IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cfrwps/2301.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Deep parametric portfolio policies

Author

Listed:
  • Simon, Frederik
  • Weibels, Sebastian
  • Zimmermann, Tom

Abstract

We directly optimize portfolio weights as a function of firm characteristics via deep neural networks by generalizing the parametric portfolio policy framework. Our results show that network-based portfolio policies result in an increase of investor utility of between 30 and 100 percent over a comparable linear portfolio policy, depending on whether portfolio restrictions on individual stock weights, short-selling or transaction costs are imposed, and depending on an investor's utility function. We provide extensive model interpretation and show that network-based policies better capture the non-linear relationship between investor utility and firm characteristics. Improvements can be traced to both variable interactions and non-linearity in functional form. Both the linear and the network-based approach agree on the same dominant predictors, namely past return-based firm characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon, Frederik & Weibels, Sebastian & Zimmermann, Tom, 2023. "Deep parametric portfolio policies," CFR Working Papers 23-01, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cfrwps:2301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/270745/1/1839773383.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal, 2009. "Optimal Versus Naive Diversification: How Inefficient is the 1-N Portfolio Strategy?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1915-1953, May.
    2. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    3. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2008. "Dissecting Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1653-1678, August.
    4. Joachim Freyberger & Andreas Neuhierl & Michael Weber & Andrew KarolyiEditor, 2020. "Dissecting Characteristics Nonparametrically," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(5), pages 2326-2377.
    5. Michael W. Brandt & Pedro Santa-Clara & Rossen Valkanov, 2009. "Parametric Portfolio Policies: Exploiting Characteristics in the Cross-Section of Equity Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(9), pages 3411-3447, September.
    6. Guanhao Feng & Jingyu He & Nicholas G. Polson, 2018. "Deep Learning for Predicting Asset Returns," Papers 1804.09314, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2018.
    7. Ammann, Manuel & Coqueret, Guillaume & Schade, Jan-Philip, 2016. "Characteristics-based portfolio choice with leverage constraints," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 23-37.
    8. Ayse Sinem Uysal & Xiaoyue Li & John M. Mulvey, 2021. "End-to-End Risk Budgeting Portfolio Optimization with Neural Networks," Papers 2107.04636, arXiv.org.
    9. Manuel Ammann & Guillaume Coqueret & Jan-Philip Schade, 2016. "Characteristics-based portfolio choice with leverage constraints," Post-Print hal-02312221, HAL.
    10. Andrew Y. Chen & Tom Zimmermann, 2022. "Open Source Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 11(2), pages 207-264, May.
    11. Shihao Gu & Bryan Kelly & Dacheng Xiu, 2020. "Empirical Asset Pricing via Machine Learning," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(5), pages 2223-2273.
    12. Ang, Andrew & Gorovyy, Sergiy & van Inwegen, Gregory B., 2011. "Hedge fund leverage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 102-126, October.
    13. Ledoit, Oliver & Wolf, Michael, 2008. "Robust performance hypothesis testing with the Sharpe ratio," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 850-859, December.
    14. Victor DeMiguel & Alberto Martín-Utrera & Francisco J Nogales & Raman Uppal & Andrew KarolyiEditor, 2020. "A Transaction-Cost Perspective on the Multitude of Firm Characteristics," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(5), pages 2180-2222.
    15. Shihao Gu & Bryan Kelly & Dacheng Xiu, 2020. "Empirical Asset Pricing via Machine Learning," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 33(5), pages 2223-2273.
    16. Guillaume Chevalier & Guillaume Coqueret & Thomas Raffinot, 2022. "Supervised portfolios," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(12), pages 2275-2295, December.
    17. Jeremiah Green & John R. M. Hand & X. Frank Zhang, 2017. "The Characteristics that Provide Independent Information about Average U.S. Monthly Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(12), pages 4389-4436.
    18. Theis Ingerslev Jensen & Bryan T. Kelly & Semyon Malamud & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2022. "Machine Learning and the Implementable Efficient Frontier," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 22-63, Swiss Finance Institute.
    19. Manuel Ammann & Guillaume Coqueret & Jan-Philip Schade, 2016. "Characteristics-based portfolio choice with leverage constraints," Post-Print hal-02009129, HAL.
    20. Robert Novy-Marx & Mihail Velikov, 2016. "A Taxonomy of Anomalies and Their Trading Costs," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 104-147.
    21. Max H. Farrell & Tengyuan Liang & Sanjog Misra, 2020. "Deep Learning for Individual Heterogeneity: An Automatic Inference Framework," Papers 2010.14694, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    22. Theis Ingerslev Jensen & Bryan T. Kelly & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2021. "Is There A Replication Crisis In Finance?," NBER Working Papers 28432, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Caldeira, João F. & Santos, André A.P. & Torrent, Hudson S., 2023. "Semiparametric portfolios: Improving portfolio performance by exploiting non-linearities in firm characteristics," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    2. Guillaume Chevalier & Guillaume Coqueret & Thomas Raffinot, 2022. "Supervised portfolios," Post-Print hal-04144588, HAL.
    3. Doron Avramov & Si Cheng & Lior Metzker, 2023. "Machine Learning vs. Economic Restrictions: Evidence from Stock Return Predictability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2587-2619, May.
    4. Guillaume Coqueret, 2022. "Characteristics-driven returns in equilibrium," Papers 2203.07865, arXiv.org.
    5. Tian Ma & Cunfei Liao & Fuwei Jiang, 2023. "Timing the factor zoo via deep learning: Evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(1), pages 485-505, March.
    6. Söhnke M. Bartram & Harald Lohre & Peter F. Pope & Ananthalakshmi Ranganathan, 2021. "Navigating the factor zoo around the world: an institutional investor perspective," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(5), pages 655-703, July.
    7. Ni, Xuanming & Zheng, Tiantian & Zhao, Huimin & Zhu, Shushang, 2023. "High-dimensional portfolio optimization based on tree-structured factor model," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    8. Jiang, Chonghui & Du, Jiangze & An, Yunbi & Zhang, Jinqing, 2021. "Factor tracking: A new smart beta strategy that outperforms naïve diversification," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 396-408.
    9. Wang, Jianqiu & Wu, Ke & Tong, Guoshi & Chen, Dongxu, 2023. "Nonlinearity in the cross-section of stock returns: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 174-205.
    10. Cakici, Nusret & Fieberg, Christian & Metko, Daniel & Zaremba, Adam, 2023. "Machine learning goes global: Cross-sectional return predictability in international stock markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    11. Smith, Simon C., 2022. "Time-variation, multiple testing, and the factor zoo," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Ammann, Manuel & Coqueret, Guillaume & Schade, Jan-Philip, 2016. "Characteristics-based portfolio choice with leverage constraints," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 23-37.
    13. De Nard, Gianluca & Zhao, Zhao, 2023. "Using, taming or avoiding the factor zoo? A double-shrinkage estimator for covariance matrices," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 23-35.
    14. Beckmeyer, Heiner & Wiedemann, Timo, 2022. "Recovering Missing Firm Characteristics with Attention-Based Machine Learning," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264135, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Wolfgang Drobetz & Tizian Otto, 2021. "Empirical asset pricing via machine learning: evidence from the European stock market," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(7), pages 507-538, December.
    16. Christopher G. Lamoureux & Huacheng Zhang, 2021. "An Empirical Assessment of Characteristics and Optimal Portfolios," Papers 2104.12975, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    17. Gehrig, Thomas & Sögner, Leopold & Westerkamp, Arne, 2018. "Making Parametric Portfolio Policies Work," CEPR Discussion Papers 13193, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Clarke, Charles, 2022. "The level, slope, and curve factor model for stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 159-187.
    19. Andrew Y. Chen & Jack McCoy, 2022. "Missing Values Handling for Machine Learning Portfolios," Papers 2207.13071, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    20. Chulwoo Han, 2022. "Bimodal Characteristic Returns and Predictability Enhancement via Machine Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7701-7741, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Portfolio Choice; Machine Learning; Expected Utility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • C58 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Financial Econometrics
    • C45 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Neural Networks and Related Topics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:cfrwps:2301. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfkoede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.