since the price is right.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

In any case, I probably talk to you soon. I'm interested in learning more about the SAS tricks you know

After talking to Jonathan, it turns out that my SAS does not have the license to use SAS/ACCESS interface to SQL server.
Running this will display all the licensed components installed on your machine

proc setinit;
run;

 

[Andy Nguyen]

While looking for a comparison between R/SPlus/SAS/Matlab, I came across this from wilmot
http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=8&threadid=54251

It's from a NYU MF student. There are some good info, the least of it is that they use Excel/VBA to do hw at NYU

 

[Yuriy]

By the they, are there any thoughts about having a course in SAS/S-Plus? Half semester in SAS, half in S-Plus.
Part of the course could be devoted to learning SAS and databases, which seems to be a very important.

 

[kean]

I would consider SPlus and R are in the same category, except S-Plus needs a commercial license. In addition, S-Plus is more powerful when you add finmetric (a separate module) for financial modeling.

I do not have much experience with Matlab. I use Mathematica.

SAS is very powerful for statistical analysis. I think data mining in SAS is the best due its powerful Enterprise Date Miner. If SAS is a superset then S-Plus is closing the rank.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I'm gonna try to see if Matlab can handle huge amount of data tomorrow. I read a bit about all different modules in Matlab and it seems very capable.

 

[kean]

I plan to pick up Matlab too. Please update us your success with Matlab.

I'm gonna try to see if Matlab can handle huge amount of data tomorrow. I read a bit about all different modules in Matlab and it seems very capable.

 

[John]

I would consider SPlus and R are in the same category, except S-Plus needs a commercial license. In addition, S-Plus is more powerful when you add finmetric (a separate module) for financial modeling.

I do not have much experience with Matlab. I use Mathematica.

SAS is very powerful for statistical analysis. I think data mining in SAS is the best due its powerful Enterprise Date Miner. If SAS is a superset then S-Plus is closing the rank.

S-Plus' finmetrics, IHMO, is a great tool to learn time series analysis.