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How risky is the optimal portfolio which maximizes the Sharpe ratio?

Author

Listed:
  • Taras Bodnar

    (Stockholm University)

  • Taras Zabolotskyy

    (University of Banking, National Bank of Ukraine)

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the properties of the optimal portfolio in the sense of maximizing the Sharpe ratio (SR) and develop a procedure for the calculation of the risk of this portfolio. This is achieved by constructing an optimal portfolio which minimizes the Value-at-Risk (VaR) and at the same time coincides with the tangent (market) portfolio on the efficient frontier which is related to the SR portfolio. The resulting significance level of the minimum VaR portfolio is then used to determine the risk of both the market portfolio and the corresponding SR portfolio. However, the expression of this significance level depends on the unknown parameters which have to be estimated in practice. It leads to an estimator of the significance level whose distributional properties are investigated in detail. Based on these results, a confidence interval for the suggested risk measure of the SR portfolio is constructed and applied to real data. Both theoretical and empirical findings document that the SR portfolio is very risky since the corresponding significance level is smaller than 90 % in most of the considered cases.

Suggested Citation

  • Taras Bodnar & Taras Zabolotskyy, 2017. "How risky is the optimal portfolio which maximizes the Sharpe ratio?," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 101(1), pages 1-28, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:alstar:v:101:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s10182-016-0270-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s10182-016-0270-3
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    Cited by:

    1. Muhinyuza, Stanislas & Bodnar, Taras & Lindholm, Mathias, 2020. "A test on the location of the tangency portfolio on the set of feasible portfolios," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 386(C).
    2. Chiu, Wan-Yi, 2022. "Another look at portfolio optimization with mental accounts," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 419(C).
    3. Vukovic, Darko & Lapshina, Kseniya A. & Maiti, Moinak, 2019. "European Monetary Union bond market dynamics: Pre & post crisis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 369-380.
    4. Karlsson, Sune & Mazur, Stepan & Muhinyuza, Stanislas, 2020. "Statistical Inference for the Tangency Portfolio in High Dimension," Working Papers 2020:10, Örebro University, School of Business.
    5. Thomas Holgersson & Peter Karlsson & Andreas Stephan, 2020. "A risk perspective of estimating portfolio weights of the global minimum-variance portfolio," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 104(1), pages 59-80, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tangent portfolio; Sharpe ratio; Value-at-Risk; Parameter uncertainty; Elliptically contoured distributions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C18 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Methodolical Issues: General
    • C44 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Operations Research; Statistical Decision Theory
    • C54 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Quantitative Policy Modeling
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

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