Portfolio Selection and Asset Pricing: Models of Financial Economics and Their Applications in Investing

Portfolio Selection and Asset Pricing: Models of Financial Economics and Their Applications in Investing
Author: Jamil Baz
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2022-09-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 126427016X

This uniquely comprehensive guide provides expert insights into everything from financial mathematics to the practical realities of asset allocation and pricing Investors like you typically have a choice to make when seeking guidance for portfolio selection―either a book of practical, hands-on approaches to your craft or an academic tome of theories and mathematical formulas. From three top experts, Portfolio Selection and Asset Pricing strikes the right balance with an extensive discussion of mathematical foundations of portfolio choice and asset pricing models, and the practice of asset allocation. This thorough guide is conveniently organized into four sections: Mathematical Foundations―normed vector spaces, optimization in discrete and continuous time, utility theory, and uncertainty Portfolio Models―single-period and continuous-time portfolio choice, analogies, asset allocation for a sovereign as an example, and liability-driven allocation Asset Pricing―capital asset pricing models, factor models, option pricing, and expected returns Robust Asset Allocation―robust estimation of optimization inputs, such as the Black-Litterman Model and shrinkage, and robust optimizers Whether you are a sophisticated investor or advanced graduate student, this high-level title combines rigorous mathematical theory with an emphasis on practical implementation techniques.

Portfolio Selection and Asset Pricing

Portfolio Selection and Asset Pricing
Author: Shouyang Wang
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3642559344

In our daily life, almost every family owns a portfolio of assets. This portfolio could contain real assets such as a car, or a house, as well as financial assets such as stocks, bonds or futures. Portfolio theory deals with how to form a satisfied portfolio among an enormous number of assets. Originally proposed by H. Markowtiz in 1952, the mean-variance methodology for portfolio optimization has been central to the research activities in this area and has served as a basis for the development of modem financial theory during the past four decades. Follow-on work with this approach has born much fruit for this field of study. Among all those research fruits, the most important is the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) proposed by Sharpe in 1964. This model greatly simplifies the input for portfolio selection and makes the mean-variance methodology into a practical application. Consequently, lots of models were proposed to price the capital assets. In this book, some of the most important progresses in portfolio theory are surveyed and a few new models for portfolio selection are presented. Models for asset pricing are illustrated and the empirical tests of CAPM for China's stock markets are made. The first chapter surveys ideas and principles of modeling the investment decision process of economic agents. It starts with the Markowitz criteria of formulating return and risk as mean and variance and then looks into other related criteria which are based on probability assumptions on future prices of securities.

Investors and Markets

Investors and Markets
Author: William F. Sharpe
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2008-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691138508

"Nobel Prize-winning financial economist William Sharpe shows that investment professionals cannot make good portfolio choices unless they understand the determinants of asset prices." -- Provided by publisher.

Machine Learning in Asset Pricing

Machine Learning in Asset Pricing
Author: Stefan Nagel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691218706

A groundbreaking, authoritative introduction to how machine learning can be applied to asset pricing Investors in financial markets are faced with an abundance of potentially value-relevant information from a wide variety of different sources. In such data-rich, high-dimensional environments, techniques from the rapidly advancing field of machine learning (ML) are well-suited for solving prediction problems. Accordingly, ML methods are quickly becoming part of the toolkit in asset pricing research and quantitative investing. In this book, Stefan Nagel examines the promises and challenges of ML applications in asset pricing. Asset pricing problems are substantially different from the settings for which ML tools were developed originally. To realize the potential of ML methods, they must be adapted for the specific conditions in asset pricing applications. Economic considerations, such as portfolio optimization, absence of near arbitrage, and investor learning can guide the selection and modification of ML tools. Beginning with a brief survey of basic supervised ML methods, Nagel then discusses the application of these techniques in empirical research in asset pricing and shows how they promise to advance the theoretical modeling of financial markets. Machine Learning in Asset Pricing presents the exciting possibilities of using cutting-edge methods in research on financial asset valuation.

Strategic Asset Allocation

Strategic Asset Allocation
Author: John Y. Campbell
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2002-01-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019160691X

Academic finance has had a remarkable impact on many financial services. Yet long-term investors have received curiously little guidance from academic financial economists. Mean-variance analysis, developed almost fifty years ago, has provided a basic paradigm for portfolio choice. This approach usefully emphasizes the ability of diversification to reduce risk, but it ignores several critically important factors. Most notably, the analysis is static; it assumes that investors care only about risks to wealth one period ahead. However, many investors—-both individuals and institutions such as charitable foundations or universities—-seek to finance a stream of consumption over a long lifetime. In addition, mean-variance analysis treats financial wealth in isolation from income. Long-term investors typically receive a stream of income and use it, along with financial wealth, to support their consumption. At the theoretical level, it is well understood that the solution to a long-term portfolio choice problem can be very different from the solution to a short-term problem. Long-term investors care about intertemporal shocks to investment opportunities and labor income as well as shocks to wealth itself, and they may use financial assets to hedge their intertemporal risks. This should be important in practice because there is a great deal of empirical evidence that investment opportunities—-both interest rates and risk premia on bonds and stocks—-vary through time. Yet this insight has had little influence on investment practice because it is hard to solve for optimal portfolios in intertemporal models. This book seeks to develop the intertemporal approach into an empirical paradigm that can compete with the standard mean-variance analysis. The book shows that long-term inflation-indexed bonds are the riskless asset for long-term investors, it explains the conditions under which stocks are safer assets for long-term than for short-term investors, and it shows how labor income influences portfolio choice. These results shed new light on the rules of thumb used by financial planners. The book explains recent advances in both analytical and numerical methods, and shows how they can be used to understand the portfolio choice problems of long-term investors.

International Capital Flows

International Capital Flows
Author: Martin Feldstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226241807

Recent changes in technology, along with the opening up of many regions previously closed to investment, have led to explosive growth in the international movement of capital. Flows from foreign direct investment and debt and equity financing can bring countries substantial gains by augmenting local savings and by improving technology and incentives. Investing companies acquire market access, lower cost inputs, and opportunities for profitable introductions of production methods in the countries where they invest. But, as was underscored recently by the economic and financial crises in several Asian countries, capital flows can also bring risks. Although there is no simple explanation of the currency crisis in Asia, it is clear that fixed exchange rates and chronic deficits increased the likelihood of a breakdown. Similarly, during the 1970s, the United States and other industrial countries loaned OPEC surpluses to borrowers in Latin America. But when the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates to control soaring inflation, the result was a widespread debt moratorium in Latin America as many countries throughout the region struggled to pay the high interest on their foreign loans. International Capital Flows contains recent work by eminent scholars and practitioners on the experience of capital flows to Latin America, Asia, and eastern Europe. These papers discuss the role of banks, equity markets, and foreign direct investment in international capital flows, and the risks that investors and others face with these transactions. By focusing on capital flows' productivity and determinants, and the policy issues they raise, this collection is a valuable resource for economists, policymakers, and financial market participants.

Empirical Asset Pricing

Empirical Asset Pricing
Author: Wayne Ferson
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2019-03-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262039370

An introduction to the theory and methods of empirical asset pricing, integrating classical foundations with recent developments. This book offers a comprehensive advanced introduction to asset pricing, the study of models for the prices and returns of various securities. The focus is empirical, emphasizing how the models relate to the data. The book offers a uniquely integrated treatment, combining classical foundations with more recent developments in the literature and relating some of the material to applications in investment management. It covers the theory of empirical asset pricing, the main empirical methods, and a range of applied topics. The book introduces the theory of empirical asset pricing through three main paradigms: mean variance analysis, stochastic discount factors, and beta pricing models. It describes empirical methods, beginning with the generalized method of moments (GMM) and viewing other methods as special cases of GMM; offers a comprehensive review of fund performance evaluation; and presents selected applied topics, including a substantial chapter on predictability in asset markets that covers predicting the level of returns, volatility and higher moments, and predicting cross-sectional differences in returns. Other chapters cover production-based asset pricing, long-run risk models, the Campbell-Shiller approximation, the debate on covariance versus characteristics, and the relation of volatility to the cross-section of stock returns. An extensive reference section captures the current state of the field. The book is intended for use by graduate students in finance and economics; it can also serve as a reference for professionals.

Financial Derivatives

Financial Derivatives
Author: Jamil Baz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2004-01-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521815109

Publisher Description

Recent Applications of Financial Risk Modelling and Portfolio Management

Recent Applications of Financial Risk Modelling and Portfolio Management
Author: Škrinjari?, Tihana
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2020-09-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1799850846

In today’s financial market, portfolio and risk management are facing an array of challenges. This is due to increasing levels of knowledge and data that are being made available that have caused a multitude of different investment models to be explored and implemented. Professionals and researchers in this field are in need of up-to-date research that analyzes these contemporary models of practice and keeps pace with the advancements being made within financial risk modelling and portfolio control. Recent Applications of Financial Risk Modelling and Portfolio Management is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the use of modern data analysis as well as quantitative methods for developing successful portfolio and risk management techniques. While highlighting topics such as credit scoring, investment strategies, and budgeting, this publication explores diverse models for achieving investment goals as well as improving upon traditional financial modelling methods. This book is ideally designed for researchers, financial analysts, executives, practitioners, policymakers, academicians, and students seeking current research on contemporary risk management strategies in the financial sector.

Handbook of Portfolio Construction

Handbook of Portfolio Construction
Author: John B. Guerard, Jr.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 796
Release: 2009-12-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0387774394

Portfolio construction is fundamental to the investment management process. In the 1950s, Harry Markowitz demonstrated the benefits of efficient diversification by formulating a mathematical program for generating the "efficient frontier" to summarize optimal trade-offs between expected return and risk. The Markowitz framework continues to be used as a basis for both practical portfolio construction and emerging research in financial economics. Such concepts as the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT), for example, provide the foundation for setting benchmarks, for predicting returns and risk, and for performance measurement. This volume showcases original essays by some of today’s most prominent academics and practitioners in the field on the contemporary application of Markowitz techniques. Covering a wide spectrum of topics, including portfolio selection, data mining tests, and multi-factor risk models, the book presents a comprehensive approach to portfolio construction tools, models, frameworks, and analyses, with both practical and theoretical implications.