Postprocessing Results to Set Up Tradable Portfolios

This example shows how to use your results for efficient portfolios or estimates for expected portfolio risks and returns to set up trades to move toward an efficient portfolio. For information on the workflow when using PortfolioCVaR objects, see PortfolioCVaR Object Workflow.

Suppose that you set up a portfolio optimization problem and obtained portfolios on the efficient frontier. Use the dataset object to form a blotter that lists your portfolios with the names for each asset. For example, suppose that you want to obtain five portfolios along the efficient frontier. You can set up a blotter with weights multiplied by 100 to view the allocations for each portfolio:

m = [ 0.05; 0.1; 0.12; 0.18 ];
C = [ 0.0064 0.00408 0.00192 0;
0.00408 0.0289 0.0204 0.0119;
0.00192 0.0204 0.0576 0.0336;
0 0.0119 0.0336 0.1225 ];

pwgt0 = [ 0.3; 0.3; 0.2; 0.1 ];

p = PortfolioCVaR;
p = setAssetList(p, 'Bonds','Large-Cap Equities','Small-Cap Equities','Emerging Equities');
p = setInitPort(p, pwgt0);
p = simulateNormalScenariosByMoments(p, m, C, 20000);
p = setDefaultConstraints(p);
p = setProbabilityLevel(p, 0.9);

pwgt = estimateFrontier(p, 5);

pnames = cell(1,5);
for i = 1:5
pnames{i} = sprintf('Port%d',i);
end

Blotter = dataset([{100*pwgt},pnames],'obsnames',p.AssetList);
display(Blotter)

Blotter = 
                          Port1     Port2     Port3     Port4     Port5
    Bonds                 77.826     42.77    7.2095         0      0  
    Large-Cap Equities    10.549    30.253    50.951    26.764      0  
    Small-Cap Equities    4.3487    7.1893    9.8049    10.837      0  
    Emerging Equities     7.2764    19.788    32.034    62.399    100  

This result indicates that you would invest primarily in bonds at the minimum-risk/minimum-return end of the efficient frontier (Port1), and that you would invest completely in emerging equity at the maximum-risk/maximum-return end of the efficient frontier (Port5). You can also select a particular efficient portfolio, for example, suppose that you want a portfolio with 15% risk and you add purchase and sale weights outputs obtained from the "estimateFrontier" functions to set up a trade blotter:

m = [ 0.05; 0.1; 0.12; 0.18 ];
C = [ 0.0064 0.00408 0.00192 0;
0.00408 0.0289 0.0204 0.0119;
0.00192 0.0204 0.0576 0.0336;
0 0.0119 0.0336 0.1225 ];

pwgt0 = [ 0.3; 0.3; 0.2; 0.1 ];

p = PortfolioCVaR;
p = setAssetList(p, 'Bonds','Large-Cap Equities','Small-Cap Equities','Emerging Equities');

p = setInitPort(p, pwgt0);
p = simulateNormalScenariosByMoments(p, m, C, 20000);
p = setDefaultConstraints(p);
p = setProbabilityLevel(p, 0.9);

[pwgt, pbuy, psell] = estimateFrontierByRisk(p, 0.15);

Blotter = dataset([{100*[pwgt0, pwgt, pbuy, psell]}, ...
{'Initial','Weight', 'Purchases','Sales'}],'obsnames',p.AssetList);
display(Blotter)

Blotter = 
                          Initial    Weight    Purchases    Sales 
    Bonds                 30         21.084         0       8.9159
    Large-Cap Equities    30         41.374    11.374            0
    Small-Cap Equities    20         9.2259         0       10.774
    Emerging Equities     10         28.316    18.316            0

If you have prices for each asset (in this example, they can be ETFs), add them to your blotter and then use the tools of the dataset object to obtain shares and shares to be traded. For an example, see Asset Allocation Case Study.