My bibliography  Save this paper

# A Note on Sparse Minimum Variance Portfolios and Coordinate-Wise Descent Algorithms

Listed:
• Yu-Min Yen

## Abstract

In this short report, we discuss how coordinate-wise descent algorithms can be used to solve minimum variance portfolio (MVP) problems in which the portfolio weights are constrained by $l_{q}$ norms, where $1\leq q \leq 2$. A portfolio which weights are regularised by such norms is called a sparse portfolio (Brodie et al.), since these constraints facilitate sparsity (zero components) of the weight vector. We first consider a case when the portfolio weights are regularised by a weighted $l_{1}$ and squared $l_{2}$ norm. Then two benchmark data sets (Fama and French 48 industries and 100 size and BM ratio portfolios) are used to examine performances of the sparse portfolios. When the sample size is not relatively large to the number of assets, sparse portfolios tend to have lower out-of-sample portfolio variances, turnover rates, active assets, short-sale positions, but higher Sharpe ratios than the unregularised MVP. We then show some possible extensions; particularly we derive an efficient algorithm for solving an MVP problem in which assets are allowed to be chosen grouply.

## Suggested Citation

• Yu-Min Yen, 2010. "A Note on Sparse Minimum Variance Portfolios and Coordinate-Wise Descent Algorithms," Papers 1005.5082, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2013.
• Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1005.5082
as

File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.5082

## References listed on IDEAS

as
1. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Francisco J. Nogales & Raman Uppal, 2009. "A Generalized Approach to Portfolio Optimization: Improving Performance by Constraining Portfolio Norms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 798-812, May.
2. Zou, Hui, 2006. "The Adaptive Lasso and Its Oracle Properties," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 101, pages 1418-1429, December.
3. Ravi Jagannathan & Tongshu Ma, 2003. "Risk Reduction in Large Portfolios: Why Imposing the Wrong Constraints Helps," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1651-1684, August.
4. Brodie, Joshua & Daubechies, Ingrid & De Mol, Christine & Giannone, Domenico, 2007. "Sparse and Stable Markowitz Portfolios," CEPR Discussion Papers 6474, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
5. Hui Zou & Trevor Hastie, 2005. "Regularization and variable selection via the elastic net," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 67(2), pages 301-320.
6. Ming Yuan & Yi Lin, 2006. "Model selection and estimation in regression with grouped variables," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 68(1), pages 49-67.
7. Jianqing Fan & Jingjin Zhang & Ke Yu, 2008. "Asset Allocation and Risk Assessment with Gross Exposure Constraints for Vast Portfolios," Papers 0812.2604, arXiv.org.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

### NEP fields

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

## 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:arx:papers:1005.5082. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (arXiv administrators). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

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 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.

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

IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.