Paper 1, Section II, J

Stochastic Financial Models
Part II, 2011

In a one-period market, there are nn assets whose prices at time tt are given by St=(St1,,Stn)T,t=0,1S_{t}=\left(S_{t}^{1}, \ldots, S_{t}^{n}\right)^{T}, t=0,1. The prices S1S_{1} of the assets at time 1 have a N(μ,V)N(\mu, V) distribution, with non-singular covariance VV, and the prices S0S_{0} at time 0 are known constants. In addition, there is a bank account giving interest rr, so that one unit of cash invested at time 0 will be worth (1+r)(1+r) units of cash at time 1 .

An agent with initial wealth w0w_{0} chooses a portfolio θ=(θ1,,θn)\theta=\left(\theta^{1}, \ldots, \theta^{n}\right) of the assets to hold, leaving him with x=w0θS0x=w_{0}-\theta \cdot S_{0} in the bank account. His objective is to maximize his expected utility

E(exp[γ{x(1+r)+θS1}])(γ>0)E\left(-\exp \left[-\gamma\left\{x(1+r)+\theta \cdot S_{1}\right\}\right]\right) \quad(\gamma>0)

Find his optimal portfolio in each of the following three situations:

(i) θ\theta is unrestricted;

(ii) no investment in the bank account is allowed: x=0x=0;

(iii) the initial holdings xx of cash must be non-negative.

For the third problem, show that the optimal initial holdings of cash will be zero if and only if

S0(γV)1μw0S0(γV)1S01+r\frac{S_{0} \cdot(\gamma V)^{-1} \mu-w_{0}}{S_{0} \cdot(\gamma V)^{-1} S_{0}} \geqslant 1+r