*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
Title: Dynamic Portfolio Optimization using Mean-Semivariance
Advisors: Dr. Hayriye Ayhan and Dr. Shijie Deng
Committee Members:
Dr. Sebastian Pokutta
Dr. Chelsea White
Dr. Jun Xu (School of Computer Science)
Date and time: Thursday, November 2nd, 3:00 PM.
Location: Groseclose 403
Abstract:
This dissertation studies the mean-semivariance portfolio optimization problem. We describe the relationship of this kind of optimization in the context of other types of portfolio optimization. We construct a novel analysis of mean-semivariance in the context of piecewise quadratic optimization. The unique structure of mean-semivariance is leveraged to provide insight into properties of the optimal portfolio as a function of its key input parameters. This characterization allows us to introduce a new approach to solving a multi-period dynamic mean-semivariance portfolio problem. The proposed methodology provides significant improvements over naive approaches not leveraging the unique structure of the mean-semivariance value function. Finally, we develop a novel, distributionally robust piecewise quadratic formulation using semidefinite programming. We apply the robust formulation to the mean-semivariance portfolio problem to construct a distributionally robust mean-semivariance portfolio. We prove that the robust mean-semivariance portfolio is actually equivalent to the classical mean-variance portfolio.
