Investment performance of Markowitz's portfolio selection model in the Korean stock market

This paper investigated performance of the Markowitz's portfolio selection model with applications to Korean stock market. We chose Samsung-Group-Funds and KOSPI index for performance comparison with the Markowitz's portfolio selection model. For the most recent one and a half year period between March 2007 and September 2008, KOSPI index almost remained the same with only 0.1% change, Samsung-Group-Funds showed 20.54% return, and Markowitz's model, which is composed of the same 17 Samsung group stocks, achieved 52% return. We performed sensitivity analysis on the duration of financial data and the frequency of portfolio change in order to maximize the return of portfolio. In conclusion, according to our empirical research results with Samsung-Group-Funds, investment by Markowitz's model, which periodically changes portfolio by using nonlinear programming with only financial data, outperformed investment by the fund managers who possess rich experiences on stock trading and actively change portfolio by the minute-by-minute market news and business information.