CVaR Robust Mean-CVaR Portfolio Optimization

One of the most important problems faced by every investor is asset allocation. An investor during making investment decisions has to search for equilibrium between risk and returns. Risk and return are uncertain parameters in the suggested portfolio optimization models and should be estimated to solve the problem. However, the estimation might lead to large error in the final decision. One of the widely used and effective approaches for optimization with data uncertainty is robust optimization. In this paper, we present a new robust portfolio optimization technique for mean-CVaR portfolio selection problem under the estimation risk in mean return. We additionally use CVaR as risk measure, to measure the estimation risk in mean return. To solve the model efficiently, we use the smoothing technique of Alexander et al. (2006). We compare the performance of the CVaR robust mean-CVaR model with robust mean-CVaR models using interval and ellipsoidal uncertainty sets. It is observed that the CVaR robust mean-CVaR portfolios are more diversified. Moreover, we study the impact of the value of confidence level on the conservatism level of a portfolio and also on the value of the maximum expected return of the portfolio.