English

Mean-Reversion and Optimization

Portfolio Management 2016-02-15 v3

Abstract

The purpose of these notes is to provide a systematic quantitative framework - in what is intended to be a "pedagogical" fashion - for discussing mean-reversion and optimization. We start with pair trading and add complexity by following the sequence "mean-reversion via demeaning -> regression -> weighted regression -> (constrained) optimization -> factor models". We discuss in detail how to do mean-reversion based on this approach, including common pitfalls encountered in practical applications, such as the difference between maximizing the Sharpe ratio and minimizing an objective function when trading costs are included. We also discuss explicit algorithms for optimization with linear costs, constraints and bounds.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1408.2217,
  title  = {Mean-Reversion and Optimization},
  author = {Zura Kakushadze},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1408.2217},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

41 pages; a trivial typo corrected

R2 v1 2026-06-22T05:24:21.053Z