IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v171y2018icp93-96.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal vs naïve diversification in cryptocurrencies

Author

Listed:
  • Platanakis, Emmanouil
  • Sutcliffe, Charles
  • Urquhart, Andrew

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on cryptocurrencies by examining the performance of naïve (1/N) and optimal (Markowitz) diversification in a portfolio of four popular cryptocurrencies. We employ weekly data with weekly rebalancing and show there is very little to select between naïve diversification and optimal diversification. Our results hold for different levels of risk-aversion and an alternative estimation window.

Suggested Citation

  • Platanakis, Emmanouil & Sutcliffe, Charles & Urquhart, Andrew, 2018. "Optimal vs naïve diversification in cryptocurrencies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 93-96.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:171:y:2018:i:c:p:93-96
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.07.020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517651830274X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2018.07.020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gkillas, Konstantinos & Katsiampa, Paraskevi, 2018. "An application of extreme value theory to cryptocurrencies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 109-111.
    2. Urquhart, Andrew, 2016. "The inefficiency of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 80-82.
    3. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal, 2009. "Optimal Versus Naive Diversification: How Inefficient is the 1-N Portfolio Strategy?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1915-1953, May.
    4. Urquhart, Andrew, 2017. "Price clustering in Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 145-148.
    5. Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Jana, R.K. & Das, Debojyoti & Roubaud, David, 2018. "Informational efficiency of Bitcoin—An extension," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 106-109.
    6. Platanakis, Emmanouil & Sakkas, Athanasios & Sutcliffe, Charles, 2019. "Harmful diversification: Evidence from alternative investments," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 1-23.
    7. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2018. "Datestamping the Bitcoin and Ethereum bubbles," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 81-88.
    8. Fabian Ackermann & Walt Pohl & Karl Schmedders, 2017. "Optimal and Naive Diversification in Currency Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3347-3360, October.
    9. Oikonomou, Ioannis & Platanakis, Emmanouil & Sutcliffe, Charles, 2018. "Socially responsible investment portfolios: Does the optimization process matter?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 379-401.
    10. Kan, Raymond & Zhou, Guofu, 2007. "Optimal Portfolio Choice with Parameter Uncertainty," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 621-656, September.
    11. Nadarajah, Saralees & Chu, Jeffrey, 2017. "On the inefficiency of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 6-9.
    12. Emmanouil Platanakis & Charles Sutcliffe, 2017. "Asset–liability modelling and pension schemes: the application of robust optimization to USS," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 324-352, March.
    13. Koutmos, Dimitrios, 2018. "Bitcoin returns and transaction activity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 81-85.
    14. P. S. Lintilhac & A. Tourin, 2017. "Model-based pairs trading in the bitcoin markets," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(5), pages 703-716, May.
    15. Bouri, Elie & Molnár, Peter & Azzi, Georges & Roubaud, David & Hagfors, Lars Ivar, 2017. "On the hedge and safe haven properties of Bitcoin: Is it really more than a diversifier?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 192-198.
    16. Khuntia, Sashikanta & Pattanayak, J.K., 2018. "Adaptive market hypothesis and evolving predictability of bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 26-28.
    17. Baur, Dirk G. & Hong, KiHoon & Lee, Adrian D., 2018. "Bitcoin: Medium of exchange or speculative assets?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 177-189.
    18. Cheah, Eng-Tuck & Fry, John, 2015. "Speculative bubbles in Bitcoin markets? An empirical investigation into the fundamental value of Bitcoin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 32-36.
    19. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Urquhart, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as a financial asset: A systematic analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 182-199.
    20. Corbet, Shaen & Meegan, Andrew & Larkin, Charles & Lucey, Brian & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2018. "Exploring the dynamic relationships between cryptocurrencies and other financial assets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 28-34.
    21. Phillip, Andrew & Chan, Jennifer S.K. & Peiris, Shelton, 2018. "A new look at Cryptocurrencies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 6-9.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aurelio F. Bariviera & Ignasi Merediz‐Solà, 2021. "Where Do We Stand In Cryptocurrencies Economic Research? A Survey Based On Hybrid Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 377-407, April.
    2. Flori, Andrea, 2019. "News and subjective beliefs: A Bayesian approach to Bitcoin investments," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 336-356.
    3. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Urquhart, Andrew & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies as a financial asset: A systematic analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 182-199.
    4. Platanakis, Emmanouil & Urquhart, Andrew, 2020. "Should investors include Bitcoin in their portfolios? A portfolio theory approach," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(4).
    5. Khaki, Audil & Prasad, Mason & Al-Mohamad, Somar & Bakry, Walid & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2023. "Re-evaluating portfolio diversification and design using cryptocurrencies: Are decentralized cryptocurrencies enough?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. De Pace, Pierangelo & Rao, Jayant, 2023. "Comovement and instability in cryptocurrency markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 173-200.
    7. Bedi, Prateek & Nashier, Tripti, 2020. "On the investment credentials of Bitcoin: A cross-currency perspective," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    8. Antonakakis, Nikolaos & Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Gabauer, David, 2019. "Cryptocurrency market contagion: Market uncertainty, market complexity, and dynamic portfolios," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 37-51.
    9. Xinyu Huang & Weihao Han & David Newton & Emmanouil Platanakis & Dimitrios Stafylas & Charles Sutcliffe, 2023. "The diversification benefits of cryptocurrency asset categories and estimation risk: pre and post Covid-19," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(7), pages 800-825, May.
    10. Corbet, Shaen & Katsiampa, Paraskevi, 2020. "Asymmetric mean reversion of Bitcoin price returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    11. Katsiampa, Paraskevi, 2019. "An empirical investigation of volatility dynamics in the cryptocurrency market," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 322-335.
    12. Robert Hudson & Andrew Urquhart, 2021. "Technical trading and cryptocurrencies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 297(1), pages 191-220, February.
    13. Eross, Andrea & McGroarty, Frank & Urquhart, Andrew & Wolfe, Simon, 2019. "The intraday dynamics of bitcoin," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 71-81.
    14. Panagiotidis, Theodore & Stengos, Thanasis & Vravosinos, Orestis, 2019. "The effects of markets, uncertainty and search intensity on bitcoin returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 220-242.
    15. Dehua Shen & Andrew Urquhart & Pengfei Wang, 2020. "Forecasting the volatility of Bitcoin: The importance of jumps and structural breaks," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1294-1323, November.
    16. Ahmed H. Elsayed & Giray Gozgor & Chi Keung Marco Lau, 2022. "Causality and dynamic spillovers among cryptocurrencies and currency markets," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 2026-2040, April.
    17. Andrea Flori, 2019. "Cryptocurrencies In Finance: Review And Applications," International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance (IJTAF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(05), pages 1-22, August.
    18. Platanakis, Emmanouil & Urquhart, Andrew, 2019. "Portfolio management with cryptocurrencies: The role of estimation risk," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 76-80.
    19. Dunbar, Kwamie & Owusu-Amoako, Johnson, 2022. "Cryptocurrency returns under empirical asset pricing," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    20. Kajtazi, Anton & Moro, Andrea, 2019. "The role of bitcoin in well diversified portfolios: A comparative global study," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 143-157.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:171:y:2018:i:c:p:93-96. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.