IMPLICATION OF THE KELLY CRITERION FOR MULTI-DIMENSIONAL PROCESSES

In this paper, we study the Kelly criterion in the continuous time framework building on the work of E.O. Thorp and others. The existence of an optimal strategy is proven in a general setting and the corresponding optimal wealth process is found. A simple formula is provided for calculating the optimal portfolio in terms of drift, short term risk-free rate and correlations for a set of generic multi-dimensional diffusion processes satisfying some simple conditions. Properties of the optimal investment strategy are studied. The paper ends with a short discussion of the implications of these ideas for financial markets.