Abstract: This paper features an analysis of the effectiveness of a range of portfolio diversification strategies, with a focus on down-side risk metrics, as a portfolio diversification strategy in a European market context. We apply these measures to a set of daily arithmetically-compounded returns, in U.S. dollar terms, on a set of ten market indices representing the major European markets for a nine-year period from the beginning of 2005 to the end of 2013. The sample period, which incorporates the periods of both the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the subsequent European Debt Crisis (EDC), is a challenging one for the application of portfolio investment strategies. The analysis is undertaken via the examination of multiple investment strategies and a variety of hold-out periods and backtests. We commence by using four two-year estimation periods and a subsequent one-year investment hold out period, to analyse a naive 1/N diversification strategy and to contrast its effectiveness with Markowitz mean variance analysis with positive weights. Markowitz optimisation is then compared to various down-side investment optimisation strategies. We begin by comparing Markowitz with CVaR, and then proceed to evaluate the relative effectiveness of Markowitz with various draw-down strategies, utilising a series of backtests. Our results suggest that none of the more sophisticated optimisation strategies appear to dominate naive diversification.

Abstract: The ground-breaking Black-Scholes-Merton model has brought about a generation of derivative pricing models that have been successfully applied in the financial industry. It has been a long standing puzzle that the structural models of credit risk, as an application of the same modeling paradigm, do not perform well empirically. We argue that the ability to accurately compute and dynamically update hedge ratios to facilitate a capital structure arbitrage is a distinctive strength of the Black-Scholes-Merton’s modeling paradigm which could be utilized in credit risk models as well. Our evidence is economically significant: We improve the implementation of a simple structural model so that it is more suitable for our application and then devise a simple capital structure arbitrage strategy based on the model. We show that the trading strategy persistently produced substantial risk-adjusted profit.

Abstract: The recent financial crisis triggered the greatest recession since the 1930s and had a devastating impact on households’ wealth and on their capacity to reduce their indebtedness. In the aftermath, it became clear that there is significant room for improvement in property risk management. While there has been innovation in the management of corporate finance risk, real estate has lagged behind. Now is the time to expand the range of tools available for hedging households’ risks and, thus, to advance the democratization of finance. Property equity represents the major asset in households’ portfolios in developed and undeveloped countries. The present paper analyzes a set of potential innovations in real estate risk management, such as price level-adjusted mortgages, property derivatives, and home equity value insurance. Financial institutions, households, and governments should work together to improve the performance of the financial instruments available and, thus, to help mitigate the worst impacts of economic cycles.

Abstract: In this paper, we demonstrate the superiority of vine copulas over conventional copulas when modeling the dependence structure of a credit portfolio. We show statistical and economic implications of replacing conventional copulas by vine copulas for a subportfolio of the Euro Stoxx 50 and the S&P 500 companies, respectively. Our study includes D-vines and R-vines where the bivariate building blocks are chosen from the Gaussian, the t and the Clayton family. Our findings are (i) the conventional Gauss copula is deficient in modeling the dependence structure of a credit portfolio and economic capital is seriously underestimated; (ii) D-vine structures offer a better statistical fit to the data than classical copulas, but underestimate economic capital compared to R-vines; (iii) when mixing different copula families in an R-vine structure, the best statistical fit to the data can be achieved which corresponds to the most reliable estimate for economic capital.