This paper examines the impact of habit formation on the demand for life-contingent contracts in a life-cycle model. We derive an analytical solution for the optimal consumption, portfolio choice, and life insurance/annuity purchases. We illustrate the mechanism by which the consumption habit...

We propose a "1/N favorability index" to measure how favorable a market is to holding a 1/N portfolio. This index reflects the extent of difficulty for an optimized portfolio to outperform the 1/N portfolio in a specific market. A single-factor model predicts that bull markets are accompanied by...

The performance of a closed end bond fund is based on the returns of an underlying portfolio of bonds. This paper uses a structural model to assess the impact of leverage on the expected return and riskiness of a closed end bond fund. We use the model to explore the role of leverage during the...

This paper starts from examining the performance of equally weighted 1/N stock portfolios over time. During the last four decades these portfolios outperformed the market. The construction of these portfolios implies that their constituent stocks are in general older than those in the market as...

In a traditional fixed rate mortgage, the borrower pays a fixed amount each period regardless of the value of the mortgaged property. One problem with this contract is that the borrower is less willing to pay when the house value falls. This was clearly seen in the 2008 financial crisis and its...

The first principal component of stock returns is often identified with the market factor. If this portfolio is to represent the market portfolio, then all its weights must be positive. From the classical Perron-Frobenius theorem, a sufficient condition for the dominant eigenvector to be...

We show that even when a covariance matrix is poorly estimated, it is still possible to obtain a robust maximum Sharpe ratio portfolio by exploiting the uneven distribution of estimation errors across principal components. This is accomplished by approximating an investor's view on future asset...

It is now known that the very impressive investment returns generated by Bernie Madoff were based on a sophisticated Ponzi scheme. Madoff claimed to use a split-strike conversion strategy. This strategy consists of a long equity position plus a long put and a short call. In this paper we examine...

This paper analyses the properties of two popular portfolio strategies. They are the Buy and Hold strategy and the Discretely Rebalanced strategy. It is assumed that the underlying stocks have a multivariate lognormal distribution. The distribution of the sum of correlated lognormals plays a...

This paper derives limit distributions for the sum of two groups of correlated lognormal variables. The within group correlations are equal and the overall covariance matrix has a specific block structure. We prove that the normalized sum of the two groups of lognormal variables converges to a...