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Regularizing stock return covariance matrices via multiple testing of correlations

Richard Luger

arXiv 12 Jul 2024 · Econometrics · publishedJournal of Econometrics (2024) · 2 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2407.09696 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper develops a large-scale inference approach for the regularization of stock return covariance matrices. The framework allows for the presence of heavy tails and multivariate GARCH-type effects of unknown form among the stock returns. The approach involves simultaneous testing of all pairwise correlations, followed by setting non-statistically significant elements to zero. This adaptive thresholding is achieved through sign-based Monte Carlo resampling within multiple testing procedures, controlling either the traditional familywise error rate, a generalized familywise error rate, or the false discovery proportion. Subsequent shrinkage ensures that the final covariance matrix estimate is positive definite and well-conditioned while preserving the achieved sparsity. Compared to alternative estimators, this new regularization method demonstrates strong performance in simulation experiments and real portfolio optimization.

Citation extraction

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appendix boundary found by appendix_titled_section at “Appendix A: Proofs” · 86% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Westfall, P. and S. Young (1993) Resampling-Based Multiple Testing: Examples and Methods for p-Value Adjustment1.00073100%
2Romano, J. and M. Wolf (2005) Exact and approximate stepdown methods for multiple hypothesis testing0.8746367%
3Ledoit, O. and M. Wolf (2004) A well-conditioned estimator for large-dimensional covariance matrices0.8434475%
4Lehmann, E. and J. Romano (2005) Generalizations of the familywise error rate0.73732100%
5Ledoit, O. and M. Wolf (2003) Improved estimation of the covariance matrix of stock returns with an application to portfolio selection0.64422100%
6De Nard, G., R. Engle, O. Ledoit, and M. Wolf (2022) Large dynamic covariance matrices: Enhancements based on intraday data0.58531100%
7Dufour, J.-M (2006) Monte Carlo tests with nuisance parameters: A general approach to finite-sample inference and nonstandard asymptotics in econome…0.5113233%
8Randles, R. and D. Wolfe (1979) Introduction to the Theory of Nonparametric Statistics0.5113233%
9Ledoit, O. and M. Wolf (2015) Spectrum estimation: A unified framework for covariance matrix estimation and PCA in large dimensions0.5112250%
10Ramprasad, P (2016) nlshrink: Non-linear shrinkage estimation of population eigenvalues and covariance matrices0.5112250%

Showing the top 10 of 60 scored citations.