KIEN PHAMCAPITAL & QUANT LABS

Mind Log & Decision Records

A defensible record of mathematical and infrastructural trade-offs.

ADR-01IN PRODUCTION

Polars over Pandas for tick-level simulation

Context: Backtests on tick-level order book data were exceeding memory limits on local research servers.

Chosen Rationale: Polars. Vectorized multi-threaded execution reduced memory footprint by 15x.

Accepted Trade-off: Thinner ecosystem for niche econometrics; solved via lightweight numpy bridges.

ADR-04IN PRODUCTION

Regime-switching stochastic volatility over GARCH-Copula

Context: Convexity trap modeling required recognizing regime divergence where standard volatility hedges break.

Chosen Rationale: Regime-switching volatility because tail-risk survival depends on regime boundaries, not interiors.

Accepted Trade-off: Calibration is computationally heavier and sensitive to state-count hyperparameter specification.