Machine Learning and Portfolio Optimization

The portfolio optimization model has limited impact in practice due to estimation issues when applied with real data. To address this, we adapt two machine learning methods, regularization and cross-validation, for portfolio optimization. First, we introduce performance-based regularization (PBR), where the idea is to constrain the sample variances of the estimated portfolio risk and return, … Read more

Hedging Problem

For index-based hedging design, the scatter plot of the hedging contract losses versus the losses to be hedged is generally used to visualize and quantify basis risk. While studying this scatter plot, which does not cluster along the diagonal as desired, a “bundled loss” phenomenon is found. In a setting where both the hedging and … Read more

Robust Investment Management with Uncertainty in Fund Managers’ Asset Allocation

We consider a problem where an investment manager must allocate an available budget among a set of fund managers, whose asset allocations are not precisely known to the investment manager. In this paper, we propose a robust framework that takes into account the uncertainty stemming from the fund managers’ allocation, as well as the more … Read more

A Non-Parametric Structural Hybrid Modeling Approach for Electricity Prices

We develop a stochastic model of zonal/regional electricity prices, designed to reflect information in fuel forward curves and aggregated capacity and load as well as zonal or regional price spreads. We use a nonparametric model of the supply stack that captures heat rates and fuel prices for all generators in the market operator territory, combined … Read more

Relay Optimization Method

Insurance-linked securities portfolio with the VaR constraint optimization problem have a kind of weak dominance or ordering property, which enables us to reduce the variables’ dimensions gradually through exercising a genetic algorithm with randomly selected initial populations. This property also enables us to add boundary attraction potential to GA-MPC’s repair operator, among other modifications such … Read more

Decision Making Based on a Nonparametric Shape-Preserving Perturbation of a Reference Utility Function

This paper develops a robust optimization based decision-making framework using a nonparametric perturbation of a reference utility function. The perturbation preserves the risk-aversion property but solves the problem of ambiguity and inconsistency in eliciting the reference utility function. We study the topology of the perturbation, and show that in the decision-making framework the price of … Read more

Least-squares approach to risk parity in portfolio selection

The risk parity optimization problem aims to find such portfolios for which the contributions of risk from all assets are equally weighted. Portfolios constructed using risk parity approach are a compromise between two well-known diversification techniques: minimum variance optimization approach and the equal weighting approach. In this paper, we discuss the problem of finding portfolios … Read more

Existence of Competitive Equilibrium in Piecewise Linear and Concave Exchange Economies and the non-symmetric Nash Bargaining Solution

In this paper we show that for concave piecewise linear exchange economies every competitive equilibrium satisfies the property that the competitive allocation is a non-symmetric Nash bargaining solution with weights being the initial income of individual agents evaluated at the equilibrium price vector. We prove the existence of competitive equilibrium for concave piecewise linear exchange … Read more

Practical Portfolio Optimization

This paper is on the portfolio optimization problem for which two generic models are presented in the context of a proprietary solver called GENO: the first is a pseudo-dynamic model meant for the single holding-period case; the second is a truly dynamic model that applies to both the single and the multi-period scenario. Both models … Read more

Multiperiod Portfolio Optimization with General Transaction Costs

We analyze the properties of the optimal portfolio policy for a multiperiod mean-variance investor facing multiple risky assets in the presence of general transaction costs such as proportional, market impact, and quadratic transaction costs. For proportional transaction costs, we find that a buy-and-hold policy is optimal: if the starting portfolio is outside a parallelogram-shaped no-trade … Read more