Essays on Asset Allocation and Options Returns

Essays on Asset Allocation and Options Returns PDF Author: Ken-Shih Lin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Essays on Asset Allocation and Options Returns

Essays on Asset Allocation and Options Returns PDF Author: Ken-Shih Lin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description


Essays on Asset Returns and Portfolio Allocation

Essays on Asset Returns and Portfolio Allocation PDF Author: Linlin Liu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Essays on the Term Structure of Volatility and Option Returns

Essays on the Term Structure of Volatility and Option Returns PDF Author: Vincent Campasano
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The first essay studies the dynamics of equity option implied volatility and shows that they depend both upon the option's time to maturity (horizon) and slope of the implied volatility term structure for the underlying asset (term struc ture). We propose a simple, illustrative framework which intuitively captures these dynamics. Guided by our framework, we examine a number of volatility trading strategies across horizon, and the extent to which profitability of trading strategies is due to an interaction between term structure and realized volatility. While profitable trading strategies based upon term structure exist for both long and short horizon options, this interaction requires that positions in long horizon options be very different than those required for short horizon options. Equity option returns depend upon both term structure and horizon, but for index options, implied volatility term structure slope negatively predicts returns. While the carry trade has been applied profitably across asset classes and to index v volatility, given this difference in index and equity implied volatility dynamics, I examine the carry trade in the equity volatility market in the second essay. I show that the carry trade in equity volatility produces significant returns, and unlike the returns to carry in other asset classes, is not exposed to liquidity or volatility risks and negatively loads on market risk. A long volatility carry portfolio, after transactions costs, remains significantly profitable and negatively loads on market risks, challenging traditional asset pricing theories. Overwriting an index position with call options creates a portfolio with fixed exposures to market and volatility risk premia. I allow for time-varying allocations to volatility and the market by conditioning on the slope of the implied volatility term structure. I show that a three asset portfolio holding a VIX futures position, the SandP 500 Index and cash triples the returns of the index and more than doubles the risk-adjusted returns of the covered call while maintaining a return volatility roughly equal to that of the SandP 500 Index.

Three Essays in Asset Pricing

Three Essays in Asset Pricing PDF Author: Mehdi Karoui
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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"This thesis consists of three essays that explore alternative approaches to extracting information from option data, and, along somewhat different lines, examine the channels through which liquidity is priced in equity options.The first essay proposes a novel approach to extracting option-implied equity premia, and empirically examines the information content of these risk premia for forecasting the stock market return. Our approach does not require specifying the functional form of the pricing kernel, and does not impose any restrictions on investors' preferences. We only assume the existence of put and call options which complete the market, and show that the implied equity premium can be inferred from expected excess returns on a portfolio of options. An empirical investigation of S&P 500 index options yields the following conclusions: (i) the implied equity premium predicts stock market returns; (ii) the implied equity premium consistently outperforms variables commonly used in the forecasting literature both in- and out-of-sample; (iii) the implied equity premium is positively related to future returns and negatively related to current returns, as theoretically expected.The second essay studies the effect of illiquidity on equity option returns. Illiquidity is well-known to be a significant determinant of stock and bond returns. We are the first to report on illiquidity premia in equity option markets using a large cross-section of firms. An increase in option illiquidity decreases the current option price and predicts higher expected delta-hedged option returns. This effect is statistically and economically significant, and it is consistent with existing evidence that market makers in the equity options market hold net long positions. The illiquidity premium is robust across puts and calls, across maturities and moneyness, as well as across different empirical approaches. It is also robust when controlling for various firm-specific variables including a standard measure of illiquidity of the underlying stock. For long term options, we find evidence of a liquidity risk factor. In the third essay, we demonstrate that in multifactor asset pricing models, prices of risk for factors that are nonlinear functions of the market return can be readily obtained using data on index returns and index options. We apply this general result to the measurement of the conditional price of coskewness and cokurtosis risk. The price of coskewness risk corresponds to the spread between the physical and the risk-neutral second moments, and the price of cokurtosis risk corresponds to the spread between the physical and the risk-neutral third moments. Estimates of these prices of risk have the expected sign, and they lead to reasonable risk premia. An out-of-sample analysis of factor models with coskewness and cokurtosis risk indicates that the new estimates of the price of risk improve the models. performance. The models also robustly outperform competitors such as the CAPM and the Fama-French model." --

Essays in Asset Pricing and Portfolio Choice

Essays in Asset Pricing and Portfolio Choice PDF Author: Philipp Karl Illeditsch
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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In the Ơ̐1rst essay, I decompose inƠ̐2ation risk into (i) a part that is correlated with real returns on the market portfolio and factors that determine investor0́9s preferences and investment opportunities and (ii) a residual part. I show that only the Ơ̐1rst part earns a risk premium. All nominal Treasury bonds, including the nominal money-market account, are equally exposed to the residual part except inƠ̐2ation-protected Treasury bonds, which provide a means to hedge it. Every investor should put 100% of his wealth in the market portfolio and inƠ̐2ation-protected Treasury bonds and hold a zero-investment portfolio of nominal Treasury bonds and the nominal money market account. In the second essay, I solve the dynamic asset allocation problem of Ơ̐1nite lived, constant relative risk averse investors who face inƠ̐2ation risk and can invest in cash, nominal bonds, equity, and inƠ̐2ation-protected bonds when the investment opportunityset is determined by the expected inƠ̐2ation rate. I estimate the model with nominal bond, inƠ̐2ation, and stock market data and show that if expected inƠ̐2ation increases, then investors should substitute inƠ̐2ation-protected bonds for stocks and they should borrow cash to buy long-term nominal bonds. In the lastessay, I discuss how heterogeneity in preferences among investors withexternal non-addictive habit forming preferences aƠ̐0ects the equilibrium nominal term structure of interest rates in a pure continuous time exchange economy and complete securities markets. Aggregate real consumption growth and inƠ̐2ation are exogenously speciƠ̐1ed and contain stochastic components thataƠ̐0ect their means andvolatilities. There are two classes of investors who have external habit forming preferences and diƠ̐0erent localcurvatures oftheir utility functions. The eƠ̐0ects of time varying risk aversion and diƠ̐0erent inƠ̐2ation regimes on the nominal short rate and the nominal market price of risk are explored, and simple formulas for nominal bonds, real bonds, and inƠ̐2ation risk premia that can be numerically evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation techniques are provided.

Three Essays in Empirical Asset Pricing

Three Essays in Empirical Asset Pricing PDF Author: Alessio Alberto Saretto
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bonds
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Asset Allocation For Dummies

Asset Allocation For Dummies PDF Author: Dorianne Perrucci
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470522550
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
An easy-to-understand how-to guide to the single most important thing you can do in investing — choosing and mixing your assets successfully. You don’t need to be an expert analyst, a star stock-picker, or a rocket scientist to have better investment results than most other investors. You just need to allocate your assets in the right way, and have the conviction to stick with that allocation. The big secret behind asset allocation — the secret that most sophisticated investors know and use to their benefit — is that it’s really not all that hard to do. Asset Allocation For Dummies serves as a comprehensive guide to maximizing returns and minimizing risk — while managing taxes, fees and other costs — in putting together a portfolio to reflect your unique financial goals. Jerry A. Miccolis (Basking Ridge, NJ), CFA®, CFP®, FCAS, MAAA is a widely quoted expert commentator who has been interviewed in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and appeared on CBS Radio and ABC-TV. He is a senior financial advisor and co-owner of Brinton Eaton Wealth Advisors (www.brintoneaton.com), a fee-only investment management, tax advisory and financial planning firm in Madison, N.J. Dorianne R. Perrucci (Scotch Plains, NJ) is a freelance writer who has been published in The New York Times, Newsweek, and TheStreet.com, and has collaborated on several financial books, including I.O.U.S.A, One Nation, Under Stress, In Debt (Wiley, 2008).

Essays in Asset Pricing Theory

Essays in Asset Pricing Theory PDF Author: Alexandre Miguel de Oliveira dos Santos Baptista
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Two Essays on Asset Pricing

Two Essays on Asset Pricing PDF Author: Xiaofei Zhao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Essays in Asset Allocation

Essays in Asset Allocation PDF Author: Xin Gao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Commodity exchanges
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This dissertation consists of two essays in asset allocation. In the first essay, I explore the question of how investors should optimally incorporate commodities in their multi-asset portfolios, or even if they should at all. To tackle this problem, I conduct a comprehensive out-of-sample assessment on the economic value of commodities in multi-asset investment strategies for both mean-variance and non-mean-variance investors who exploit the predictability of time-varying asset return moments. With both monthly and quarterly rebalancing frequencies, I find that predictability makes the addition of commodities profitable even when short-selling and high leverage are not permitted. For instance, a mean-variance (non mean-variance) investor rebalancing quarterly, with moderate risk aversion and leverage, would be willing to pay up to 108 (155) basis points per year after transaction cost for adding commodities into her stock, bond and cash portfolio. In the second essay, I study the economic value generated by active equity mutual funds from an investor’s perspective. I employ an optimization-based portfolio approach to construct a composite investment strategy of U.S. active equity mutual funds. The strategy jointly exploits the conditioning information conveyed by multiple fund characteristics and macroeconomic variables about the cross-section of fund performance. Based on an extensive out-of-sample performance evaluation, I find that the proposed strategy consistently outperforms a large set of passive investments that rely on index funds as well as the strategies that exploit the fund characteristics on an individual basis. The outperformance is net of fees and expenses and after precluding short-sales and leverage. I further show that the proposed strategy’s superior performance derives from effectively exploiting the predictive power of distinct fund characteristics to shift portfolio allocation toward (away from) funds with future outperformance (underperformance) as market conditions evolve over time. The findings indicate that investing in active equity mutual funds can add significant economic value for investors if the time-varying predictability in fund performance is properly taken into account and if an optimal portfolio approach, as opposed to simpler strategies based on sorting or on equal-weighted schemes, is adopted.