Paper profits or attainable alpha? Simulating factor portfolio performance net of illiquidity cost in the corporate bond market
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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en
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80+10
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Based on historical realized liquidity distribution from the US corporate bond market, I simulate liquidity-constrained factor portfolios and show that limited available liquidity, or illiquidity, significantly affects attainable portfolios' performance, risk, and composition when compared with optimal portfolios with no constraints on liquidity. When illiquidity is considered, the average alpha across factor portfolios drops from 2 to -0.1 in investment grade and from 6 to 2.2 in high yield. The decrease in performance is especially large in risk-adjusted terms because uncertainty in liquidity search significantly increases portfolio risk. Furthermore, taking illiquidity into account creates differences between the optimal portfolio, which has no liquidity constraints, and the liquidity-constrained portfolio. Large differences are seen in portfolio factor exposure, weights, and returns. My results imply that the cost of illiquidity on factor portfolios in the corporate bond market is significant, and there are potential limits to an arbitrage caused by limited liquidity of the market. Because of the illiquidity cost, the current academic literature significantly overestimates realizable cross-sectional effects in the corporate bond market.Description
Thesis advisor
Ungeheuer, MichaelShin, Sean