In this paper, we explore the use of Independent Component Analysis (ICA) from the field of signal processing to model and estimate the dynamics of multivariate volatilities of financial asset returns in the GARCH framework. The resulting ICA-GARCH approach is shown to provide a computationally...

The purpose of this work is to show how a law requirement aimed at strengthening banks during stressed periods could end up making banks even riskier. In the last 3 years, since when the economic crisis moved from subprime sector to sovereign debt, we faced a variation on bond price never...

This paper addresses the problem of dynamic asset allocation under a bounded shortfall risk in a market composed of three assets: cash, stocks and a zero coupon bond. The dynamics of the instantaneous short rates is driven by a Hull and White model. In this setting, we determine and compare...

It is now an accepted fact that the majority of financial markets worldwide are neither normal nor constant, and South Africa is no exception. One idea that can be used to understand such markets and has been gaining popularity recently is that of regimes and regime-switching models. In this...

This article studies the optimal portfolio selection of expected utility maximizing investors who must also manage their market-risk exposures. The risk is measured by a so-called weighted Value-at-Risk (WVaR) risk measure, which is a generalization of both Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected...

The portfolio performance measures based on the Value-at-Risk (VaR) concept have gained widespread popularity and are often used in empirical studies. Unfortunately, we have noticed that in majority of empirical studies a VaR-based performance measure is used inconsistently. The goal of this...

We develop robust models for optimization of the VaR and CVaR risk measures with a minimum expected return constraint under joint ambiguity in distribution, mean returns, and covariance matrix. We formulate models for ellipsoidal, polytopic, and interval ambiguity sets of the means and...

Bonds historical returns cannot be used directly to compute VaR because the maturities of returns implied by the historical prices do not have the relevant maturities to compute VaR. Given the so-called pull-to-par in bonds, with return volatilities necessarily decreasing with diminishing...

We derive the optimal hedging ratios for a portfolio of assets driven by a Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive model with general cointegration rank. Our hedge is optimal in the sense of minimum variance portfolio.We consider a model that allows for the hedges to be cointegrated with the hedged...