I show that an asset pricing model for the equity claims of a value-maximizing firm can be constructed from its optimal financial contracting behavior. I study a dynamic contracting model in which firms trade off the costs and benefits of a given promise to pay external lenders in a specific...

We present effective momentum strategies over the liquid equity futures market in India. We evaluate and determine the persistence of the returns at various look-backs ranging from quarterly and weekly to more granular look-backs. We look at a universe of the liquid equity instruments traded...

Guarantees embedded variable annuity contracts exhibit option-like payoff features and the pricing of such instruments naturally leads to risk neutral valuation techniques. This paper considers the pricing of two types of guarantees; namely, the Guaranteed Minimum Maturity Benefit and the...

In modern portfolio theory, financial portfolios are characterised by a desired property, the 'reward', and something undesirable, the 'risk'. While these properties are commonly identified with mean and variance of returns, respectively, we test alternative specifications like partial and...

Using equations that arise in quantum mechanics, this paper describes a way to more accurately and efficiently represent non-Gaussian return distributions than the standard method of invoking skewness and kurtosis. Then, it provides a new single intuitive number, defined here as the “crash...

This paper treats the risk-averse optimal portfolio problem with consumption in continuous time for a stochastic-jump-volatility, jump-diffusion (SJVJD) model of the underlying risky asset and the volatility. The new developments are the use of the SJVJD model with...

We develop the idea of using Monte Carlo sampling of random portfolios to solve portfolio investment problems. We explore the need for more general optimization tools, and consider the means by which constrained random portfolios may be generated. DeVroye's approach to sampling the interior of a...

We show how to reduce the problem of computing VaR and CVaR with Student T return distributions to evaluation of analytical functions of the moments. This allows an analysis of the risk properties of systems to be carefully attributed between choices of risk function (e.g. VaR vs CVaR); choice...

In this paper we introduce a simple continuous-time asset pricing framework, based on general multi-dimensional diffusion processes, that combines semi-analytic pricing with a nonlinear specification for the market price of risk. Our framework guarantees existence of weak solutions of the...

We develop the idea of using Monte Carlo sampling of random portfolios to solve portfolio investment problems. In this first paper we explore the need for more general optimization tools, and consider the means by which constrained random portfolios may be generated. A practical scheme for the...