I've just picked up R (been using Matlab, Eviews etc) and I'm having the same issue. Running reg=lm(ticker1~ticker2) gives R^2=50% while running reg=lm(ticker1~0+ticker2) gives R^2=99%!! The charts suggest the fit is worse not better and indeed Eviews/Excel/Matlab all say R^2=15% with intercept=0. How come R calculates a totally different value?!
Call: lm(formula = ticker1 ~ ticker2) Residuals: Min 1Q Median 3Q Max -0.22441 -0.03380 0.01099 0.04891 0.16688 Coefficients: Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) (Intercept) 1.57062 0.08187 19.18 <2e-16 *** ticker2 0.61722 0.02699 22.87 <2e-16 *** --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1 Residual standard error: 0.07754 on 530 degrees of freedom Multiple R-squared: 0.4967, Adjusted R-squared: 0.4958 F-statistic: 523.1 on 1 and 530 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16 Call: lm(formula = ticker1 ~ 0 + ticker2) Residuals: Min 1Q Median 3Q Max -0.270785 -0.069280 -0.007945 0.087340 0.268786 Coefficients: Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) ticker2 1.134508 0.001441 787.2 <2e-16 *** --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1 Residual standard error: 0.1008 on 531 degrees of freedom Multiple R-squared: 0.9991, Adjusted R-squared: 0.9991 F-statistic: 6.197e+05 on 1 and 531 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16 Jan private wrote > > Hi, > > thanks for your help. I'm beginning to understand things better. > >> If you plotted your data, you would realize that whether you fit the >> 'best' least squares model or one with a zero intercept, the fit is >> not going to be very good >> Do the data cluster tightly around the dashed line? > No, and that is why I asked the question. The plotted fit doesn't look > any better with or without intercept, so I was surprised that the > R-value etc. indicated an excellent regression (which I now understood > is the wrong interpretation). > > One of the references you googled suggests that intercepts should never > be omitted. Is this true even if I know that the physical reality behind > the numbers suggests an intercept of zero? > > Thanks, > Jan > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@ mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > -- View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/lm-without-intercept-tp3312429p4638204.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.