A financial model is a model designed to represent in mathematical terms the relationships among the variables of a financial problem so that it can be used to make projections and/or answer ‘what if' questions. In particular, financial modeling can be combined with optimization modeling to...

We study the optimal loan securitization policy of a commercial bank which is mainly engaged in lending activities. For this we propose a stylized dynamic model which contains the main features affecting the securitization decision. In line with reality we assume that there are non-negligible...

In this paper we propose a quasi-shrinkage approach for minimum-variance portfolios which does not use a quadratic loss function to derive the optimal shrinkage intensity. We develop two alternative objective functions for linear shrinkage. The first targets the reduction of portfolio variance....

We define a regularized variant of the Dual Dynamic Programming algorithm called REDDP (REgularized Dual Dynamic Programming) to solve nonlinear dynamic programming equations. We extend the algorithm to solve nonlinear stochastic dynamic programming equations. The corresponding algorithm, called...

Allocation between factor portfolios can bring significant advantages over traditional portfolio optimization performed among individual assets or asset classes. One such advantage is a substantial dimension reduction when one's attention turns from many assets to few factors. This, however,...

While common machine learning algorithms focus on minimizing the mean-square errors of model fit, we show that genetic programming, GP, is well-suited to maximize an economic objective, the Sharpe ratio of the usual spread portfolio in the cross-section of expected stock returns. In contrast to...

We consider second, third, fourth and fifth order stochastic dominance (SSD, TSD, FOSD and FISD, respectively) as well as decreasing absolute risk aversion (DARA) stochastic dominance (DSD). For comparison with DSD we also consider stochastic dominance (ESD) based on CARA utility functions....

Following Levy and Roll [2010], we posit that the market portfolio is the efficient tangent Markowitz portfolio, i.e., it is mean-variance efficient. We then reverse engineer the expected returns and variance terms with constraints imposed by empirical data on a hierarchy of asset baskets. This...

We consider a stochastic optimization problem of maximizing the expected utility from terminal wealth in an illiquid market. A discrete time model is constructed with few additional state variables. The dynamic programming approach is then developed and used for numerical studies. No-arbitrage...