Monte Carlo computation of optimal portfolios in complete markets

Abstract

We introduce a method that relies exclusively on Monte Carlo simulation in order to compute numerically optimal portfolio values for utility maximization problems. Our method is quite general and only requires complete markets and knowledge of the dynamics of the security processes. It can be applied regardless of the number of factors and of whether the agent derives utility from intertemporal consumption, terminal wealth or both. We also perform some comparative statics analysis. Our comparative statics show that risk aversion has by far the greatest influence on the value of the optimal portfolio.

Additional Information

© 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. Available online 20 May 2002. Previous versions of this paper were presented in seminars at INSEAD, USC, Carnegie-Mellon, Cornell, UCLA, UC Riverside, CEMFI, Carlos III and at the Boston University Mathematical Finance Day. We are grateful to seminar participants for comments, to R. Mikulevičius for helpful discussions and, especially, to Michael Brennan for suggesting a simplification that makes the algorithm substantially faster. Research supported in part by the NSF Grant DMS-97-32810.

Attached Files

Submitted - CVIjedc03preprint.pdf

Files

Additional details