Special Session 146: 

Switching Between A Pair of Stocks: Trading Rules and More

Qing Zhang
University of Georgia
USA
Co-Author(s):    Jingzhi Tie
Abstract:
This talk is about a stock trading rule involving two stocks. The trader may have a long position in either stock or in cash. She may also switch between them any time. Her objective is to trade over time to maximize an expected return. To treat the problem, we focus on the optimal trading control problem under a geometric Brownian motion model with regime switching. We use a two-state Markov chain to capture the general market modes. In particular, a single market cycle consisting of a bull market followed by a bear market is considered. We also impose a fixed percentage cost on each transaction. We focus on simple threshold type policies and study all possible combinations. We establish algebraic equations to characterize these threshold levels. We also present sufficient conditions that guarantee the optimality of these policies. Finally, some numerical examples will be provided to illustrate our results.