Modelling portfolios with heavy-tailed risk factors

The thesis aims to investigate some of the approaches to modelling portfolio returns with heavy-tailed risk factors. It first elaborates on the univariate time series models, and compares the benchmark model (GARCH with Student t innovations or its GJR extension) predictive performance with its two competitors, the EVT-GARCH model and the Markov-Switching Multifractal (MSM) model. The motivation of EVT extension of GARCH specification is to use a more proper distribution of the innovations, based on the empirical distribution function. The MSM is one of the best performing models in the multifractal literature, a markov-switching model which is unique by its parsimonious specification and variability. The performance of these models is assessed with Mincer-Zarnowitz regressions as well as by comparison of quality of VaR and expected shortfall predictions, and the empirical analysis shows that for the risk management purposes the EVT-GARCH dominates the benchmark as well as the MSM. The second part addresses the dependence structure modelling, using the Gauss and t-copula to model the portfolio returns and compares the result with the classic variance-covariance approach, concluding that copulas offer a more realistic estimates of future extreme quantiles.