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Behavioral portfolio insurance strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Marcos Escobar-Anel

    (The University of Western Ontario)

  • Andreas Lichtenstern

    (Technical University of Munich)

  • Rudi Zagst

    (Technical University of Munich)

Abstract

Portfolio insurance strategies that ensure a certain minimum portfolio value or floor such as the Constant Proportion Portfolio Insurance (CPPI) and the Option-based Portfolio Insurance are economically important and widely spread among the banking and insurance industries. In distress and volatile market environments, investors such as pension funds have a need to insure their portfolios against downside risk in order to meet certain future payments or liabilities. Non-anticipated shocks or negative interest rates, jumps, crashes, or overnight trading restrictions in stock prices could drop pension fund portfolios below desired levels (present value of pension obligations) making them underfunded with pension assets to pension liabilities ratio below 100%. In particular, within the current low interest rate environment, a high number of pension funds happen to be underfunded which is a severe practical problem. Because of such scenarios, there is a need for an investment strategy which covers both the case of funded and underfunded portfolios. This article introduces a novel strategy which generalizes the CPPI approach. It has the overall target of guaranteeing the investment goal or floor while participating in the performance of the assets and limiting the downside risk of the portfolio at the same time. We show that the strategy accounts for behavioral aspects of the investor such as distorted probabilities, a risk-averse behavior for gains, and a risk-seeking behavior for losses. The proposed strategy turns out to be optimal within the Cumulative Prospect Theory framework by Tversky and Kahneman (J Risk Uncertain 5(4):297–323, 1992).

Suggested Citation

  • Marcos Escobar-Anel & Andreas Lichtenstern & Rudi Zagst, 2020. "Behavioral portfolio insurance strategies," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 34(4), pages 353-399, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:fmktpm:v:34:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s11408-020-00353-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11408-020-00353-5
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Raquel M. Gaspar & Paulo M. Silva, 2019. "Investors’ Perspective on Portfolio InsuranceExpected Utility vs Prospect Theories," Working Papers REM 2019/92, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    2. Peter Brusov & Tatiana Filatova & Natali Orekhova, 2023. "Innovative Investment Models with Frequent Payments of Tax on Income and of Interest on Debt," Springer Books, in: The Brusov–Filatova–Orekhova Theory of Capital Structure, chapter 0, pages 501-528, Springer.
    3. Tatiana Filatova & Peter Brusov & Natali Orekhova, 2022. "Impact of Advance Payments of Tax on Profit on Effectiveness of Investments," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-25, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Portfolio insurance; Portfolio choice; Pension funds; Behavioral finance; S-shaped utility function; Probability distortion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

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