IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ufajxx/v80y2024i1p1-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Harry Markowitz and the Philosopher’s Stone

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen C. Sexauer
  • Laurence B. Siegel

Abstract

We celebrate the life, work, and intellectual legacy of Harry Markowitz (1927–2023). Professor Markowitz’s philosophy and math have guided portfolio construction and asset allocation for 71 years. Markowitz optimization (MVO) was set forth in his 1952 University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation. We trace the links from his work to William Sharpe’s CAPM and the investment giants who followed. MVO has been challenged and enhanced and has endured. But Markowitz did leave us the task of figuring out how to estimate the “stage one” inputs for MVO, which are expected return and risk. (Stage two is running the optimizer.) We propose a Bayesian approach to crafting those inputs.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen C. Sexauer & Laurence B. Siegel, 2024. "Harry Markowitz and the Philosopher’s Stone," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 80(1), pages 1-11, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ufajxx:v:80:y:2024:i:1:p:1-11
    DOI: 10.1080/0015198X.2023.2285218
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0015198X.2023.2285218
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0015198X.2023.2285218?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.

    More about this item

    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:taf:ufajxx:v:80:y:2024:i:1:p:1-11. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/ufaj20 .

    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.