Two-layer investment decision-making using knowledge about investor's risk-preference: model and empirical testing

There have been many studies to build a model that can help investors construct optimal portfolio. Most of the previous models, however, are based upon the path-breaking Markowitz model, which is a quantitative model. One of the most important problems with that kind of quantitative model is that, in reality, most of the investors use not only quantitative, but also qualitative information when they select their optimal portfolio. Since collecting both types of information from the markets are time consuming and expensive, making a set of target assets smaller, without suffering heavy loss in the rate of return, would attract investors. To extract only desired assets among all available assets, we need knowledge that identifies investors' preference for the risk of the assets. This study suggests two-layer decision-making rules capable of identifying an investor's risk preference and an architecture applying them to a quantitative portfolio model based on risk and expected return. Our knowledge-based portfolio system is to build an investor's preference-oriented portfolio. The empirical tests using the data from Korean capital markets show the results that our model contributes significantly to the construction of a better portfolio in the perspective of an investor's benefit/cost ratio than that produced by the existing portfolio models.