Capital Allocation

Capital allocation and tail central moments for the multivariate normal mean-variance mixture distribution ArXiv ID: 2601.00568 “View on arXiv” Authors: Enrique Calderín-Ojeda, Yuyu Chen, Soon Wei Tan Abstract Capital allocation is a procedure used to assess the risk contributions of individual risk components to the total risk of a portfolio. While the conditional tail expectation (CTE)-based capital allocation is arguably the most popular capital allocation method, its inability to reflect important tail behaviour of losses necessitates a more accurate approach. In this paper, we introduce a new capital allocation method based on the tail central moments (TCM), generalising the tail covariance allocation informed by the tail variance. We develop analytical expressions of the TCM as well as the TCM-based capital allocation for the class of normal mean-variance mixture distributions, which is widely used to model asymmetric and heavy-tailed data in finance and insurance. As demonstrated by a numerical analysis, the TCM-based capital allocation captures several significant patterns in the tail region of equity losses that remain undetected by the CTE, enhancing the understanding of the tail risk contributions of risk components. ...

Risk-aware Trading Portfolio Optimization ArXiv ID: 2503.04662 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract We investigate portfolio optimization in financial markets from a trading and risk management perspective. We term this task Risk-Aware Trading Portfolio Optimization (RATPO), formulate the corresponding optimization problem, and propose an efficient Risk-Aware Trading Swarm (RATS) algorithm to solve it. The key elements of RATPO are a generic initial portfolio P, a specific set of Unique Eligible Instruments (UEIs), their combination into an Eligible Optimization Strategy (EOS), an objective function, and a set of constraints. RATS searches for an optimal EOS that, added to P, improves the objective function repecting the constraints. RATS is a specialized Particle Swarm Optimization method that leverages the parameterization of P in terms of UEIs, enables parallel computation with a large number of particles, and is fully general with respect to specific choices of the key elements, which can be customized to encode financial knowledge and needs of traders and risk managers. We showcase two RATPO applications involving a real trading portfolio made of hundreds of different financial instruments, an objective function combining both market risk (VaR) and profit&loss measures, constrains on market sensitivities and UEIs trading costs. In the case of small-sized EOS, RATS successfully identifies the optimal solution and demonstrates robustness with respect to hyper-parameters tuning. In the case of large-sized EOS, RATS markedly improves the portfolio objective value, optimizing risk and capital charge while respecting risk limits and preserving expected profits. Our work bridges the gap between the implementation of effective trading strategies and compliance with stringent regulatory and economic capital requirements, allowing a better alignment of business and risk management objectives. ...

Some properties of Euler capital allocation ArXiv ID: 2405.00606 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract The paper discusses capital allocation using the Euler formula and focuses on the risk measures Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected shortfall (ES). Some new results connected to this capital allocation is known. Two examples illustrate that capital allocation with VaR is not monotonous which may be surprising since VaR is monotonous. A third example illustrates why the same risk measure should be used in capital allocation as in the evaluation of the total portfolio. We show how simulation may be used in order to estimate the expected Return on risk adjusted capital in the commitment period of an asset. Finally, we show how Markov chain Monte Carlo may be used in the estimation of the capital allocation. ...

Sizing the bets in a focused portfolio ArXiv ID: 2402.15588 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract The paper provides a mathematical model and a tool for the focused investing strategy as advocated by Buffett, Munger, and others from this investment community. The approach presented here assumes that the investor’s role is to think about probabilities of different outcomes for a set of businesses. Based on these assumptions, the tool calculates the optimal allocation of capital for each of the investment candidates. The model is based on a generalized Kelly Criterion with options to provide constraints that ensure: no shorting, limited use of leverage, providing a maximum limit to the risk of permanent loss of capital, and maximum individual allocation. The software is applied to an example portfolio from which certain observations about excessive diversification are obtained. In addition, the software is made available for public use. ...