Risk-Based Portfolio Optimization on Some Selected Sectors of the Indian Stock Market

Designing portfolios with optimum future return and risk have always proved to be a very difficult research problem since the precise estimation of the future returns and volatilities of stocks poses a great challenge. This paper presents an approach to portfolio design using two risk-based methods, the hierarchical risk parity (HRP) and the hierarchical equal risk contribution (HERC). These two methods are applied to five important sectors of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India. The portfolios are built on the stock prices for the period January 1, 2016–December 31, 2020, and their performances are evaluated for the period January 1, 2021–November 1, 2021. The results show that the HRP portfolio's performance in the five sectors is superior to its HERC counterpart in all the five sectors.