Hierarchical Risk Parity as an Alternative to Conventional Methods of Portfolio Optimization: (A Study of Tehran Stock Exchange)

Abstract

One of the most critical investment issues faced by different investors is choosing an optimal investment portfolio and balancing risk and return in a way that, maximizes investment returns and minimize the investment risk. So far, many methods have been introduced to form a portfolio, the most famous of the Markowitz approach. The Markowitz mean-variance approach is widely known in the world of finance and, it marks the foundation of every portfolio theory. The mean-variance theory has many practical drawbacks due to the difficulty in estimating the expected return and covariance for different asset classes. In this study, we use the Hierarchical Risk Parity (HRP) machine learning technique and compare the results with the three methods of Minimum Variance (MVP), Uniform Distribution (UNIF), and Risk Parity (RP). To conduct this research, the adjusted price of 50 listed companies of the Tehran Stock Exchange for 2018-07-01 to 2020-09-29 has been used. 70% of the data are considered as in-sample and the remaining 30% as out-of-sample. We 2 Iranian Journal of Finance, 2021, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Nourahmadi, M.) evaluate the results using four criteria: Sharp, Maximum Drawdown, Calmer, Sortino. The results show that the MVP and, UNIF approach within the insample and, the UNIF and HRP approach out-of-sample have the best performance in sharp measure. Jel Codes: G10, G11