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Concept
The fundamental concept behind MPT is that the assets in an investment portfolio cannot
be selected individually, each on their own merits. Rather, it is important to consider how
each asset changes in price relative to how every other asset in the portfolio changes in
price.
Investing is a tradeoff between risk and expected return. In general, assets with higher
expected returns are riskier. For a given amount of risk, MPT describes how to select a
portfolio with the highest possible expected return. Or, for a given expected return, MPT
explains how to select a portfolio with the lowest possible risk (the targeted expected
return cannot be more than the highest-returning available security, of course, unless
negative holdings of assets are possible.)[3]
MPT is therefore a form of diversification. Under certain assumptions and for specific
quantitative definitions of risk and return, MPT explains how to find the best possible
diversification strategy.
History
Harry Markowitz introduced MPT in a 1952 article[4] and a 1959 book.[5] See also[3].
Mathematical model
In some sense the mathematical derivation below is MPT, although the basic concepts
behind the model have also been very influential.[3]
This section develops the "classic" MPT model. There have been many extensions since.
In general:
• Expected return:
where Rp is the return on the portfolio, Ri is the return on asset i and wi is
the weighting of component asset i (that is, the share of asset i in the
portfolio).
where ρij is the correlation coefficient between the returns on assets i and
j. Alternatively the expression can be written as:
,
where ρij = 1 for i=j.
• Portfolio return:
• Portfolio variance:
• Portfolio return:
• Portfolio variance:
Diversification
An investor can reduce portfolio risk simply by holding combinations of instruments
which are not perfectly positively correlated (correlation coefficient )).
In other words, investors can reduce their exposure to individual asset risk by holding a
diversified portfolio of assets. Diversification may allow for the same portfolio expected
return with reduced risk.
If all the asset pairs have correlations of 0—they are perfectly uncorrelated—the
portfolio's return variance is the sum over all assets of the square of the fraction held in
the asset times the asset's return variance (and the portfolio standard deviation is the
square root of this sum).
Efficient Frontier. The hyperbola is sometimes referred to as the 'Markowitz Bullet', and
is the efficient frontier if no risk-free asset is available.
As shown in this graph, every possible combination of the risky assets, without including
any holdings of the risk-free asset, can be plotted in risk-expected return space, and the
collection of all such possible portfolios defines a region in this space. The left boundary
of this region is a hyperbola,[6] and the upper edge of this region is the efficient frontier in
the absence of a risk-free asset (sometimes called "the Markowitz bullet"). Combinations
along this upper edge represent portfolios (including no holdings of the risk-free asset)
for which there is lowest risk for a given level of expected return. Equivalently, a
portfolio lying on the efficient frontier represents the combination offering the best
possible expected return for given risk level.
∑ w = 1.i
The above optimization finds the point on the frontier at which the inverse
of the slope of the frontier would be q if portfolio return variance instead
of standard deviation were plotted horizontally. The frontier in its entirely
is parametric on q.
Many software packages, including Microsoft Excel, MATLAB,
Mathematica and R, provide optimization routines suitable for the above
problem.
An alternative approach to specifying the efficient frontier is to do so
parametrically on expected portfolio return RTw. This version of the
problem requires that we minimize
wTΣw
subject to
RTw = μ
for parameter μ. This problem is easily solved using a Lagrange
multiplier.
where αi is called the asset's alpha , βi is the asset's beta coefficient and SCL is the
Securities Characteristics Line.
Once an asset's expected return, E(Ri), is calculated using CAPM, the future cash flows
of the asset can be discounted to their present value using this rate to establish the correct
price for the asset. A riskier stock will have a higher beta and will be discounted at a
higher rate; less sensitive stocks will have lower betas and be discounted at a lower rate.
In theory, an asset is correctly priced when its observed price is the same as its value
calculated using the CAPM derived discount rate. If the observed price is higher than the
valuation, then the asset is overvalued; it is undervalued for a too low price.
(1) The incremental impact on risk and expected return when an additional
risky asset, a, is added to the market portfolio, m, follows from the
formulae for a two-asset portfolio. These results are used to derive the
asset-appropriate discount rate.
i.e. :
i.e. :
is the “beta”, β -- the covariance between the asset's return
and the market's return divided by the variance of the market return— i.e.
the sensitivity of the asset price to movement in the market portfolio's
value.
Criticism
Despite its theoretical importance, some people[who?] question whether MPT is an ideal
investing strategy, because its model of financial markets does not match the real world
in many ways.
Assumptions
The mathematical framework of MPT makes many assumptions about investors and
markets. Some are explicit in the equations, such as the use of Normal distributions to
model returns. Others are implicit, such as the neglect of taxes and transaction fees. None
of these assumptions are entirely true, and each of them compromises MPT to some
degree.
• Asset returns are (jointly) normally distributed random variables. In fact, it is
frequently observed that returns in equity and other markets are not normally
distributed. Large swings (3 to 6 standard deviations from the mean) occur in the
market far more frequently than the normal distribution assumption would
predict.[7] While the model can also be justified by assuming any return
distribution which is jointly elliptical[8][9], all the joint elliptical distributions are
symmetrical whereas asset returns empirically are not.
• Correlations between assets are fixed and constant forever. Correlations
depend on systemic relationships between the underlying assets, and change when
these relationships change. Examples include one country declaring war on
another, or a general market crash. During times of financial crisis all assets tend
to become positively correlated, because they all move (down) together. In other
words, MPT breaks down precisely when investors are most in need of protection
from risk.
• All investors aim to maximize economic utility (in other words, to make as
much money as possible, regardless of any other considerations). This is a key
assumption of the efficient market hypothesis, upon which MPT relies.
• All investors are rational and risk-averse. This is another assumption of the
efficient market hypothesis, but we now know from behavioral economics that
market participants are not rational. It does not allow for "herd behavior" or
investors who will accept lower returns for higher risk. Casino gamblers clearly
pay for risk, and it is possible that some stock traders will pay for risk as well.
• All investors have access to the same information at the same time. This also
comes from the efficient market hypothesis. In fact, real markets contain
information asymmetry, insider trading, and those who are simply better informed
than others.
• Investors have an accurate conception of possible returns, i.e., the probability
beliefs of investors match the true distribution of returns. A different
possibility is that investors' expectations are biased, causing market prices to be
informationally inefficient. This possibility is studied in the field of behavioral
finance, which uses psychological assumptions to provide alternatives to the
CAPM such as the overconfidence-based asset pricing model of Kent Daniel,
David Hirshleifer, and Avanidhar Subrahmanyam (2001).[10]
• There are no taxes or transaction costs. Real financial products are subject both
to taxes and transaction costs (such as broker fees), and taking these into account
will alter the composition of the optimum portfolio. These assumptions can be
relaxed with more complicated versions of the model.[citation needed]
• All investors are price takers, i.e., their actions do not influence prices. In
reality, sufficiently large sales or purchases of individual assets can shift market
prices for that asset and others (via cross-elasticity of demand.) An investor may
not even be able to assemble the theoretically optimal portfolio if the market
moves too much while they are buying the required securities.
• Any investor can lend and borrow an unlimited amount at the risk free rate
of interest. In reality, every investor has a credit limit.
• All securities can be divided into parcels of any size. In reality, fractional
shares usually cannot be bought or sold, and some assets have minimum orders
sizes.
More complex versions of MPT can take into account a more sophisticated model of the
world (such as one with non-normal distributions and taxes) but all mathematical models
of finance still rely on many unrealistic premises.
Extensions
Since MPT's introduction in 1952, many attempts have been made to improve the model,
especially by using more realistic assumptions.
Post-modern portfolio theory extends MPT by adopting non-normally distributed,
asymmetric measures of risk. This helps with some of these problems, but not others.
Black-Litterman model optimization is an extension of unconstrained Markowitz
optimization which incorporates relative and absolute `views' on inputs of risk and
returns.