Optimal portfolio under ratio-type periodic evaluation in stochastic factor models under convex trading constraints

Abstract

This paper studies a type of periodic utility maximization problem for portfolio management in incomplete stochastic factor models with convex trading constraints. The portfolio performance is periodically evaluated on the relative ratio of two adjacent wealth levels over an infinite horizon, featuring the dynamic adjustments in portfolio decision according to past achievements. Under power utility, we transform the original infinite horizon optimal control problem into an auxiliary terminal wealth optimization problem under a modified utility function. To cope with the convex trading constraints, we further introduce an auxiliary unconstrained optimization problem in a modified market model and develop the martingale duality approach to establish the existence of the dual minimizer such that the optimal unconstrained wealth process can be obtained using the dual representation. With the help of the duality results in the auxiliary problems, the relationship between the constrained and unconstrained models as well as some fixed point arguments, we derive and verify the optimal constrained portfolio process for the original problem over an infinite horizon.

Keywords: Periodic evaluation, relative portfolio performance, incomplete market, stochastic factor model, convex trading constraints, convex duality approach. This manuscript combines two previous preprints arXiv:2311.12517 and arXiv:2401.14672 into one paper with more general and improved results