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Empirical Evidence On Bitcoin Returns And Portfolio Value

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  • Sandip Mukherji

Abstract

This paper studies 60 months of recent returns to examine relationships between bitcoin and 16 exchange- traded funds of currencies, bonds, stocks, commodities, and alternative assets. Bitcoin provides much higher returns, positive skewness, volatility and extreme returns, than all the other assets. Only stocks offer a better risk-return tradeoff than bitcoin. Bitcoin returns have very weak positive correlations with stocks, commodities, and alternatives. Only two funds of stocks and commodities have significant explanatory power of about 3% each for bitcoin returns. The full model of all the 16 funds explains only 15.09% of bitcoin returns. A partial model, with the six funds that are significant in the full model, explains 12.78% of bitcoin returns; 3 stock funds and 1 commodity fund have significant coefficients in this model. These findings indicate that bitcoin is a unique asset which is only weakly related to stocks and commodities. The results also show that small allocations to bitcoin improve the risk-return tradeoffs of stock and bond portfolios.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandip Mukherji, 2019. "Empirical Evidence On Bitcoin Returns And Portfolio Value," The International Journal of Business and Finance Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 13(2), pages 71-81.
  • Handle: RePEc:ibf:ijbfre:v:13:y:2019:i:2:p:71-81
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin; Return Distributions; Explanatory Factors; Optimal Portfolios;
    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

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