Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-62). / by Robert Neil Fuhrman. / M.S.

Since Markowitz published his seminal work on mean-variance portfolio selection in 1952, almost all literatures in the past half century adhere their investigation to a binding budget spending assumption in static problem settings and a self financing assumption in dynamic settings. In the mean-variance world for a market of all risky assets, however, the common belief of monotonicity does not hold, i.e., not the larger amount you invest, the larger expected future wealth you can expect for a given risk (variance) level. We introduce in this thesis the concept of pseudo efficiency to remove from the candidates such efficient mean-variance policies which can be achieved by less initial investment level. By relaxing the binding budget spending restriction in investment, we derive an optimal scheme in managing initial wealth which dominates the traditional mean-variance efficient frontier. Moreover, as the general dynamic mean-variance portfolio selection formulation does not satisfy the principle of optimality of dynamic programming, phenomena of time inconsistency occur, i.e., investors may have incentives to deviate from the pre-committed optimal mean-variance portfolio policy during the investment process under certain circumstances. By introducing the concept of time inconsistency in efficiency and defining the induced trade-off, we further demonstrate in this thesis that investors behave irrationally under the pre-committed optimal mean-variance portfolio policy when their wealth is above certain threshold during the investment process. By relaxing the self-financing restriction to allow withdrawal of money out of the market, we develop a revised dynamic mean-variance policy for a market with a riskless asset which dominates the pre-committed optimal mean-variance portfolio policy in the sense that, while the two achieve the same mean-variance pair of the terminal wealth, the revised policy enables the investor to receive a free cash flow stream (FCFS) during the investment process. We further apply the concept of pseudo efficiency to a dynamic market of all risky assets and explore (better) revised dynamic mean-variance policies. By including the free cash flow stream in the total wealth, our proposed policy dominates the pre-committed optimal mean-variance portfolio policy in the sense that while both achieve the same total mean, the revised policy generates a smaller total variance. We reveal in this thesis that the time consistency in efficiency is closely related to the completeness of the market. We further discuss the relationship between time consistency in efficiency and the variance-optimal signed martingale measure (VSMM) of the market. Finally we show that time inconsistency in efficiency can be eliminated by enforcing no-shorting constraint for some market setting. / Cui, Xiangyu. / Adviser: Li Duan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-04, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-170). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

Mean-variance criterion in optimization AL problem aims at maximizing the final surplus; asset value minus liability value, subject to a given variance of the final surplus or, equivalently, minimizing the variance of the final surplus subject to a given expected final surplus. The stochastic optimal control theory is employed to analytically solve the AL management problem in continuous-time setting. Then the comparison of derived optimal AL management policy and the literatures are examined and the discrepancy in objectives between equity holders and investors of a mutual fund is discussed finally. / Portfolio selection in asset-liability (AL) management is to seek the best allocation of wealth among a basket of securities with taking into account the liabilities. There are a lot of portfolio selection criteria among in the literature. The two of them are mean-variance criterion and Roy's safety-first principle. This thesis investigates the optimal asset allocation for an investor who is facing an uncontrollable liability under either one of these two portfolio constructions. The relation between these two different principles are discussed in the context of AL management. / Roy's safety-first principle (Roy, 1956) asserts that the investor would specify a threshold level of the final surplus below which the outcome is regarded as disaster. The objective is then to minimize the ruin probability or the chance of disaster subject to a constraint that the expected final surplus is higher than the threshold. Roy however solves this problem by minimizing an upper bound of the ruin probability based on the Bienayme-Chebycheff inequality. With the same consideration of Roy, the analytical trading strategy of the safety-first. AL management, problem, in the sense of surplus, under both continuous- and multi-period-time settings are derived. We link this surrogated safety-first principle to the mean-variance ones. / The final objective of this thesis attacks the genuine safety-first AL problem. Without replacing the ruin probability in the objective function by its upper bound, we use a martingale approach and consider the funding ratio which is the total wealth divided by the total liability. Two important situations in the literature are investigated. In the first situation, the mean constraint of the original problem is removed, We show that removing the mean constraint makes the problem become a target reaching problem that can be solved analytically. However, the essence of safety-first is lost. In the second case in which the mean constraint is there, the problem becomes ill-posed and is then solved using an approximation using a martingale approach. The approximation relies on the assumption that the investor gives up unreasonably high profits and sets an upper bounded for the final funding ratio. / Chiu, Mei Choi. / "July 2007." / Adviser: Duan Li. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: B, page: 1304. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-126). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

This study examines the performance of recently introduced passively-managed exchange-traded hedged funds (HETFs). Using data that cover the period 2008 to 2017 of all available HETFs under global macro and long-short classifications with sufficient number of observations, the study provides the most complete and update measure and documentation of the performance of these two fund categories. Little research has been done on HETFs' performance in despite of the rapid growth and expected future expansion of their market sizes, since the introduction of HETFs expands for ordinary investors investment opportunity set that were only available to high net wealth individuals and institutions. Using a simple 3-three factor model including equity, bond and volatility factors, it shows long-short HETFs cannot closely follow the returns of their corresponding indexes as global macro HETFs. By using Fung and Hsieh's (2004) 7-factor model, and Edelman, Fung and Hsieh's (2012) revised 8-factor model, significant negative alphas are found for strategy portfolios. The relatively poor performance of the HETFs can be attributed to their high expense ratio and their failure to closely track the benchmark index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999 / Vita Includes bibliographical references (p. 202-206)

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2003. / [MBA professional report]. Thesis advisor(s): Philip Candreva, Kenneth Doerr, Glenn Cook. Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-69). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-106).

This thesis investigates issues relating to international portfolio diversification from the perspective of the Polish stock market in the context of the financial crisis. Beginning with an outline of the functioning of the Polish stock market, the first contribution of the thesis is to consider the risks, benefits and opportunities in this market. Within this context, trading strategies are considered with an emphasis on the impact on risk reduction or return enhancement of initial public offerings. Second, the thesis provides a model which may be relevant for measuring trend durations in equity prices. A third element of the thesis considers the influence of spill-over effects (from the financial crisis) on equity investments in Poland, incorporating country and industry specific factors. Finally, the thesis considers financial crisis contagion and policies that may be relevant for practitioners.

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Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2006. / "December, 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-36). Online version available on the World Wide Web. Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2006]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.