Portfolio creation using artificial neural networks and classification probabilities: a Canadian study

Financial Markets and Portfolio Management - This study aims to verify whether using artificial neural networks (ANNs) to establish classification probabilities generates portfolios with higher...     

Portfolio risk management in a data-rich environment

We study risk assessment using an optimal portfolio in which the weights are functions of latent factors and firm-specific characteristics (hereafter, diffusion index portfolio). The factors are used to summarize the information contained in a large set of economic data and thus reflect the state of the economy. First, we evaluate the performance of the diffusion index portfolio and compare it to both that of a portfolio in which the weights depend only on firm-specific characteristics and an equally weighted portfolio. We then use value-at-risk, expected shortfall, and downside probability to investigate whether the weights-modeling approach, which is based on factor analysis, helps reduce market risk. Our empirical results clearly indicate that using economic factors together with firm-specific characteristics helps protect investors against market?risk.     

Portfolio maturity choice of Australian cash management trusts

Money Market Mutual Funds, known in Australia as Cash Management Trusts (CMTs), provide potential benefits for retail investors from pooling of funds and superior portfolio (maturity) management skills. The average maturity of CMT assets exhibits significant variation both cross sectionally and over time, but there is significant correlation between the asset maturities of different CMTs. These variations could reflect decisions about optimal asset maturity by CMT management, given their expectations of future interest rate movements. This paper examines (and rejects) the hypothesis that CMT management has superior interest rate forecasting ability by testing whether asset maturity of CMTs provides any information about future interest rate movements. The correlation between CMT maturity decisions appears to reflect the tendency of some CMTs to adjust maturity in response to current changes in market interest rates.     

Portfolio management with stochastic interest rates and inflation ambiguity

We solve, in closed form, a stock-bond-cash portfolio problem of a risk- and ambiguity-averse investor when interest rates and the inflation rate are stochastic. The expected inflation rate is unobservable, but the investor can learn about it from observing realized inflation and stock and bond prices. The investor is ambiguous about the inflation model and prefers a portfolio strategy which is robust to model misspecification. Ambiguity about the inflation dynamics is shown to affect the optimal portfolio fundamentally different than ambiguity about the price dynamics of traded assets, for example the optimal portfolio weights can be increasing in the degree of ambiguity aversion. In a numerical example, the optimal portfolio is significantly affected by the learning about expected inflation and somewhat affected by ambiguity aversion. The welfare loss from ignoring learning or ambiguity can be considerable.     

Portfolio management of islamic banks: ‘Certainty model’

The Islamic banking and finance system is recent in origin. Its special features preclude the application of modern finance theories. The system is briefly described in this paper as part of an initial attempt to develop a simple model for the portfolio management of an Islamic bank. The model is built on the assumption of certainty for one period. A numerical example based on actual data of Faisal Islamic Bank of Sudan is given to illustrate the model and reveal its relevance.     

银行统计管理信息系统的设计与实现

统计在银 行内部 管理 、宏观 决策 中发 挥着咨 询和 监督的 职能 作用。 统计 数据 的及时 、准 确 、全 面、有效 是 银行进 行正 确经营 管理 的依 据。 当前 ,落 后 的手 工操 作 方式 已 不能 满 足 银 行 对 于 统 计 工 作 日 益 严 格 、 规 范 的 要求。 银行 统计管     

Portfolio analysis of asset and liability management in small-, medium- and large-sized banks

The paper presents an analysis of the commercial banking firm based on Markowitz portfolio analysis. A bank is treated as a portfolio of five banking assets and three banking liabilities. The average rate of return and risk of each asset and liability is estimated empirically for groups of banks categorized by size — small, medium and large. Banks' rates return on equity are defined as the weighted average of the assets' rates of return less the liabilities' rates of return. Quadratic programming is used to delineate the set of banking portfolios which have the maximum rate of return on equity at each level of risk.     

Portfolio management and retirement: what is the best arrangement for a family?

In comparing an immediate life annuity with a payout-equivalent investment fund payout plan (self-annuitization), research to date has focused mainly on shortfall probabilities of self-annuitization. As an exception, Schmeiser and Post (2005) propose a family strategy where the chances of self-annuitization (i.e., bequests) are taken into consideration as well. In such a family strategy, potential heirs must bear shortfall risks, but in return have a chance of receiving a bequest. This paper analyzes under which conditions heirs will be willing to agree to a family strategy. The idea of a family strategy is integrated into a realistically calibrated intertemporal expected utility framework, taking into account risks arising from stochastic life span, asset returns, and nontradable labor income. A family strategy is shown to be accepted for many parameter combinations, especially in families with low marginal tax rates, if the heirs are wealthy, or in a case where the retiree has an average population life expectancy. We also work out how family self-annuitization decisions interact with asset allocation, saving decisions, and labor income risk. Under realistic conditions our results support two explanations for the empirically observable low demand for annuities (the so-called annuity puzzle), namely intra-family risk sharing and high cost of market-annuitization.     

Portfolio credit-risk optimization

This paper evaluates several alternative formulations for minimizing the credit risk of a portfolio of financial contracts with different counterparties. Credit risk optimization is challenging because the portfolio loss distribution is typically unavailable in closed form. This makes it difficult to accurately compute Value-at-Risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES) at the extreme quantiles that are of practical interest to financial institutions. Our formulations all exploit the conditional independence of counterparties under a structural credit risk model. We consider various approximations to the conditional portfolio loss distribution and formulate VaR and ES minimization problems for each case. We use two realistic credit portfolios to assess the in- and out-of-sample performance for the resulting VaR- and ES-optimized portfolios, as well as for those which we obtain by minimizing the variance or the second moment of the portfolio losses. We find that a Normal approximation to the conditional loss distribution performs best from a practical standpoint.     

Graphical Portfolio Analysis

This paper presents a new methodology for portfolio analysis based on the correspondence between the expression for the standard deviation of a two-asset portfolio and the magnitude of the sum of two complex numbers. This approach offers a geometric alternative to traditional portfolio analysis. The pedagogical advantages of the new framework are illustrated by rederiving many efficient set mathematics results. A previously unrecognized fact is uncovered using the graphical technique that the sum of the maximum and minimum betas for efficient portfolios is 1, so knowledge of one extreme beta implies knowledge of the other.     

统计管理信息系统中指标引擎的设计与实现

目前,企业竞争实力的积聚更加依赖于信息技术和管理技术的有机结合。越来越多的商业银行采用集管理和信息技术于一体的管理信息系统,在实践中取得了良好的效果。然而就银行业而言,管理信息系统的数据量大,实效性要求高,如何对账务数据进行高效的处理分析,满足信息披露、风险监控和决策支持的需要成为银行面临的一个重要课题。     

Option prices as probabilities

Four distribution functions are associated with call and put prices seen as functions of their strike and maturity. The random variables associated with these distributions are identified when the process for moneyness defined as the stock price relative to the forward price is a positive local martingale with no positive jumps that tends to zero at infinity. Results on calls require moneyness to be a continuous martingale as well. It is shown that for puts the distributions in the strike are those for the remaining supremum while for calls, they relate to the remaining infimum. In maturity we see the distribution functions for the last passage times of moneyness to strike.     

Time-Invariant Portfolio Insurance Strategies

This paper characterizes the complete class of time-invariant portfolio insurance strategies and derives the corresponding value functions that relate the wealth accumulated under the strategy to the value of the underlying insured portfolio. Time-invariant strategies are shown to correspond to the long-run policies for a broad class of portfolio insurance payoff functions.     

Corporate Portfolio Management Roundtable

The dean of a top ten business school, the chair of a large investment management firm, two corporate M&A leaders, a CFO, a leading M&A investment banker, and a corporate finance advisor discuss the following questions:

• ? What are today's best practices in corporate portfolio management? What roles should be played by boards, senior managers, and business unit leaders?
• ? What are the typical barriers to successful implementation and how can they be overcome?
• ? Should portfolio management be linked to financial policies such as decisions on capital structure, dividends, and share repurchase?
• ? How should all of the above be disclosed to the investor community?

After acknowledging the considerable challenges to optimal portfolio management in public companies, the panelists offer suggestions that include:

• ? Companies should establish an independent group that functions like a “SWAT team” to support portfolio management. Such groups would be given access to (or produce themselves) business‐unit level data on economic returns and capital employed, and develop an “outside‐in” view of each business's standalone valuation.
• ? Boards should consider using their annual strategy “off‐sites” to explore all possible alternatives for driving share‐holder value, including organic growth, divestitures and acquisitions, as well as changes in dividends, share repurchases, and capital structure.
• ? Performance measurement and compensation frameworks need to be revamped to encourage line managers to think more like investors, not only seeking value‐creating growth but also making divestitures at the right time. CEOs and CFOs should take the lead in developing a shared value creation model that clearly articulates how capital will be allocated.

     

Pricing Effects of the Decision to Sell or Hold Adjustable Rate Mortgage Loans in a Portfolio

Residential mortgage originators can transfer loans to ultimate lenders quickly and efficiently using the secondary mortgage market. Some adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) lenders use this outlet consistently while others hold whole loans in their portfolios on a long-term basis. Selling and holding lenders should respond to different economic factors when setting yields on ARM loans originated because their long-term positions in the loans are so diverse. This paper develops and tests a model of differential pricing behavior for selling and holding strategies. Empirical results support the notion that lenders use different factors to price loans and that these factors are related to the risks faced by the originating lender given its origination strategy. Additional findings suggest that institutional and firm-specific pricing tendencies exist in the primary mortgage market for adjustable rate debt.     

Variable Selection for Portfolio Choice

We study asset allocation when the conditional moments of returns are partly predictable. Rather than first model the return distribution and subsequently characterize the portfolio choice, we determine directly the dependence of the optimal portfolio weights on the predictive variables. We combine the predictors into a single index that best captures time variations in investment opportunities. This index helps investors determine which economic variables they should track and, more importantly, in what combination. We consider investors with both expected utility (mean variance and CRRA) and nonexpected utility (ambiguity aversion and prospect theory) objectives and characterize their market timing, horizon effects, and hedging demands.     

Portfolio Insurance with Liquidity Risk

This paper studies a portfolio insurance problem with liquidity risk. We consider an investor who wants to maximize the expected growth rate of wealth in a low liquid market. The investor can trade assets only at random times and his wealth must not fall below a predetermined floor. We find the optimal expected growth rate and an optimal strategy. The optimal strategy is closely related with a traditional constant proportion portfolio insurance strategy. Also we show that the same strategy maximizes the growth rate almost surely. Further we study the floor effect on the growth rate.