Shiva Chandra

Singular Perturbation Expansion for Utility Maximization with Order-$ε$ Quadratic Transaction Costs

We present an expansion for portfolio optimization in the presence of small, instantaneous, quadratic transaction costs. Specifically, the magnitude of transaction costs has a coefficient that is of the order $ε$ small, which leads to the optimization problem having an asymptotically-singular Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation whose solution can be expanded in powers of $\sqrtε$. In this paper we derive explicit formulae for the first two terms of this expansion. Analysis and simulation are provided to show the behavior of this approximating solution.