Recovering Risk-Neutral Probability Density Functions from Options Prices using Cubic Splines

We present a new approach to estimate the risk-neutral probability density function (pdf) of the future prices of an underlying asset from the prices of options written on the asset. The estimation is carried out in the space of cubic spline functions, yielding appropriate smoothness. The resulting optimization problem, used to invert the data and … Read more

A direct formulation for sparse PCA using semidefinite programming

We examine the problem of approximating, in the Frobenius-norm sense, a positive, semidefinite symmetric matrix by a rank-one matrix, with an upper bound on the cardinality of its eigenvector. The problem arises in the decomposition of a covariance matrix into sparse factors, and has wide applications ranging from biology to finance. We use a modification … Read more

Solving Multistage Asset Investment Problems by the Sample Average Approximation Method

The vast size of real world stochastic programming instances requires sampling to make them practically solvable. In this paper we extend the understanding of how sampling affects the solution quality of multistage stochastic programming problems. We present a new heuristic for determining good feasible solutions for a multistage decision problem. For power and log-utility functions … Read more

A Global Optimization Problem in Portfolio Selection

This paper deals with the issue of buy-in thresholds in portfolio optimization using the Markowitz approach. Optimal values of invested fractions calculated using, for instance, the classical minimum-risk problem can be unsatisfactory in practice because they imply that very small amounts of certain assets are purchased. Realistically, we want to impose a disjoint restriction so … Read more

Portfolio Investment with the Exact Tax Basis via Nonlinear Programming

Computing the optimal portfolio policy of an investor facing capital gains tax is a challenging problem: because the tax to be paid depends on the price at which the security was purchased (the tax basis), the optimal policy is path dependent and the size of the problem grows exponentially with the number of time periods. … Read more

SDP vs. LP relaxations for the moment approach in some performance evaluation problems

Given a Markov process we are interested in the numerical computation of the moments of the exit time from a bounded domain. We use a moment approach which, together with appropriate semidefinite positivity moment conditions, yields a sequence of semidefinite programs (or SDP relaxations), depending on the number of moments considered, that provide a sequence … Read more

Solving Nonlinear Portfolio Optimization Problems with the Primal-Dual Interior Point Method

Stochastic programming is recognized as a powerful tool to help decision making under uncertainty in financial planning. The deterministic equivalent formulations of these stochastic programs have huge dimensions even for moderate numbers of assets, time stages and scenarios per time stage. So far models treated by mathematical programming approaches have been limited to simple linear … Read more

Conditional Risk Mappings

We introduce an axiomatic definition of a conditional convex risk mapping and we derive its properties. In particular, we prove a representation theorem for conditional risk mappings in terms of conditional expectations. We also develop dynamic programming relations for multistage optimization problems involving conditional risk mappings. Citation Preprint Article Download View Conditional Risk Mappings

Convexification of Stochastic Ordering

We consider sets defined by the usual stochastic ordering relation and by the second order stochastic dominance relation. Under fairy general assumptions we prove that in the space of integrable random variables the closed convex hull of the first set is equal to the second set. Article Download View Convexification of Stochastic Ordering