Application of Clayton Copula in Portfolio Optimization and its Comparison with Markowitz Mean-Variance Analysis

Abstract

With the aim of portfolio optimization and management, this article utilizes the Clayton-copula along with copula theory measures. Portfolio-Optimization is one of the activities in investment funds. Thus, it is essential to select an appropriate optimization method. In modern financial analyses, there is growing evidence indicating the distribution of proceeds of financial properties is not customary. However, in common risk management methods the main assumption is that the distribution of assets returns is normal. When the distribution of earnings isn't normal, the linear correlation coefficient isn't considered to be an appropriate measure to express the dependency structure. The investors are required to make use of methods that concentrate on the aggregated risks, considering the whole positions and the links between risk factors and assets. Therefore, we use copula as an alternative measure to model the dependency structure in this research. In this regard, given the weekly data pertaining to the early 2002 until the late 2013, we use Clayton-copula to generate an optimized portfolio for both copper and gold. Finally, the Sharpe ratio obtained through this method is compared with the one obtained through Markowitz mean-variance analysis to ascertain that Clayton-copula is more efficient in portfolio-optimization.