Using fear, greed and machine learning for optimizing global portfolios: A Black-Litterman approach

We introduce a new dimension in constructing relative investor views for the Black-Litterman model by incorporating fear/greed technical indicator predictions as a proxy for investor sentiment in the portfolio construction process. We apply a hybrid CEEMDAN-GRU deep learning model to forecast this indicator and the XGBoost ensemble learning algorithm to forecast returns for ten country ETFs and create relative views for the Black-Litterman model. These models beat several benchmark forecasting models. Our empirical results show that the proposed approach outperforms the Markowitz, minimum-variance, equally-weighted and risk-parity strategies along with four other Black-Litterman approaches from the literature for six investment periods.