Unraveling the Effect of COVID-19 on the Selection of Optimal Portfolio Using Hybrid Quantum-Classical Algorithms

Portfolio optimization is one of the important problem classes in finance sector. As the world economy recovered and reaching the pre-COVID levels and is still continuing to grow, it is imperative to understand what kind of impact COVID-19 had on portfolio optimization and how quantum computers can be used in doing so. Hybrid quantum algorithms like variational quantum eigen solver (VQE), quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) have been tried for identifying optimal portfolios. In the present work, we employ these algorithms to carry out portfolio optimization for different time intervals (which includes pre and during COVID-19 periods) and unravel the impact of COVID-19 on the same, across different industries.Our results show that the companies' stocks were growing steadily more on a sideways movement from 2016-2017. The stocks start to pick momentum from 2018-2019 and in 2020 early months as dip can be observed, however all the stocks recover to normal levels and even reaching lifetime highs from second half of 2020. Keywords - Quantum Algorithms, Portfolio Optimization, Covid-19, Markowitz model, QAOA, VQE