In aftermath of the Financial Crisis, some risk management practitioners advocate wider adoption of Bayesian inference to replace Value-at-Risk (VaR) models for minimizing risk failures (Borison & Hamm, 2010). They claim reliance of Bayesian inference on subjective judgment, the key limitation...

We introduce "factors on demand", a modular, multi-asset-class return decomposition framework that extends beyond the standard systematic-plus-idiosyncratic approach. This framework, which rests on the conditional link between flexible bottom-up estimation factor models and flexible top-down...

Empirical evidence suggests that asset returns correlate more strongly in bear markets than conventional correlation estimates imply. We propose a method for determining complete tail-correlation matrices based on Value-at-Risk (VaR) estimates. We demonstrate how to obtain more effi cient...

We present “The Prayer”, a recipe of ten sequential steps for all portfolio managers, risk managers, algorithmic traders across all asset classes and all investment horizons, to model and manage the P&L distribution of their positions.For each of the ten steps of the Prayer, we introduce all...

Managed volatility strategies adjust market exposure in inverse relation to a risk estimate, to stabilize realized portfolio volatility through time. Our paper examines strategy performance from an investment practitioner perspective. Using long-term data from the Standard & Poor's 500, we show...

Unlike passive management, where investors almost do not buy and sell securities, active management involves a set of trading rules that govern investment decisions regarding mainly market timing. In this paper, we take the basics of active management and the two fund separation approach, to...

Exercises and case studies for a rigorous approach to risk- and portfolio-management. This booklet stems from the review sessions of the six-day ARPM bootcamp.Contents include:Advanced multivariate statistics; copula-marginal decompositionAnnualization/projection (FFT, cumulants,...

We review the main approaches to dynamically reallocate capital between a risky portfolio and a risk-free account: expected utility maximization; option-based portfolio insurance (OBPI); and drawdown control, closely related to constant proportion portfolio insurance (CPPI). We present a...

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, some risk management practitioners have advocated wider adoption of Bayesian inference to replace Value- at-Risk (VaR) models in order to minimize risk failures. Despite its limitations, the Bayesian methodology has significant advantages. Just...

We provide a model-free framework for studying the dynamics of the state vector and its risk prices. Specifically, we derive a frequency domain decomposition of the unconditional asset return premium in a general setting with a log-affine stochastic discount factor (SDF). Importantly, we show...