I would like to calibrate a interest rate tree using the optimization tool in matlab. Need some guidance on doing it.
The interest rate tree looks like this:
How it works:
3.73% = 2.5%*exp(2*0.2)
96.40453 = (0.5*100 + 0.5*100)/(1+3.73%)
94.15801 = (0.5*96.40453+ 0.5*97.56098)/(1+2.50%)
The value of 2.5% is arbitrary and the upper node is obtained by multiplying with an exponential of 2*volatility(here it is 20%).
I need to optimize the problem by varying different values for the lower node.
How do I do this optimization in Matlab?
What I have tried so far?
InterestTree{1}(1,1) = 0.03;
InterestTree{3-1}(1,3-1)= 2.5/100;
InterestTree{3}(2,:) = 100;
InterestTree{3-1}(1,3-2)= (2.5*exp(2*0.2))/100;
InterestTree{3-1}(2,3-1)=(0.5*InterestTree{3}(2,3)+0.5*InterestTree{3}(2,3-1))/(1+InterestTree{3-1}(1,3-1));
j = 3-2;
InterestTree{3-1}(2,3-2)=(0.5*InterestTree{3}(2,j+1)+0.5*InterestTree{3}(2,j))/(1+InterestTree{3-1}(1,j));
InterestTree{3-2}(2,3-2)=(0.5*InterestTree{3-1}(2,j+1)+0.5*InterestTree{3-1}(2,j))/(1+InterestTree{3-2}(1,j));
But I am not sure how to go about the optimization. Any suggestions to improve the code, do tell me..Need some guidance on this..
Are you expecting the tree to increase in size? Or are you just optimizing over the value of the "2.5%" parameter?
If it's the latter, there are two ways. The first is to model the tree using a closed form expression by replacing 2.5% with x, which is possible with the tree. There are nonlinear optimization toolboxes available in Matlab (e.g. more here), but it's been too long since I've done this to give you a more detailed answer.
The seconds is the approach I would immediately do. I'm interpreting the example you gave, so the equations I'm using may be incorrect - however, the principle of using the for loop is the same.
vol = 0.2;
maxival = 100;
val1 = zeros(1,maxival); %Preallocate
finalval = zeros(1,maxival);
for ival=1:maxival
val1(ival) = i/1000; %Use any scaling you want. This will go from 0.1% to 10%
val2=val1(ival)*exp(2*vol);
x1 = (0.5*100+0.5*100)/(1+val2); %Based on the equation you gave
x2 = (0.5*100+0.5*100)/(1+val1(ival)); %I'm assuming this is how you calculate the bottom node
finalval(ival) = x1*0.5+x2*0.5/(1+...); %The example you gave isn't clear, so replace this with whatever it should be
end
[maxval, indmaxval] = max(finalval);
The maximum value is in maxval, and the interest that maximized this is in val1(indmaxval).
Related
Background: I am working on a problem similar to the nonlinear logistic regression described in the link [1] (my problem is more complicated, but link [1] is enough for the next sections of this post). Comparing my results with those obtained in parallel with a R package, I got similar results for the coefficients, but (very approximately) an opposite logLikelihood.
Hypothesis: The logLikelihood given by fitnlm in Matlab is in fact the negative LogLikelihood. (Note that this impairs consequently the BIC and AIC computation by Matlab)
Reasonning: in [1], the same problem is solved through two different approaches. ML-approach/ By defining the negative LogLikelihood and making an optimization with fminsearch. GLS-approach/ By using fitnlm.
The negative LogLikelihood after the ML-approach is:380
The negative LogLikelihood after the GLS-approach is:-406
I imagine the second one should be at least multiplied by (-1)?
Questions: Did I miss something? Is the (-1) coefficient enough, or would this simple correction not be enough?
Self-contained code:
%copy-pasting code from [1]
myf = #(beta,x) beta(1)*x./(beta(2) + x);
mymodelfun = #(beta,x) 1./(1 + exp(-myf(beta,x)));
rng(300,'twister');
x = linspace(-1,1,200)';
beta = [10;2];
beta0=[3;3];
mu = mymodelfun(beta,x);
n = 50;
z = binornd(n,mu);
y = z./n;
%ML Approach
mynegloglik = #(beta) -sum(log(binopdf(z,n,mymodelfun(beta,x))));
opts = optimset('fminsearch');
opts.MaxFunEvals = Inf;
opts.MaxIter = 10000;
betaHatML = fminsearch(mynegloglik,beta0,opts)
neglogLH_MLApproach = mynegloglik(betaHatML);
%GLS Approach
wfun = #(xx) n./(xx.*(1-xx));
nlm = fitnlm(x,y,mymodelfun,beta0,'Weights',wfun)
neglogLH_GLSApproach = - nlm.LogLikelihood;
Source:
[1] https://uk.mathworks.com/help/stats/examples/nonlinear-logistic-regression.html
This answer (now) only details which code is used. Please see Tom Lane's answer below for a substantive answer.
Basically, fitnlm.m is a call to NonLinearModel.fit.
When opening NonLinearModel.m, one gets in line 1209:
model.LogLikelihood = getlogLikelihood(model);
getlogLikelihood is itself described between lines 1234-1251.
For instance:
function L = getlogLikelihood(model)
(...)
L = -(model.DFE + model.NumObservations*log(2*pi) + (...) )/2;
(...)
Please also not that this notably impacts ModelCriterion.AIC and ModelCriterion.BIC, as they are computed using model.LogLikelihood ("thinking" it is the logLikelihood).
To get the corresponding formula for BIC/AIC/..., type:
edit classreg.regr.modelutils.modelcriterion
this is Tom from MathWorks. Take another look at the formula quoted:
L = -(model.DFE + model.NumObservations*log(2*pi) + (...) )/2;
Remember the normal distribution has a factor (1/sqrt(2*pi)), so taking logs of that gives us -log(2*pi)/2. So the minus sign comes from that and it is part of the log likelihood. The property value is not the negative log likelihood.
One reason for the difference in the two log likelihood values is that the "ML approach" value is computing something based on the discrete probabilities from the binomial distribution. Those are all between 0 and 1, and they add up to 1. The "GLS approach" is computing something based on the probability density of the continuous normal distribution. In this example, the standard deviation of the residuals is about 0.0462. That leads to density values that are much higher than 1 at the peak. So the two things are not really comparable. You would need to convert the normal values to probabilities on the same discrete intervals that correspond to individual outcomes from the binomial distribution.
I have a system of 5 ODEs with nonlinear terms involved. I am trying to vary 3 parameters over some ranges to see what parameters would produce the necessary behaviour that I am looking for.
The issue is I have written the code with 3 for loops and it takes a very long time to get the output.
I am also storing the parameter values within the loops when it meets a parameter set that satisfies an ODE event.
This is how I have implemented it in matlab.
function [m,cVal,x,y]=parameters()
b=5000;
q=0;
r=10^4;
s=0;
n=10^-8;
time=3000;
m=[];
cVal=[];
x=[];
y=[];
val1=0.1:0.01:5;
val2=0.1:0.2:8;
val3=10^-13:10^-14:10^-11;
for i=1:length(val1)
for j=1:length(val2)
for k=1:length(val3)
options = odeset('AbsTol',1e-15,'RelTol',1e-13,'Events',#eventfunction);
[t,y,te,ye]=ode45(#(t,y)systemFunc(t,y,[val1(i),val2(j),val3(k)]),0:time,[b,q,s,r,n],options);
if length(te)==1
m=[m;val1(i)];
cVal=[cVal;val2(j)];
x=[x;val3(k)];
y=[y;ye(1)];
end
end
end
end
Is there any other way that I can use to speed up this process?
Profile viewer results
I have written the system of ODEs simply with the a format like
function s=systemFunc(t,y,p)
s= zeros(2,1);
s(1)=f*y(1)*(1-(y(1)/k))-p(1)*y(2)*y(1)/(p(2)*y(2)+y(1));
s(2)=p(3)*y(1)-d*y(2);
end
f,d,k are constant parameters.
The equations are more complicated than what's here as its a system of 5 ODEs with lots of non linear terms interacting with each other.
Tommaso is right. Preallocating will save some time.
But I would guess that there is fundamentally not a lot you can do since you are running ode45 in a loop. ode45 itself may be the bottleneck.
I would suggest you profile your code to see where the bottleneck is:
profile on
parameters(... )
profile viewer
I would guess that ode45 is the problem. Probably you will find that you should actually focus your time on optimizing the systemFunc code for performance. But you won't know that until you run the profiler.
EDIT
Based on the profiler output and additional code, I see some things that will help
It seems like the vectorization of your values is hurting you. Instead of
#(t,y)systemFunc(t,y,[val1(i),val2(j),val3(k)])
try
#(t,y)systemFunc(t,y,val1(i),val2(j),val3(k))
where your system function is defined as
function s=systemFunc(t,y,p1,p2,p3)
s= zeros(2,1);
s(1)=f*y(1)*(1-(y(1)/k))-p1*y(2)*y(1)/(p2*y(2)+y(1));
s(2)=p3*y(1)-d*y(2);
end
Next, note that you don't have to preallocate space in the systemFunc, just combine them in the output:
function s=systemFunc(t,y,p1,p2,p3)
s = [ f*y(1)*(1-(y(1)/k))-p1*y(2)*y(1)/(p2*y(2)+y(1)),
p3*y(1)-d*y(2) ];
end
Finally, note that ode45 is internally taking about 1/3 of your runtime. There is not much you will be able to do about that. If you can live with it, I would suggest increasing your 'AbsTol' and 'RelTol' to more reasonable numbers. Those values are really small, and are making ode45 run for a really long time. If you can live with it, try increasing them to something like 1e-6 or 1e-8 and see how much the performance increases. Alternatively, depending on how smooth your function is, you might be able to do better with a different integrator (like ode23). But your mileage will vary based on how smooth your problem is.
I have two suggestions for you.
Preallocate the vectors in which you store your results and use an
increasing index to populate them into each iteration.
Since the options you use are always the same, instantiate then
outside the loop only once.
Final code:
function [m,cVal,x,y] = parameters()
b = 5000;
q = 0;
r = 10^4;
s = 0;
n = 10^-8;
time = 3000;
options = odeset('AbsTol',1e-15,'RelTol',1e-13,'Events',#eventfunction);
val1 = 0.1:0.01:5;
val1_len = numel(val1);
val2 = 0.1:0.2:8;
val2_len = numel(val2);
val3 = 10^-13:10^-14:10^-11;
val3_len = numel(val3);
total_len = val1_len * val2_len * val3_len;
m = NaN(total_len,1);
cVal = NaN(total_len,1);
x = NaN(total_len,1);
y = NaN(total_len,1);
res_offset = 1;
for i = 1:val1_len
for j = 1:val2_len
for k = 1:val3_len
[t,y,te,ye] = ode45(#(t,y)systemFunc(t,y,[val1(i),val2(j),val3(k)]),0:time,[b,q,s,r,n],options);
if (length(te) == 1)
m(res_offset) = val1(i);
cVal(res_offset) = val2(j);
x(res_offset) = val3(k);
y(res_offset) = ye(1);
end
res_offset = res_offset + 1;
end
end
end
end
If you only want to preserve result values that have been correctly computed, you can remove the rows containing NaNs at the bottom of your function. Indexing on one of the vectors will be enough to clear everything:
rows_ok = ~isnan(y);
m = m(rows_ok);
cVal = cVal(rows_ok);
x = x(rows_ok);
y = y(rows_ok);
In continuation of the other suggestions, I have 2 more suggestions for you:
You might want to try with a different solver, ODE45 is for non-stiff problems, but from the looks of it, it might seem like your problem could be stiff (parameters have a different order of magnitude). Try for instance with the ode23s method.
Secondly, without knowing which event you are looking for, maybe it is possible for you to use a logarithmic search rather than a linear one. e.g. the Bisection method. This will severely cut down on the number of times you have to solve the equation.
I have an integrated error expression E = int[ abs(x-p)^2 ]dx with limits x|0 to x|L. The variable p is a polynomial of the form 2*(a*sin(x)+b(a)*sin(2*x)+c(a)*sin(3*x)). In other words, both coefficients b and c are known expressions of a. An additional equation is given as dE/da = 0. If the upper limit L is defined, the system of equations is closed and I can solve for a, giving the three coefficients.
I managed to get an optimization routine to solve for a purely based on maximizing L. This is confirmed by setting optimize=0 in the code below. It gives the same solution as if I solved the problem analytically. Therefore, I know the equations to solve for the coefficent a are correct.
I know the example I presented can be solved with pencil and paper, but I'm trying to build an optimization function that is generalized for this type of problem (I have a lot to evaluate). Ideally, polynomial is given as an input argument to a function which then outputs xsol. Obviously, I need to get the optimization to work for the polynomial I presented here before I can worry about generalizations.
Anyway, I now need to further optimize the problem with some constraints. To start, L is chosen. This allows me to calculate a. Once a is know, the polynomial is a known function of x only i.e p(x). I need to then determine the largest INTERVAL from 0->x over which the following constraint is satisfied: |dp(x)/dx - 1| < tol. This gives me a measure of the performance of the polynomial with the coefficient a. The interval is what I call the "bandwidth". I would like to emphasis two things: 1) The "bandwidth" is NOT the same as L. 2) All values of x within the "bandwidth" must meet the constraint. The function dp(x)/dx does oscillate in and out of the tolerance criteria, so testing the criteria for a single value of x does not work. It must be tested over an interval. The first instance of violation defines the bandwidth. I need to maximize this "bandwidth"/interval. For output, I also need to know which L lead to such an optimization, hence I know the correct a to choose for the given constraints. That is the formal problem statement. (I hope I got it right this time)
Now my problem is setting this whole thing up with MATLAB's optimization tools. I tried to follow ideas from the following articles:
Tutorial for the Optimization Toolbox™
Setting optimize=1 for the if statement will work with the constrained optimization. I thought some how nested optimization is involved, but I couldn't get anything to work. I provided known solutions to the problem from the IMSL optimization library to compare/check with. They are written below the optimization routine. Anyway, here is the code I've put together so far:
function [history] = testing()
% History
history.fval = [];
history.x = [];
history.a = [];
%----------------
% Equations
polynomial = #(x,a) 2*sin(x)*a + 2*sin(2*x)*(9/20 -(4*a)/5) + 2*sin(3*x)*(a/5 - 2/15);
dpdx = #(x,a) 2*cos(x)*a + 4*cos(2*x)*(9/20 -(4*a)/5) + 6*cos(3*x)*(a/5 - 2/15);
% Upper limit of integration
IC = 0.8; % initial
LB = 0; % lower
UB = pi/2; % upper
% Optimization
tol = 0.003;
% Coefficient
% --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dpda = #(x,a) 2*sin(x) + 2*sin(2*x)*(-4/5) + 2*sin(3*x)*1/5;
dEda = #(L,a) -2*integral(#(x) (x-polynomial(x,a)).*dpda(x,a),0,L);
a_of_L = #(L) fzero(#(a)dEda(L,a),0); % Calculate the value of "a" for a given "L"
EXITFLAG = #(L) get_outputs(#()a_of_L(L),3); % Be sure a zero is actually calculated
% NL Constraints
% --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Equality constraint (No inequality constraints for parent optimization)
ceq = #(L) EXITFLAG(L) - 1; % Just make sure fzero finds unique solution
confun = #(L) deal([],ceq(L));
% Objective function
% --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% (Set optimize=0 to test coefficent equations and proper maximization of L )
optimize = 1;
if optimize
%%%% Plug in solution below
else
% Optimization options
options = optimset('Algorithm','interior-point','Display','iter','MaxIter',500,'OutputFcn',#outfun);
% Optimize objective
objective = #(L) -L;
xsol = fmincon(objective,IC,[],[],[],[],LB,UB,confun,options);
% Known optimized solution from IMSL library
% a = 0.799266;
% lim = pi/2;
disp(['IMSL coeff (a): 0.799266 Upper bound (L): ',num2str(pi/2)])
disp(['code coeff (a): ',num2str(history.a(end)),' Upper bound: ',num2str(xsol)])
end
% http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7921133/anonymous-functions-calling-functions-with-multiple-output-forms
function varargout = get_outputs(fn, ixsOutputs)
output_cell = cell(1,max(ixsOutputs));
[output_cell{:}] = (fn());
varargout = output_cell(ixsOutputs);
end
function stop = outfun(x,optimValues,state)
stop = false;
switch state
case 'init'
case 'iter'
% Concatenate current point and objective function
% value with history. x must be a row vector.
history.fval = [history.fval; optimValues.fval];
history.x = [history.x; x(1)];
history.a = [history.a; a_of_L(x(1))];
case 'done'
otherwise
end
end
end
I could really use some help setting up the constrained optimization. I'm not only new to optimizations, I've never used MATLAB to do so. I should also note that what I have above does not work and is incorrect for the constrained optimization.
UPDATE: I added a for loop in the section if optimizeto show what I'm trying to achieve with the optimization. Obviously, I could just use this, but it seems very inefficient, especially if I increase the resolution of range and have to run this optimization many times. If you uncomment the plots, it will show how the bandwidth behaves. By looping over the full range, I'm basically testing every L but surely there's got to be a more efficient way to do this??
UPDATE: Solved
So it seems fmincon is not the only tool for this job. In fact I couldn't even get it to work. Below, fmincon gets "stuck" on the IC and refuses to do anything...why...that's for a different post! Using the same layout and formulation, fminbnd finds the correct solution. The only difference, as far as I know, is that the former was using a conditional. But my conditional is nothing fancy, and really unneeded. So it's got to have something to do with the algorithm. I guess that's what you get when using a "black box". Anyway, after a long, drawn out, painful, learning experience, here is a solution:
options = optimset('Display','iter','MaxIter',500,'OutputFcn',#outfun);
% Conditional
index = #(L) min(find(abs([dpdx(range(range<=L),a_of_L(L)),inf] - 1) - tol > 0,1,'first'),length(range));
% Optimize
%xsol = fmincon(#(L) -range(index(L)),IC,[],[],[],[],LB,UB,confun,options);
xsol = fminbnd(#(L) -range(index(L)),LB,UB,options);
I would like to especially thank #AndrasDeak for all their support. I wouldn't have figured it out without the assistance!
I have a matrix time-series data for 8 variables with about 2500 points (~10 years of mon-fri) and would like to calculate the mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis on a 'moving average' basis.
Lets say frames = [100 252 504 756] - I would like calculate the four functions above on over each of the (time-)frames, on a daily basis - so the return for day 300 in the case with 100 day-frame, would be [mean variance skewness kurtosis] from the period day201-day300 (100 days in total)... and so on.
I know this means I would get an array output, and the the first frame number of days would be NaNs, but I can't figure out the required indexing to get this done...
This is an interesting question because I think the optimal solution is different for the mean than it is for the other sample statistics.
I've provided a simulation example below that you can work through.
First, choose some arbitrary parameters and simulate some data:
%#Set some arbitrary parameters
T = 100; N = 5;
WindowLength = 10;
%#Simulate some data
X = randn(T, N);
For the mean, use filter to obtain a moving average:
MeanMA = filter(ones(1, WindowLength) / WindowLength, 1, X);
MeanMA(1:WindowLength-1, :) = nan;
I had originally thought to solve this problem using conv as follows:
MeanMA = nan(T, N);
for n = 1:N
MeanMA(WindowLength:T, n) = conv(X(:, n), ones(WindowLength, 1), 'valid');
end
MeanMA = (1/WindowLength) * MeanMA;
But as #PhilGoddard pointed out in the comments, the filter approach avoids the need for the loop.
Also note that I've chosen to make the dates in the output matrix correspond to the dates in X so in later work you can use the same subscripts for both. Thus, the first WindowLength-1 observations in MeanMA will be nan.
For the variance, I can't see how to use either filter or conv or even a running sum to make things more efficient, so instead I perform the calculation manually at each iteration:
VarianceMA = nan(T, N);
for t = WindowLength:T
VarianceMA(t, :) = var(X(t-WindowLength+1:t, :));
end
We could speed things up slightly by exploiting the fact that we have already calculated the mean moving average. Simply replace the within loop line in the above with:
VarianceMA(t, :) = (1/(WindowLength-1)) * sum((bsxfun(#minus, X(t-WindowLength+1:t, :), MeanMA(t, :))).^2);
However, I doubt this will make much difference.
If anyone else can see a clever way to use filter or conv to get the moving window variance I'd be very interested to see it.
I leave the case of skewness and kurtosis to the OP, since they are essentially just the same as the variance example, but with the appropriate function.
A final point: if you were converting the above into a general function, you could pass in an anonymous function as one of the arguments, then you would have a moving average routine that works for arbitrary choice of transformations.
Final, final point: For a sequence of window lengths, simply loop over the entire code block for each window length.
I have managed to produce a solution, which only uses basic functions within MATLAB and can also be expanded to include other functions, (for finance: e.g. a moving Sharpe Ratio, or a moving Sortino Ratio). The code below shows this and contains hopefully sufficient commentary.
I am using a time series of Hedge Fund data, with ca. 10 years worth of daily returns (which were checked to be stationary - not shown in the code). Unfortunately I haven't got the corresponding dates in the example so the x-axis in the plots would be 'no. of days'.
% start by importing the data you need - here it is a selection out of an
% excel spreadsheet
returnsHF = xlsread('HFRXIndices_Final.xlsx','EquityHedgeMarketNeutral','D1:D2742');
% two years to be used for the moving average. (250 business days in one year)
window = 500;
% create zero-matrices to fill with the MA values at each point in time.
mean_avg = zeros(length(returnsHF)-window,1);
st_dev = zeros(length(returnsHF)-window,1);
skew = zeros(length(returnsHF)-window,1);
kurt = zeros(length(returnsHF)-window,1);
% Now work through the time-series with each of the functions (one can add
% any other functions required), assinging the values to the zero-matrices
for count = window:length(returnsHF)
% This is the most tricky part of the script, the indexing in this section
% The TwoYearReturn is what is shifted along one period at a time with the
% for-loop.
TwoYearReturn = returnsHF(count-window+1:count);
mean_avg(count-window+1) = mean(TwoYearReturn);
st_dev(count-window+1) = std(TwoYearReturn);
skew(count-window+1) = skewness(TwoYearReturn);
kurt(count-window +1) = kurtosis(TwoYearReturn);
end
% Plot the MAs
subplot(4,1,1), plot(mean_avg)
title('2yr mean')
subplot(4,1,2), plot(st_dev)
title('2yr stdv')
subplot(4,1,3), plot(skew)
title('2yr skewness')
subplot(4,1,4), plot(kurt)
title('2yr kurtosis')
Does anyone know how to make the following Matlab code approximate the exponential function more accurately when dealing with large and negative real numbers?
For example when x = 1, the code works well, when x = -100, it returns an answer of 8.7364e+31 when it should be closer to 3.7201e-44.
The code is as follows:
s=1
a=1;
y=1;
for k=1:40
a=a/k;
y=y*x;
s=s+a*y;
end
s
Any assistance is appreciated, cheers.
EDIT:
Ok so the question is as follows:
Which mathematical function does this code approximate? (I say the exponential function.) Does it work when x = 1? (Yes.) Unfortunately, using this when x = -100 produces the answer s = 8.7364e+31. Your colleague believes that there is a silly bug in the program, and asks for your assistance. Explain the behaviour carefully and give a simple fix which produces a better result. [You must suggest a modification to the above code, or it's use. You must also check your simple fix works.]
So I somewhat understand that the problem surrounds large numbers when there is 16 (or more) orders of magnitude between terms, precision is lost, but the solution eludes me.
Thanks
EDIT:
So in the end I went with this:
s = 1;
x = -100;
a = 1;
y = 1;
x1 = 1;
for k=1:40
x1 = x/10;
a = a/k;
y = y*x1;
s = s + a*y;
end
s = s^10;
s
Not sure if it's completely correct but it returns some good approximations.
exp(-100) = 3.720075976020836e-044
s = 3.722053303838800e-044
After further analysis (and unfortunately submitting the assignment), I realised increasing the number of iterations, and thus increasing terms, further improves efficiency. In fact the following was even more efficient:
s = 1;
x = -100;
a = 1;
y = 1;
x1 = 1;
for k=1:200
x1 = x/200;
a = a/k;
y = y*x1;
s = s + a*y;
end
s = s^200;
s
Which gives:
exp(-100) = 3.720075976020836e-044
s = 3.720075976020701e-044
As John points out in a comment, you have an error inside the loop. The y = y*k line does not do what you need. Look more carefully at the terms in the series for exp(x).
Anyway, I assume this is why you have been given this homework assignment, to learn that series like this don't converge very well for large values. Instead, you should consider how to do range reduction.
For example, can you use the identity
exp(x+y) = exp(x)*exp(y)
to your advantage? Suppose you store the value of exp(1) = 2.7182818284590452353...
Now, if I were to ask you to compute the value of exp(1.3), how would you use the above information?
exp(1.3) = exp(1)*exp(0.3)
But we KNOW the value of exp(1) already. In fact, with a little thought, this will let you reduce the range for an exponential down to needing the series to converge rapidly only for abs(x) <= 0.5.
Edit: There is a second way one can do range reduction using a variation of the same identity.
exp(x) = exp(x/2)*exp(x/2) = exp(x/2)^2
Thus, suppose you wish to compute the exponential of large number, perhaps 12.8. Getting this to converge acceptably fast will take many terms in the simple series, and there will be a great deal of subtractive cancellation happening, so you won't get good accuracy anyway. However, if we recognize that
12.8 = 2*6.4 = 2*2*3.2 = ... = 16*0.8
then IF you could efficiently compute the exponential of 0.8, then the desired value is easy to recover, perhaps by repeated squaring.
exp(12.8)
ans =
362217.449611248
a = exp(0.8)
a =
2.22554092849247
a = a*a;
a = a*a;
a = a*a;
a = a*a
362217.449611249
exp(0.8)^16
ans =
362217.449611249
Note that WHENEVER you do range reduction using methods like this, while you may incur numerical problems due to the additional computations necessary, you will usually come out way ahead due to the greatly enhanced convergence of your series.
Why do you think that's the wrong answer? Look at the last term of that sequence, and it's size, and tell me why you expect you should have an answer that's close to 0.
My original answer stated that roundoff error was the problem. That will be a problem with this basic approach, but why do you think 40 is enough terms for the appropriate mathematical ( as opposed to computer floating point arithmetic) answer.
100^40 / 40! ~= 10^31.
Woodchip has the right idea with range reduction. That's the typical approach people use to implement these kinds of functions very quickly. Once you get that all figured out, you deal with roundoff errors of alternating sequences, by summing adjacent terms within the loop, and stepping with k = 1 : 2 : 40 (for instance). That doesn't work here until you use woodchips's idea because for x = -100, the summands grow for a very long time. You need |x| < 1 to guarantee intermediate terms are shrinking, and thus a rewrite will work.