Don B. Panton, The Relevance of the Distributional Form of Common Stock Returns to the Construction of Optimal Portfolios: Comment, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 129-130

The algorithm leading to a solution of the above question has been known at least since Kaplan's 1965 tutorial [5] on Sturm's theorem. The Sturm-Kaplan method has the power to count all zeros on the real axis between any two specified limits. A significant problem may arise, however, when one tries to generate the Sturmian functions which play a central part in the Sturm-Kaplan method. The rather arduous nature of the task derives from the necessity to perform several polynomial (synthetic) divisions. As the number of cash flows involved in the analysis increases, the time and effort required to determine the Sturmian functions increase as well.