A novel backtesting methodology for clustering in mean-variance portfolio optimization

The decisions of asset selection and allocation lie at the heart of financial portfolio management. For these challenging tasks, the mathematical programming model of the mean-variance optimization problem proposes to use the concept of diversification. The novel methodology in this article is a representation of the accumulated knowledge of this model from the modern portfolio theory. It is a practical application for portfolio managers to help synthesize the available historical data and to infer rational decisions. The state-of-the-art backtesting methodology integrates the unsupervised machine learning method of clustering analysis into the mean-variance portfolio optimization model. The test results from the proposed novel methodology show that clustering with Euclidean distance measures outperform the results of the benchmark and other specified clustering methods for different datasets, backtesting periods, and temporal scales of major stock indices. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.