Liquidity Regimes and Optimal Dynamic Asset Allocation

Pierre Collin-Dufresne, Kent Daniel and Mehmet Saglam

No 12737, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We solve for the optimal dynamic asset allocation when expected returns, volatilities, and trading costs follow a regime switching model. The optimal policy is to trade partially towards an aim portfolio with a given trading speed. In a given state, the aim portfolio is a weighted average of mean-variance portfolios in every state, where the weight is a function of the probability of transitioning to that state, and the state's persistence, risk and trading costs. The trading speed is higher in states that are more persistent, where return volatility is higher and trading costs are lower. It can be optimal to deviate substantially from the mean-variance efficient portfolio (or from the risk-parity allocation) and to underweight high Sharpe ratio (high volatility) assets, as well as to trade more aggressively the less liquid assets in anticipation of an increase in their volatility and trading costs. We illustrate our approach in an empirical exercise in which we exploit time-variation in the expected return, volatility, and cost of trading of the value-weighted market portfolio of US common stocks. We estimate a regime switching model applied to a dataset of institutional trades, and find that realized trading costs are significantly higher when market volatility is high. The optimal dynamic strategy significantly outperforms a myopic trading strategy in an out-of-sample experiment. The highest gains arise from timing the changes in volatility and trading costs rather than expected returns.

Keywords: Dynamic portfolio choice; Transaction costs; stochastic volatility; Price impact; Risk-parity; Mean-variance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D53 G11 G12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP12737 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Liquidity regimes and optimal dynamic asset allocation (2020)
Working Paper: Liquidity Regimes and Optimal Dynamic Asset Allocation (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12737

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP12737

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().