IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v256y2025ics0165176525004483.html

Iterative Complement-clustering PCA: Uncovering latent industry structures in stock returns

Author

Listed:
  • Bi, Daning
  • Chang, Le
  • Yang, Yanrong

Abstract

Principal component analysis (PCA) is a widely implemented statistical method for dimension reduction, but struggles to identify group-specific patterns (sub-homogeneity), such as the latent industry structures in high-dimensional stock return data. We propose an Iterative Complement-clustering PCA (ICcPCA) that jointly estimates homogeneity (market-wide effects) and sub-homogeneity (industry-specific risks), where a Leave-one-out principal component regression (LOO-PCR) clustering approach is developed to iteratively cluster variables (stocks) into disjoint multidimensional subspaces (groups). Simulations show that the ICcPCA outperforms the conventional PCA in both estimating the number of principal components and recovering the data. In analyzing stock returns of 160 firms across 8 industries, ICcPCA with LOO-PCR can separate market-wide effects from industry-specific risks, achieving higher clustering accuracy and lower recovering errors. Applications in portfolio optimization demonstrate that ICcPCA-based minimum variance portfolios can attain lower volatility and higher profitability than PCA-based portfolios.

Suggested Citation

  • Bi, Daning & Chang, Le & Yang, Yanrong, 2025. "Iterative Complement-clustering PCA: Uncovering latent industry structures in stock returns," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:256:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525004483
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112611
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176525004483
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112611?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peng, Bin & Su, Liangjun & Westerlund, Joakim & Yang, Yanrong, 2025. "Interactive Effects Panel Data Models With General Factors And Regressors," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(2), pages 472-488, April.
    2. Jeng‐Min Chiou & Pai‐Ling Li, 2007. "Functional clustering and identifying substructures of longitudinal data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 69(4), pages 679-699, September.
    3. Wang, Hanchao & Peng, Bin & Li, Degui & Leng, Chenlei, 2021. "Nonparametric estimation of large covariance matrices with conditional sparsity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 223(1), pages 53-72.
    4. Jianqing Fan & Yuan Liao & Martina Mincheva, 2013. "Large covariance estimation by thresholding principal orthogonal complements," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 75(4), pages 603-680, September.
    5. Stéphane Bonhomme & Elena Manresa, 2015. "Grouped Patterns of Heterogeneity in Panel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(3), pages 1147-1184, May.
    6. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    7. Li, Baibing & Martin, Elaine B. & Morris, A. Julian, 2002. "On principal component analysis in L1," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 471-474, September.
    8. Tomohiro Ando & Jushan Bai, 2017. "Clustering Huge Number of Financial Time Series: A Panel Data Approach With High-Dimensional Predictors and Factor Structures," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 112(519), pages 1182-1198, July.
    9. Bai, Jushan & Ng, Serena, 2019. "Rank regularized estimation of approximate factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 78-96.
    10. Robert F. Engle & Olivier Ledoit & Michael Wolf, 2019. "Large Dynamic Covariance Matrices," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 363-375, April.
    11. Chen, Jia & Li, Degui & Linton, Oliver, 2019. "A new semiparametric estimation approach for large dynamic covariance matrices with multiple conditioning variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 155-176.
    12. Lam, Clifford & Yao, Qiwei, 2012. "Factor modeling for high-dimensional time series: inference for the number of factors," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 45684, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fan, Qingliang & Wu, Ruike & Yang, Yanrong & Zhong, Wei, 2024. "Time-varying minimum variance portfolio," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 239(2).
    2. Chen, J. & Li, Y. & Linton, O. B., 2025. "Estimation of Large Dynamic Precision Matrices with a Latent Semiparametric Structure," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2536, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    3. Gao, Jiti & Liu, Fei & Peng, Bin & Yan, Yayi, 2023. "Binary response models for heterogeneous panel data with interactive fixed effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 1654-1679.
    4. repec:cam:camjip:2514 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jian Zhang & Jie Li, 2022. "Factorized estimation of high‐dimensional nonparametric covariance models," Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics;Finnish Statistical Society;Norwegian Statistical Association;Swedish Statistical Association, vol. 49(2), pages 542-567, June.
    6. Li, Degui, 2024. "Estimation of Large Dynamic Covariance Matrices: A Selective Review," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 16-30.
    7. Xiaorong Yang & Jia Chen & Degui Li & Runze Li, 2024. "Functional-Coefficient Quantile Regression for Panel Data with Latent Group Structure," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 1026-1040, July.
    8. Li, Dong & Qiao, Xinghao & Wang, Zihan, 2025. "Factor-guided estimation of large covariance matrix function with conditional functional sparsity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    9. Chen, Jia & Li, Degui & Linton, Oliver, 2019. "A new semiparametric estimation approach for large dynamic covariance matrices with multiple conditioning variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 155-176.
    10. Jiti Gao & Fei Liu & Bin peng, 2020. "Binary Response Models for Heterogeneous Panel Data with Interactive Fixed Effects," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 44/20, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    11. Choi, Sung Hoon & Kim, Donggyu, 2023. "Large volatility matrix analysis using global and national factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 1917-1933.
    12. Alonso, Andrés M. & Galeano, Pedro & Peña, Daniel, 2020. "A robust procedure to build dynamic factor models with cluster structure," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 216(1), pages 35-52.
    13. Zhaoxing Gao & Ruey S. Tsay, 2021. "Divide-and-Conquer: A Distributed Hierarchical Factor Approach to Modeling Large-Scale Time Series Data," Papers 2103.14626, arXiv.org.
    14. Minseog Oh & Donggyu Kim, 2024. "Property of Inverse Covariance Matrix-based Financial Adjacency Matrix for Detecting Local Groups," Papers 2412.05664, arXiv.org.
    15. Ge, S. & Li, S. & Linton, O. B. & Liu, W. & Su, W., 2024. "Should We Augment Large Covariance Matrix Estimation with Auxiliary Network Information?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2427, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    16. Christian Brownlees & Gu{dh}mundur Stef'an Gu{dh}mundsson & Yaping Wang, 2024. "Performance of Empirical Risk Minimization For Principal Component Regression," Papers 2409.03606, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.
    17. Wang, Hanchao & Peng, Bin & Li, Degui & Leng, Chenlei, 2021. "Nonparametric estimation of large covariance matrices with conditional sparsity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 223(1), pages 53-72.
    18. Chenlei Leng & Degui Li & Hanlin Shang & Yingcun Xia, 2024. "Covariance Function Estimation for High-Dimensional Functional Time Series with Dual Factor Structures," Papers 2401.05784, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    19. Zhang, Lyuou & Zhou, Wen & Wang, Haonan, 2021. "A semiparametric latent factor model for large scale temporal data with heteroscedasticity," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    20. repec:cam:camjip:2416 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Weilong Liu & Yanchu Liu, 2025. "Covariance Matrix Estimation for Positively Correlated Assets," Papers 2507.01545, arXiv.org.
    22. Fan, Jianqing & Jiang, Bai & Sun, Qiang, 2022. "Bayesian factor-adjusted sparse regression," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 230(1), pages 3-19.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C40 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - General
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:256:y:2025:i:c:s0165176525004483. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.