IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/assmgt/v21y2020i6d10.1057_s41260-020-00183-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Automated portfolio rebalancing: Automatic erosion of investment performance?

Author

Listed:
  • Matthias Horn

    (Bamberg University)

  • Andreas Oehler

    (Bamberg University)

Abstract

Robo-advisers enable investors to establish an automated rebalancing strategy for a portfolio usually consisting of stocks and bonds. Since households’ portfolios additionally include further frequently tradable assets like real estate funds, articles of great value and cash(-equivalents), we analyze whether households would benefit from a service that automatically rebalances a portfolio which additionally includes the latter assets. In contrast to previous studies, this paper relies on real-world household portfolios, which are derived from the German central bank’s (Deutsche Bundesbank) Panel on Household Finances (PHF)-Survey. We compute the portfolio performance increase/decrease that households would have achieved by employing rebalancing strategies instead of a buy-and-hold strategy in the period from September 2010 to July 2015 and analyze whether subsamples of households with certain sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics would have benefited more from portfolio rebalancing than other household subsamples. The empirical analysis shows that the analyzed German households would not have benefited from an automated rebalancing service and that no subgroup of households would have significantly outperformed another subgroup in the presence of rebalancing strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Horn & Andreas Oehler, 2020. "Automated portfolio rebalancing: Automatic erosion of investment performance?," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(6), pages 489-505, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:assmgt:v:21:y:2020:i:6:d:10.1057_s41260-020-00183-0
    DOI: 10.1057/s41260-020-00183-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41260-020-00183-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41260-020-00183-0?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. Tu, Jun & Zhou, Guofu, 2011. "Markowitz meets Talmud: A combination of sophisticated and naive diversification strategies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 204-215, January.
    2. Markus Baltzer & Oscar Stolper & Andreas Walter, 2015. "Home-field advantage or a matter of ambiguity aversion? Local bias among German individual investors," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(9), pages 734-754, July.
    3. Jacobs, Heiko & Müller, Sebastian & Weber, Martin, 2014. "How should individual investors diversify? An empirical evaluation of alternative asset allocation policies," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 62-85.
    4. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2008. "Trusting the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2557-2600, December.
    5. Laurent E. Calvet & Paolo Sodini, 2014. "Twin Picks: Disentangling the Determinants of Risk-Taking in Household Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 867-906, April.
    6. Yosef Bonaparte & Russell Cooper, 2009. "Costly Portfolio Adjustment," NBER Working Papers 15227, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. William N. Goetzmann & Alok Kumar, 2008. "Equity Portfolio Diversification," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(3), pages 433-463.
    9. Hubert Dichtl & Wolfgang Drobetz & Martin Wambach, 2016. "Testing rebalancing strategies for stock-bond portfolios across different asset allocations," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(9), pages 772-788, February.
    10. Cristian Badarinza & John Y. Campbell & Tarun Ramadorai, 2016. "International Comparative Household Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 111-144, October.
    11. Oehler, Andreas & Horn, Matthias, 2019. "Does Households’ Wealth Predict the Efficiency of their Asset Mix? Empirical Evidence," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 6(3), pages 249–282-2, August.
    12. Clifford S. Asness & Tobias J. Moskowitz & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2013. "Value and Momentum Everywhere," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 929-985, June.
    13. Merton, Robert C, 1969. "Lifetime Portfolio Selection under Uncertainty: The Continuous-Time Case," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 51(3), pages 247-257, August.
    14. Stanley Pliska & Kiyoshi Suzuki, 2004. "Optimal tracking for asset allocation with fixed and proportional transaction costs," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 233-243.
    15. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    16. Stephen Foerster & Juhani T. Linnainmaa & Brian T. Melzer & Alessandro Previtero, 2017. "Retail Financial Advice: Does One Size Fit All?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1441-1482, August.
    17. Hans-Martin Von Gaudecker, 2015. "How Does Household Portfolio Diversification Vary with Financial Literacy and Financial Advice?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 489-507, April.
    18. Ang, Andrew, 2014. "Asset Management: A Systematic Approach to Factor Investing," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199959327.
    19. Shefrin, Hersh & Statman, Meir, 2000. "Behavioral Portfolio Theory," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 127-151, June.
    20. Scott, Robert C & Horvath, Philip A, 1980. "On the Direction of Preference for Moments of Higher Order Than the Variance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(4), pages 915-919, September.
    21. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stefan Nagel, 2008. "Do Wealth Fluctuations Generate Time-Varying Risk Aversion? Micro-evidence on Individuals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 713-736, June.
    22. Randolph L. Hood, 2005. "Determinants of Portfolio Performance—20 Years Later," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 61(5), pages 6-8, September.
    23. Jimmy E. Hilliard & Jitka Hilliard, 2018. "Rebalancing versus buy and hold: theory, simulation and empirical analysis," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 1-32, January.
    24. von Kalckreuth, Ulf & Eisele, Martin & Le Blanc, Julia & Schmidt, Tobias & Zhu, Junyi, 2012. "The PHF: A comprehensive panel survey on household finances and wealth in Germany," Discussion Papers 13/2012, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    25. Valery Polkovnichenko, 2005. "Household Portfolio Diversification: A Case for Rank-Dependent Preferences," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1467-1502.
    26. Brad M. Barber & Yi-Tsung Lee & Yu-Jane Liu & Terrance Odean, 2009. "Just How Much Do Individual Investors Lose by Trading?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 609-632, February.
    27. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-b.
    28. Annaert, Jan & De Ceuster, Marc J. K. & Van Hyfte, Wim, 2005. "The value of asset allocation advice: Evidence from The Economist's quarterly portfolio poll," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 661-680, March.
    29. Das, Sanjiv & Markowitz, Harry & Scheid, Jonathan & Statman, Meir, 2010. "Portfolio Optimization with Mental Accounts," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(2), pages 311-334, April.
    30. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-a.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreas Oehler & Julian Schneider, 2022. "Gambling with lottery stocks?," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(6), pages 477-503, October.
    2. Oehler, Andreas & Horn, Matthias, 2024. "Does ChatGPT provide better advice than robo-advisors?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    3. Cardillo, Giovanni & Chiappini, Helen, 2024. "Robo-advisors: A systematic literature review," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PA).
    4. Andreas Oehler & Matthias Horn & Stefan Wendt, 2022. "Investor Characteristics and their Impact on the Decision to use a Robo-advisor," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 91-125, October.
    5. Jaydip Sen & Arup Dasgupta & Subhasis Dasgupta & Sayantani Roychoudhury, 2023. "A Portfolio Rebalancing Approach for the Indian Stock Market," Papers 2310.09770, arXiv.org.

    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. Andreas Oehler & Matthias Horn, 2021. "Behavioural portfolio theory revisited: lessons learned from the field," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1743-1774, April.
    2. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    3. Oehler, Andreas & Wanger, Hans Philipp, 2020. "Household portfolio optimization with XTFs? An empirical study using the SHS-base," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    4. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    5. Horenstein, Alex R. & Snir, Avichai, 2017. "Portfolio choice in Mexico," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 1-13.
    6. Firth, Chris, 2020. "Protecting investors from themselves: Evidence from a regulatory intervention," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    7. John Y. Campbell, 2016. "Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 1-30, May.
    8. Andreas Fagereng & Luigi Guiso & Davide Malacrino & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(1), pages 115-170, January.
    9. Jacobs, Heiko & Müller, Sebastian & Weber, Martin, 2014. "How should individual investors diversify? An empirical evaluation of alternative asset allocation policies," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 62-85.
    10. Da Ke, 2021. "Who Wears the Pants? Gender Identity Norms and Intrahousehold Financial Decision‐Making," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1389-1425, June.
    11. Stephen G Dimmock & Roy Kouwenberg & Olivia S Mitchell & Kim Peijnenburg, 2021. "Household Portfolio Underdiversification and Probability Weighting: Evidence from the Field," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(9), pages 4524-4563.
    12. Damar, H. Evren & Gropp, Reint E. & Mordel, Adi, 2019. "Flight from safety: How a change to the deposit insurance limit affects households' portfolio allocation," IWH Discussion Papers 19/2019, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    13. David Aristei & Silvia Bacci & Francesco Bartolucci & Silvia Pandolfi, 2021. "A bivariate finite mixture growth model with selection," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 15(3), pages 759-793, September.
    14. Annamaria Lusardi & Pierre-Carl Michaud & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2017. "Optimal Financial Knowledge and Wealth Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(2), pages 431-477.
    15. Shao, Ran & Wang, Na, 2021. "Trust and local bias of individual investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    16. Nicolas Aubert & Niaz Kammoun & Yacine Bekrar, 2018. "Financial decisions of the financially literate," Finance, Presses universitaires de Grenoble, vol. 39(2), pages 43-91.
    17. Dimmock, Stephen G. & Kouwenberg, Roy & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Peijnenburg, Kim, 2016. "Ambiguity aversion and household portfolio choice puzzles: Empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 559-577.
    18. Stadtmüller, Immo & Auer, Benjamin R. & Schuhmacher, Frank, 2022. "On the benefits of active stock selection strategies for diversified investors," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 342-354.
    19. Georgios A. Panos & Tatja Karkkainen & Adele Atkinson, 2020. "Financial Literacy and Attitudes to Cryptocurrencies," Working Papers 2020_26, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    20. Hong, Claire Yurong & Lu, Xiaomeng & Pan, Jun, 2021. "FinTech adoption and household risk-taking," BOFIT Discussion Papers 14/2021, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household finance; Robo-advisor; Portfolio rebalancing; Fixed-weight asset strategy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:pal:assmgt:v:21:y:2020:i:6:d:10.1057_s41260-020-00183-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    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.